|
Post by 4real on Nov 5, 2007 18:25:22 GMT -5
Ok me again
Have been busy with you know what but have to get my guitar back together. If anyone saw my last post, I was working on building and modding switches and have made a great addaption of a push pull pot that has two switches.
It is a standard push pull pot but also has a bottom plate around the knob (bit like a concentric pot) that operates a pair of dpdt miniature dpdt toggles making a pot with push pull dpdt and 4pdt switching without drilling or obvious modification...very discrete.
So...this is a strat but with HSS pickups, all humcancelling, I may even be able to use the single coil humcancelling coils in tandem with the HB when split to give further noise canceling. I have even installed a piezo in the neck pocket which could be combined.
One knob, it's push pull function and it's 4pdt switch is used for the sustainer, but I still have two push pulls and a 4pdt switch to play with. It also has a super switch in it...so a lot of switching power.
I was hoping to get a set of combinations in one mode (perhaps typical strat) and then be able two switch to a more HB mode with the switch around the volume control. The push pull could perhaps be used to give an OOP flavour to these settings, the other push pull could add the piezo to any setting maybe...but it still leaves a 4pdt switch as an option.
I saw an interesting series parallel circuit by JohnH in the schematics section, but it doesn't utilize a super switch and I have even more switching power available...
So...any suggestions on what would be useful or exploit this powerful but discrete switching?
By the way...I will provide pics of these switches and how to make them but they are a little tricky and require filing and drilling aluminium action plates and alternate mounting so may not be suitable for every guitar, but on this one it works out well and another alternative switching method. The dual dpdt toggles work out cheaper and smaller than a separate 4pdt anyway, except for the labour...
pete
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Nov 5, 2007 22:53:18 GMT -5
.......... I have even installed a piezo in the neck pocket......... Say what?! You wanna run that by me again there, pardner? Even better, you got pictures of that little detail, hmmmm? sumgai
|
|
|
Post by 4real on Nov 5, 2007 23:50:11 GMT -5
Hmm...well that is a little off topic but this whole guitar will be of interest in many ways when it is finished... This is a typical buzzer element although I steal them out of cheap $2 alarms and get other parts like reed switches as a part of the deal. I experimented with this on the sustainer strat and it works pretty well. Of course you need a simple preamp but as this guitar has to have a battery anyway for the sustainer, I thought I would give it another go. It is not a great sound nor really acoustic, but it is a little more woody in this position and requires little modification. It has the advantage over mounting it on the trem block for instance where it can pickup the sound of muting and the trem springs, plus it is easy to fit. This guitar already came with a shim, but this thing is very thin and so when installed is invisible. Although not "acoustic" sounding (this is a solid body guitar after all), this does supply a really quick attack, increased bite and some acoustic flavor. Combined with magnetic pickups to fill out the sound, it can be a useful addition. Kind of adding a sort of semi hollow kind of texture. Because it is a kind of tone addition I propose a very small preamp with trim pot to balance it with the magnetic pickups and just using a switch to turn it on in any position. Anyway...I have a tendancy to go a little overboard, but with this new switching technique, there are no additional toggles other than the five way selector and 3 tele style knobs...very clean! The middle tone will now control all the sustainer functions...twist the bottom to turn on and bypass the selector, twist the knob for response and pull it up for harmonic drive. That leaves 2x 4pdt switches and 2x dpdt switches to play with. The single coils are fender noiseless which have dummy noise canceling coils below that could be tapped into and perhaps combined with the seymour duncan JB pickup in the neck position...well it's a thought. So any ideas for this thing...it's going to be a bit of a show piece for a number of ideas, like the piezo and the new "commercial" sustainer as well as a host of other little improvements and innovations, such as the switching, that I have been developing over the years. On the sustainer front, things have been delayed and this guitar is supposed to be a test bench so I really want to get it finished. Recently, an opportunity to work with a US guitar maker doing a commission for a major artist came up, and the sustainer may well get a boost from this and get my arse into gear with it...can't say too much about it just yet... Meanwhile...any suggestions...if only for one of the 4pdt switches...perhaps the tone could be used to switch in the piezo by pulling it up. What I kind of like the idea of is to be able to have completely different selections on the five way depending on these 4pdt switches and use the push pulls to flavor with oop options or something. The switch has the same capacities as the fender S-1 switch, plus a dpdt action, perhaps someone can point out what they do with a HSS strat... any takers... pete
|
|
|
Post by ChrisK on Nov 6, 2007 0:45:32 GMT -5
Taylor have a neck joint mounted piezo transducer on some of their models.
