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Post by littlebigbangs on Dec 30, 2010 14:24:15 GMT -5
hello, i wanted to wire my guitar to have 2 out puts. one output for bridge position (i also wanted to add a switch that could connect the middle to get the noiseless quack position) then an output for the bridge by itself. was thinking about controling the tone with an expressionpedal, which i think means wiring an output to the tone pot as well. the tone is just for the bridge position. in addition i was wanted to put in a kill switch ( i might have to have two). i know this all seems really particular and weird. it would be awesome if someone could help explain how to wire this or if its even possible. pretty sure it is, im sorta uncertain how to wire the bridge and middle. thanks for any help
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Post by newey on Dec 30, 2010 14:44:28 GMT -5
lbb-
Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!
What you want to do is doable, but I'm not exactly clear on what you want. You titled your thread "3 outputs", then you talk about 2 outputs, one of which is for the Bridge pickup, with the middle added by a switch, and the other is . . .the bridge???
I'm thinking you meant the neck is one, bridge is the other, with a "middle-on" switch. The third is for a tone pot???
You'll need to clarify exactly what it is you want this to do. Is it for 3 separate channels, one for each pickup?
I don't think you want or need a separate output for a tone pot, but again, please clarify exactly what you're looking for here.
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Post by littlebigbangs on Dec 30, 2010 17:48:28 GMT -5
one output for neck, one output for bridge and mid (be able to switch from one to the other and them both in parallel) and a out put for the tone to be controlled by an exp pedal.
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Post by JohnH on Dec 30, 2010 18:04:13 GMT -5
Welcome tp GN2, but why do you want the seperate outputs? are you using two amps? J
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Post by littlebigbangs on Dec 30, 2010 19:08:20 GMT -5
i just like the sound of a pickup going straight to out put. i thought about getting one of thoes boss ls-1 pedals... i forgot to mention that i wanted the tone to be controlable on board too (but not at the same time as the exp pedal) i think there is a special output jack for this kinda thing no?
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Post by newey on Dec 30, 2010 20:28:18 GMT -5
I haven't used one, but I thought that most expression pedals worked in conjunction with a multi-fx processor or MIDI box- IOW, that the pedal plugged into a particular box, and the guitar output went to the box, not into the pedal. With most brands, the pedal can be used to control any number of different FX, or as a MIDI controller.
Am I wrong on this?
I also thought that these things were specific to a given brand of processor, for example, if you had a Line6 box, you had to use a Line6 pedal to go with it.
So, I guess I'm still not clear on the expression pedal.
You can certainly set up the guitar's tone control to be bypassed if you want- a push/pull pot would work well for that, so that, when down, you have a std tone control, but pulling up bypasses it to the output.
The neck pickup, as I read this, has no switching involved with it and doesn't use the tone pot, so that pickup sounds like it's just getting wired directly to the outjack- simple enough!
The bridge/mid pups get wired first to an On-On-On toggle switch, then to the tone, then to the jack, with the tone control wired as above.
You didn't mention whether there was a Vol (or perhaps Vols, plural) involved here, so I left that out of the discussion.
The tough part of this isn't the wiring, it's fitting the 3 jacks. Unless your farming that part out to a pro, there's a bit of woodworking involved, as you have to not only remove enough to get each extra jack in, but also provide for wiring access.
You also have to leave enough wood, top and bottom, so as not to cause problems by the body being too thin in that area.
You didn't mention the type of guitar to which this was being done. I guess I was assuming Strat because of the 3 pups. Probably would be easier to mount the jacks in an LP type, or other guitar with a rear-routed cavity; but I can see where it would be a challenge in a Strat or Tele-style guitar.
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Post by wolf on Dec 31, 2010 0:00:21 GMT -5
littlebigbangsI also like the sound of a pickup without the volume and tone controls putting a "load" on the signal. A much easier way to do this would be with what I call a "Solo Switch". You might have to drill a hole for the switch but it's not like drilling two holes for 2 more outputs.
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Post by littlebigbangs on Dec 31, 2010 11:00:39 GMT -5
i have to play out so i just wired bridge and mid together in phase. not sure if i keep it this way. im really torn cuz i like to play surf but i also like to play noise. i like having options but sometimes the simplest solution is the best. i like that solo switch idea.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 31, 2010 17:09:01 GMT -5
The separate outputs thing is pretty easy, though there are some important things to consider. Wasn't too long ago we helped newey develop something pretty similar to what you're discussing. It used switching jacks so you could use just one amp and still have access to all of the pickups. It also addressed the ground loop issue. IIRC it was for just two pickups, but that's easily changed. It was a good, thorough thread, though. I'll try to find a link later, unless somebody beats me to it. (hint ) I dig your idea with the tone control on the floor, but I'm afraid you're going to find that the purely passive implementation as you've described it is going to be less than ideal. The thing where plugging in the cable bypasses the on-board control is easy with a switched jack. The first problem I saw when I thought about this was the tone sucking which will come from the capacitance of the cable going to the pedal. No matter what, it's going to be noticeably darker when this pedal is plugged in. It would be better to have the thing in line with the actual output, so you can use just one cable. Even then, you can forget about using any pre-built expression pedal for anything other than an enclosure. Even if you find one which actually has a pot in it, that pot's value is guaranteed to be too low for passive guitar use. So it'll need replaced. You'll have to take some measurements and do some searching in order to find a pot of proper value which will both mount properly and accept the gear mechanism. Once you've got that you run into the biggest gotcha. The foot pedal allows you to apply far more torque to the pot shaft then most of us could ever accomplish by hand. It's likely enough to where you could break the pot if you tried to turn it past one end or the other. Most of these pedals are specifically designed to prevent this. It will not turn all the way from 0 to 10. Now, since the tone control is a variable resistor (rather than a voltage divider), you could theoretically set up the pot in the mechanism so that it will go all the way to 0 at the heel-down position (careful though, half a click too far and...) and select a value such that wherever it tops out at toe-down is close enough to your desired max resistance. I think that's just more flingin' around than it's worth. So the question is exactly why do you need continuously variable tone control at your feet? If you're looking to do some wah type thing why not just use a wah? If it turns out that the range or the Q of the filter isn't exactly what you want there is all kind of info out there which could help you mod it. On the other hand, it would be easy enough to have a box on the floor with a stomp switch to toggle between some preset tone configuration. Maybe with a more traditional pot, maybe with a switch or two for selecting different caps...
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 31, 2010 21:57:02 GMT -5
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Post by Yew on Jan 3, 2011 8:53:22 GMT -5
littlebigbangsI also like the sound of a pickup without the volume and tone controls putting a "load" on the signal. A much easier way to do this would be with what I call a "Solo Switch". You might have to drill a hole for the switch but it's not like drilling two holes for 2 more outputs. Could you do it on a Push/Pull pot?
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Post by wolf on Jan 3, 2011 15:03:14 GMT -5
yew Yes a push/pull pot DPDT switch will work as a solo switch also.
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