Balance\blend pot & 5-way switch question

[cynical1]

Greetings -

OK - I pulled all of the old posting off in order to start fresh. I also have a drawing this time - so hopefully someone will have some insight.

The guitar in question has a very small control cavity. The way it's drawn doesn't show the two DPDT switches as push\pulls, but I was thinking that would be a way to keep the control cavity more open...and save me drilling two more holes...

The color coding is what I've pulled off the net and manufacturers diagrams. This is the table for comparison: (Seymour Duncan info added for reference)

Pickup Manufacturer	Adjustable Pole..........	.............	..........	Slug Pole..........	.............	..........
	Start "A"	Finish " B"	M.P.	Start "C"	Finish "D"	M.P.
DiMarzio Humbucker	Green-	White	South	Red+	Black	North
WD/Kent Armstrong Humbucker	Red (Pink)	Blue (Black)	South	Green	White	North
Rockfield PAF Zebra (Neck) Humbucker	Red	Green	South	Black	White	North
ADDED FOR REFERENCE
Seymour Duncan Humbucker	Green-	Red	South	Black	White	North

Here's the drawing:



The tone chart should look like this:

Neck Switch	5-Way Switch	Pickups Selected
off	1	neck
off	2	neck + mid
off	3	mid
off	4	mid + bridge
off	5	bridge
on	1	neck
on	2	neck + mid
on	3	neck + mid
on	4	neck + mid + bridge
on	5	neck + bridge

NOW...Here's where I was doing a bit too much thinking...

WHAT IF...I squeezed in two DPDT switched, made the VOL and TONE a concentric pot and put in a balance pot where the tone pot is now drawn...

HERE'S THE THEORY: Since the DiMarzio YJM is a very low output pickup, (This is why both of the other humbuckers have a parallel switch and I used a neck pickup in the bridge) I thought a balance\blend pot would be a another good way to balance\blend in the neck and bridge pickup so as not to overpower it.

Anytime the middle and bridge pickups are hot I could use this balance\blend pot like the balance control on your stereo to "turn down" the amount of middle and or bridge input against the YJM neck pickup.

There's only one problem...I don't know how to get there from where I am...

I spent two weeks just figuring this diagram out...and I've even made another posting here hoping someone will verify that what I have so far actually does what I think it will do...

Any input, suggestions or stern warnings are greatly appreciated.

Thanks for looking

- Scott

[sumgai]

Scott,

I've answered your basic questions in that other thread. For the blend stuff, I'll leave that to JohnH, our resident expert. ;D



sumgai

[cynical1]

Thanks Sumgai.

I also expounded the theory (Documented BS) a bit more in the other thread too.

I await the input from the resident guru.


Thanks again -

Scott

[JohnH]

Hi scott.

I am by no means an expert in pup blending, but Ive tried it twice. I find that blending works well when pickups are wired in series, using a pot to shunt one pup or the other. But in parallel combinations, as in normal guitars and your (good) design, I've given up with it, since the added resistances involved in wiring in a blender pot tend to spoil the tone, or they dont work very well.

Theres been several threads recently on this. If you go for it, you should find the type of pot that is dual gang and goes 0k, 0k, 500k and 500k, 0k,0k, being the resistances at one end, centre and other end respectively, for the two halves. The idea is that both pups are fully on at the centre.

Instead, if it is mainly about balancing volumes, how about using a wiring with two volume controls? Heres one that I did for a Strat:

guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=1165712655

You might arrange that the neck is on one control and the bridge and middle on the other.

cheers

John

[cynical1]

JohnH -

Thanks for the input. I've never seen shared volume wired like this. Very cool & very interesting...makes my brain hurt, but very interesting none the less...

I'll need to study this closely as I am no electronics or wiring genius...I'm strictly an empirical kind of guy. I spent weeks on the net looking at everything and stuck with what I could comprehend just to come up with what I have above.

Now, if I just had a little more real estate in the control cavity...

Happy Trails

Cynical1

[sumgai]

cynical1 said:

Now, if I just had a little more real estate in the control cavity...

Routers are your friends! ;D



sumgai

[gumbo]

...and bigger pickguards help too..... ;D

[cynical1]

I would love to route out the cavity on this body. Only one problem...

I got this old Washburn body from a friend, who's dogs had gotten to it first. They didn't think much of the licks, but they loved the crunch tone...

The original body style has been sufficiently modified in order to disguise the canine sculpture to make carving any more out of it impractical.

There's enough wood that it still resembles a guitar, but not enough to enlarge the control cavity.

And what's left is getting veneer, so a pickguard isn't an option on this one.

It just leaves more stuff to do on the next project....(insert evil laugh here...)

Happy Trails

Cynical1