|
|
|
Post by 4real on Nov 11, 2007 23:38:34 GMT -5
Ok...have built and installed 3 of these super-dooper switch pots...and here are some pics... The above shows something of what it looks like on the guitar, the bottom part turns about 1/2 and inch to activate the 4pdt switch, the right pic shows the knob pulled up. The above two show a bit of how this is achieved...cunningly made plates fit on the original pot and when turned actuate the pair of ultra-miniature dpdt switches, simultaneously. The draw back is, that to mount these thinggs, the pots have to be secured from behind into the body...on this guitar it works fine. So...I have made and installed all three of them. The middle control is dedicated to the sustainer, so I now have 2 4pdt switches and 2xdpdt switches to play with on a HSS all noise-canceling strat. Urgently require suggestions. There is a piezo system intended to be added to the mag pickups and there is a possibility of combining split HB configurations with the noise canceling coils of the SC's as an option. I was considering John H's HSS series/parallel kind of thing. guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=1169252165The other wrinkle is that this guitar is fitted with a super-switch selector, so perhaps there is even more options to be explored. It is imperative that it is wired up soon, if not completely, I will do a scratch wiring just to test the sustainer so that the first one can be shipped and I have a guitar with the new generation device up and running. Due to the complexity, and difficulty in taking this thing apart, it would be advantageous to have the thing completely wired however. I did have a thought that I could wire everything to strip board and do the connections on that rather than the switches and stuff itself. It may even be possible to use some kind of connector to this "bus board" for trouble shooting and future tweaks...anyone tried this kind of thing before? pete
|
|
|
Post by JohnH on Nov 14, 2007 5:34:29 GMT -5
Hi Pete
I see you are not getting any bites on your request for ideas. Thanks for pointing at my Dual-sound design. I think there is a logical way to adapt the HSS version of it for the parts that you have.
In the HSS ‘Dual-sound’, the controls are the standard 5-way, a 4pdt for series/parallel, a pot for blending the series sounds BxM to BxMxN to NxM, a toggle for phase, another for coil cut on the Hb, and the variation switch. Read all about it on its own thread. The idea of it is that the 5-way is totally bypassed when in series mode, with basic series selections then controlled by the blender.
You could do that circuit but instead of he blender pot, you’d have two banks of your super-switch to make the series selections . Hence, instead of the 5-way being bypassed in series mode, it just changes to a different range
You’d have the 5-way, and your 4 built in switches for S/P, coil cut, bridge phase and ‘variation’. (‘variation’ does neck on in parallel mode and cuts out middle in series mode)
On the 5-way superswitch, you have 4 poles. You’d wire two of them to replicate the action of a standard 5way in parallel mode, to do B, BM, M, MN, N. The other two poles would be used to shunt either the neck or bridge or neither, in the series chain, when in series mode. It would do the same job as the blender in the ‘Dual-sound’ design. In positions 1, 3 and 5 it could give BxM, BxMxN and NxM. You also have positions 2 and 4, and there, they could be shunting N and B respectively via a cap or resistor to give intermediate variations.
Hence the S/P switch would change the 5-way action from normal Strat to a range of series sounds, with the other switches adding more variety, coil cut, phase etc. I’m sure you can figure it out from there!
cheers
John
|
|
|
Post by 4real on Nov 14, 2007 18:05:11 GMT -5
Thanks John, has been a little quiet.
I have started the wiring, the control cavity was already pretty small (normal strat I gusee but rear mounted) and these switch pots and the super switch take up a fair bit of real estate)...could be one for a photo gallery of how perhaps you can go too far...still, at least it isn't obvious on the instrument the extent of electronic features, nor interfere with playing the thing.
So...I have all three of these switch pots installed and working well.
Last night I installed most of the new sustainer including the circuit...just have to do the bypass switching on it's 4pdt switch.
