BC Rich Warlock Bronze II custom wiring

[DarKnight]

Okay so some may be familiar with my other project with three humbuckers. Just thinking to rewire my Warlock as a practice for bigger projects. Pain in the butt was having Vol + Switch + Tone in the guitar and I wanted more options without drilling... Also humbuckers have only two wires and I'm not going to mess with them. They're stock and vacuum a lot... Like Hoover... ;D So I came up with three rotaries and no volume or tone pots... Looks like this... First rotary selects bridge/both/neck and both-position leads to second rotary which selects series/parallel and out-of-phase -options. Third switch is varitoneish tone control with some schottky-diode mods (BlackIce-style). So just checking if it's working... and thoughts about schottky-diodes (working or not) and improvements are welcome... ;D And sorry about puns in the schematic... :s

Thank you!
Dark

Edit: Do these diodes look right?

[JohnH]

Nice diagram. A few comments:

On the series/parallel/oop switch, there'll be dead spots unless the first switch is set to the middle position. How about making the first switch just a phase reverse for one of the pups, then make the second switch do bridge, neck, both in series, both in parallel?

The tone control has lots of options, and better than a normal tone control IMO. Those small caps do interesting things to the tone. Ive also played with schottly diodes. They are not super great, but I prefered them through a resistor instead of straight across the output, to add some more sbtle grit. Also I liked it with just one diode to clip only one side of the wave. You keep more volume that way, with more bass and even harmonics. Given that you have 3 diode positions, you could try these options as alternatives

THose diodes look OK to me - but I used a different type which Id have to look up.

Finally, getting lots of sounds from two 3-wire Hbs is alot like the Gibson LS6 - see the other thread on this. It used a 6 position switch to get all the combos.

John

[DarKnight]

Dead spots really? I tried to make it so, that something would come out on every position... :S Hopefully there is no design error... the first switch should bypass the second when selecting neck or bridge alone... I'll check.. I think I'll tune up the tone switch... Those stock pups ain't very "hot", so one diode might be better... What size is the resistor you have been using with schott's?

Dark

Edit: Updated schematic, dumped 0,1uF option... too much for these pups... btw does it matter which way the diode is?

[JohnH]

My mistake - no dead spots!
With a single diode, It makes no difference which way it points. I'll dig out the schottky diode type I used later, but I only used it because that was the one available, nothing special about it. My resistr was a variable one of 100k, and I recall the best sounds were in the region of 30k to about 10k. Maybe get a preset then you can try different settings?
J

[DarKnight]

Okay... I have few 100k trimmers lying around, so I'll maybe use them... This is going to be somewhat low-budget project... I'll think I'll add some sort of quick connectors for that pybass-option... so I can test components with ease... Have some stuff lying around that I don't even know what they are... btw that diode I chose was also cheap and actually only available at my region... So I prolly don't really have any choice which to use... but I'll report my if I have any success.. Thanks a lot John... Maybe I'll order parts next week or the following, when the schem is confirmed... ;D Sound samples coming when I finish it...

cheers
Dark

[DarKnight]

Okay I wired it up last week.. seems to work fine, but found out that my buckers had only one wire + shield, which seems to ground the bucker plate too... So I get some extra noise if I touch adjusting screws of neck pup when having something else than parallel-in-phase in "both" position(s)... anyhow working ok, not a problem... series buckers is loud... parallel is "standard"... and both parallel and series out-of-phase are bit quacky on bass side.. and "glassy" and chimey on the treble side... favorite positions for clean stuff indeed... Tone-selector works fine.. woman tone is wonderful with series OoP... I'll build up a homepage when I have time and add up all my stuff there.. just letting know, that circuit works... btw. that circuit is actually very easy to use, so I'd say it's a good alternative for traditional pot/pot/switch -setup... thanks for help with proofreading and educating poor beginner...

Cheers
Dark

Edit: Schematic is not exactly that in final version, but I'll update that too when have time... only changes in tone-sw.. so not anything serious...