Strat HH - 16 sounds, no extra controls

[JohnH]

This is a scheme for a two-humbucker guitar, with a ‘Strat’ set of controls comprising a volume, two tone controls and a five-way (4P5T super-switch in this case)




I’ve followed my current preference of eschewing extra push/pulls and toggles, obtaining coil cuts using the tone controls, since I find this works very well. The tone controls work normally on the humbucker sound from 0 to 9, then transition to a single coil at 10.

The 5-way options include single, parallel, series and out-of-phase series combinations. All the settings can then be modulated by the tone controls to bring out Hb and Sc combinations, with 16 distinct variations, plus those obtained by turning the tone controls further down.

I’m pleased with myself for cracking a couple of conundrums with this type of tone control wiring. One of these is to swap the single coil on the neck pup, when used in the out-of-phase combo to maximise the possible hum reduction. The other is to avoid all hanging from hot (I think!), to further reduce buzzes to a minimum. To get these two things to happen with the available switch capacity, the tone control at the parallel N+B setting is only using the bridge tone pot for the normal tone function, though both tone pots continue to set the Hb to Sc outputs of their respective pickups. Having only the bridge tone pot acting to turn down the N+B tone takes some load off, which will add some more sparkle, so I see this as a good thing.

Anyhoo, this is just an unbuilt design exercise, but if anyone wants to try it you’ll have my support (and a great guitar!)

cheers

John

[zirltzn]

i implemented this schematic recently in a MIM Strat HH. not a difficult wire job at all and the 15+ different choices i can make without having to have put in push/pull pots was icing on the cake. really really sweet design.

no S-1, no push/pulls. pretty cool!!

john was very very helpful and i'm much appreciative for his time and help.

it is certainly worth it to have this option.

i will post an image or two of the wiring soon.

thx

[zirltzn]

here is a finished project of this design. i used sozo 33nF on this one as the 22nFs are currently in my guitar. the treble bleed resistor is a 150k this time. the one in my guitar is using a 220k resister which worked fine.

it works quite well for me & a lot of fun switching through the selections experimenting.

thanks John!

[enquirydave]

Hi John any chance of posting a similar diagram with the following switch selections.

1 Neck
2 Neck + Bridge (parallel)
3 -Neck x Bridge (out of phase in series)
4 Neck x Bridge
5 Bridge

Also could you just include Volume/Tone/Tone plus Volume/Tone versions with all earth wires showing. Many thanks David

[JohnH]

Dear David

Thankyou for your kind offer to allow me to spend three hours of my weekend redrafting my design to suit your request, which I shall politely decline.

A better idea would be if you redraw the diagram yourself. For the VTT version all you are asking is to move the order of the selections, so all you need to do is to reorder the connections to each of the 4 banks of lugs. Keep the fours pole connections at the ends as is, and move all the wires on the lug connections to suit your wishes. (these are the ones I have shaded white, pink and pale blue – and to suit the design drawn, the relevant lugs go 5,4,3,2,1 from left to right on each bank).

If you only want a single tone pot, then delete both tone pots shown and add a standard tone pot/cap across the volume pot outer lugs, as on any normal design. You will then only get 5 basic sounds however.

If you do a diagram, and figure out how it works, you will learn a lot and I’ll offer to check it (please start another thread if you do)

best wishes
John