I also had a bit of a go at the piezo system. I had a small preamp designed by jack orman that uses a TL071 that I had built for the sustainer experiments about, and it seems to work. I installed it so that pulling up on the volume contro, would add the piezo into any sound combination.
A few problems... One is that there is quite a loud "switch on" click...the dpdt switch connects the piezo circuit hot signal and positive power (negative is to ground). The other problem is that I had thought if I connected the piezo to the output lug of the (1M) volume pot, the piezo would remain on even when the guitar's volume was turned down...this would create a kind of mix control and the ability to use a pure piezo output perhaps. It would appear that the volume control effects all signal regardless...perhaps I was being a little too tricky there.
John, I was thinking that 2 bank idea for the super switch...potentially you could do all kinds of things there I imagine.
I also pulled everything out again and added tap wires to both stacked singles so that the noise canceling coils could be combined with a split HB...saves trying to wire all this in later.
I have also included a single "star ground" washer but am finding that there are excessive amounts of green ground wires all running to this central point...any tips on keeping this thing neat...space is a premium...
Anyway...coming along and the two bank idea is great because in the short term I should probably just get the basic guitar up and running and add to the complexities later....
pete
|
|
|
Post by sumgai on Nov 14, 2007 21:13:00 GMT -5
Pete, Try a low-voltage 0.01µf cap across the hot and ground power leads on the controlled side of the switch, not the source side. No DC flows through a capacitor, so there's no short. But as the circuit energizes, there's a noticible rise as the current rushes in to the load (your circuit). This imitates an AC signal, for just a moment, and that's what you normally hear as a pop. The capacitor will absorb the charge instead (being the easiest path of current flow), thus reducing or eliminating what you might hear at the output.
The downside is that there may be a small thump as the circuit is powered down (the cap is discharging), but a smaller cap may be the solution to that one. Experimentation is the order of the day. ;D
HTH
sumgai
|
|
|
Post by ashcatlt on Nov 14, 2007 23:31:34 GMT -5
You seem to know a lot more about these kinds of things than I do, so I feel a little funny posting this reply. If you've got the volume pot wired like a typical strat, then your "output" lug is the wiper, no? Turning the pot all the way down grounds out the amplifier input. As I understand it this is so your cable doesn't turn into an antenna when you turn the volume down.
You could try wiring the volume pot "backwards", like in some LPs, putting the signal out on the outside lug and the pickups to the wiper. There seem to be a number of reasons (which I'm sure others can explain better than I) why this is less desirable and kind of a compromise even in the Pauls.
|
|
|
Post by JohnH on Nov 14, 2007 23:46:44 GMT -5
On my stompbox and buffer designs, I feed the power to the circuit via a resistor, followed by a cap of 10uF or more to ground. The resistor is worked out to drop about 1/4V at whatever current is needed by the circuit. With this, theres no switch-on or switch-off pop or thump, since the voltage changes slowly each way.
John
|
|
|
Post by 4real on Nov 18, 2007 22:12:12 GMT -5
Ok...thanks guys...have taken out the preamp stuff for now, I have a 100uF power smoothing cap in that circuit I think, but not the resistor as John suggests, will no doubt have questions or perhaps some answers at some point. On the general wiring issue...the guitar is working with this kind of thing... This gives you PU1 PU1+PU2 PU2 PU2+PU3 Tap PU3 Tap Basically your typical parallel strat sounds...flick the "switch below the volume control, and you get... PU1xPU3 Tap PU1XPU2 PU2XPU3 Tap PU1XPU2+PU3 Tap PU3 (+=parallel, x=series) So...series heaven, all great usable sounds. The neat thing is that they are pretty complementary so you can go from one to the other with the flick of that one switch. All the sounds are quite different and usable. I have a feeling that with these stacked pickups, the middle one has been assumed to be RWRP in this wiring. Also, I seem to have the tap on the inner HB coil...ie the bridge most on when tapped. As these are neat sounds anyway, I am inclined to use the other 4PDT and dpdt switches to create another pallete. So, I could use some of the 4pdt to swap the split around. Also, DBG have on other circuits a "special tone" control for HB's. This is a wire fron=m the other lug of the tone control that effectively reverses it (so is full on) and seems to be most often used to roll the treble off one of the HB coils...could be interesting to use with any combination settings. I thought I could use the dpdt as a simple phase switch on the middle pickup to funk things up a little. Then there are the noise canceling qualities...everything seems pretty quiet, the only settings that are not noise canceling are the tapped HB. I took a tap from each of the two "single coils" which could allow me to add a noise canceling coil into these splits. This is an extremely complicated wiring within a very compact compartment with over large components (super switch, push pull mod pots). To tackle the complexity, I cut a strip of of vero so that all the pickups connect to this all in a row, plus power and star ground and hot connections. This seems to be much easier to manage even if it does take up a little more space and wiring. I have done some preliminary testing of the sustainer in this guitar, having a few teething problems, but did get it working for a bit. In order to get it right, all the pickups need to be bypassed, the ground and hots and the bridge pickup connected directly to the controls...plus power etc. I am hoping that the centralized "bus strip" will make trouble shooting this a bit easier. So coming along and this scheme has a great selection of sounds...it even has left a spst switch and several other connections available from the dual action dpdt/4pdt switcher, so maybe more possibilities. Hopefully I can get 20 different and usable or unique sounds from the 5 way with these two switches (below the volume and tone controls) and then spice up some of these with phase switching and variable tone split on. So...so far encouraging and this 4pdt switch scheme as is is great for this kind of HSS format. With these pickups, JB HB, the split is pretty convincing so that in one position you get a SSS strat format, and the other a HB and parallel selection and all sound good, quiet and useful. I like the fact that this is not trying to be a LP type clone but has it's own non-generic thing happening in these series modes... Any suggestions for pickup combinations left out or might be desirable or what I should do with the extra 4pdt and dpdt to get another 10+ sounds, greatly appreciated. later... pete
|
|
|
Post by 4real on Nov 19, 2007 7:24:57 GMT -5
OK....quick question, on the above diagram, can a push pull dpdt switch be used to select which of the HB's coils are auto split by the superswitch.
I had accidentally wired the PU so that the bridge most coil was the preferred one. Test wiring the inner coil gives a better "rounder" smoother bridge pickup tone. The bridge most coil though is still useful though, giving a more piercing tele like tone to the sound.
Given the complexity of this circuit I am having trouble working out a way with a dpdt and melding it with this circuit. I saw a split/tap thing in schematics but this is not applicable here...any thoughts.
Also...any thoughts on how to combine these split options with the tapped noiseless SC dummy coils for better humcancelling when split. I have a third wire from these pickups to isolate the upper or lower noise canceling coils and wondered if this could have an application here.
Any thoughts on the second 4pdt appreciated also...the obvious things missing here is the full HB on in combination with other pickups, most of the combined settings are split.
I wired a phase switch to the middle pickup but did not find the tones that useful...in the unusual three pickups on it was ok, but the others were way too thin to be really useful to me. I tried it on the neck pickup, but there were even less combinations and a similar response so have disconnected this switch again.
Has anyone come across this "special tone" thing before...basically using the tone control to roll off all the treble on one coil of the HB, by taking a wire from the opposite tone lug (ie reversing the tone sweep)...seems like an interesting concept.
I have still to set up the guitar but am already getting blisters as I haven't been playing a lot lately...ouch! Am hopeing that replacing the original shim that was factory fitted in the neck will assist the peizo to react more to vibration...with the neck screwed down tight there is not a lot of signal I suspect. It worked better on the test guitar which had quite a bit of shim.
Better get to work on this sustainer install however the bypass will be complicated and I'd prefer to have the wiring done and neatly installed before attempting this. It may well be that I can use variations on the neck HB (split etc) to flavour the tone in sustainer mode...both the tone of the instrument and the drive signal. I need to bypass all the pickups, short them out and disconnect both ground and hot, selector and all, connect power and select the bridge pickup...a tall order for even a 4pdt switch. My hope is the "buss board technique which creates a meeting point for all the wiring (so a star ground and hot, etc) will save the day...so far it has been a boon as I simply don't have enough different colored hook up wire and tracing too and from a single location is making it a lot easier...fitting it all in neatly is going to be a trick...once finished it could become an infamous picture of how an idea can go a little too far...it is bizarely complicated and confusing to look at, but it all seems to work ok so far....
Anyway, any response is appreciated... pete
|
|