The Strat SP hss - 85 sounds, no extra knobs

[JohnH]

The Strat SP design lends itself to quite an interesting HSS version, as follows:



The principles are the same, in which the super-switch selects which one or two pickups which will be used, and the push/pulls select series/parallel, phase, and also in this HSS version, coil cut for the bridge.

I've moved the connections around a bit 'for optimised grounding and avoidance of hanging coils. The lower two poles on the super-switch as drawn, select ‘Coil 1’ and the upper poles select ‘Coil 2’. In combos, ‘Coil 1’ is always the bridge-most coil, ie generally the brighter one. If it’s in a series combo, ‘Coil 1’ is nearer the ground than ‘Coil 2’. Coil cut is achieved by grounding the centre connection of the bridge humbucker.

Now here’s a cool feature: The connections to the bridge pup, and the phase switch on Coil 1, mean that whenever the bridge is coil cut, it always selects the right polarity coil to optimise humcancelling with the other pickups, and this works both in and out of phase.

So, all knobs in, its a standard Strat but with B+N at position 3. Positions 1 and 5 are always B and N, and if the coil cut switch is pulled, B is a single coil. Positions 2, 3 and 4 provide each pair of pickups, and they can all be phase reversed. The tone control puts a cap across the bassier pickup when at 10, in series mode, for a brighter sound. The fade control fades out the bassier pickup from a series combo.

How many sounds?

Lets say that the tone and fade controls each provide two distinct sound options, in addition to those derived from switches, and ignoring overall turning down the tone. So we have:

1. Neck – 1 sound
2. N&M – series, parallel, x2 using phase, x4 by using the tone and fade controls, +1 for M only by fully fading down N = 17
3. B&N as 2 (minus M only), but x2 including B coil cut = 32
4. B&M, as 3 = 32
5. Bridge – 2 sounds with coil cut,+1 with phase (which provide the other single coil) = 3

Total: 1+17+32+32+ 3= 85!

And the guitar doesn’t look any different from stock.

Cheers

John

EDIT 05/11/11 This has now been built by treguiers - see below!
EDIT 06/11/11 i have adjusted the diagram following some observations and suggestions from Treguiers The previous version was this:Revision A

EDIT 28/11/2020 I updated the first diagram to Revision C, following a discussion with frets and a successful build

[sbgodofmetal]

thats a great looking diagram you've got there! hope you get to build it soon i'd really love to hear some clips of this thing. another thing i like is the stock look no invasive modding required, which i'm very adament about, unless its a cheap clone then its ''no holds barred''. ;D nice work and good luck building it, i hope to hear it soon.

[treguiers]

Hi John,
This design looks fantasic. There is also simplicity to it's design. Often a factor that is overlooked(imho) is the ease one can dial up a sound on the fly in the middle of an intense gig. This design scores high on that front. Well done John.

I'm going to attempt to build this. But I have some questions. Wth regard to the humbucker at the bridge: In single coil mode are you using north(neck side) or south(bridge side) pup. the same question for B+M or BxM. I' not quite getting what the fader switch is doing . i like the north side as a single but i prefer the south side with BxM and B+M. Is that possible with this set up?

I may not be an electronics expert, but I am a gigging professional player with some basic knowledge of electronics, i can follow a schematic and I can work a soldering iron. I may need help along the way, but if and when I build it, I will gig it and record it and post results here.

[JohnH]

Treguiers - I’m delighted that you are interested in trying this one.

On the coil polarities – N and S is relative. I’ve shown the coils red and blue, and I’d normally expect red to be north, but what is important is that they alternate eg blue/red/blue/red across the four coils (or the other way round). I tried to ensure that in any two coil combo, you get a red and a blue for hum cancelling (and two the same if you pull the phase switch – also for hum cancelling). By that I mean either the two single coils, or one of them and bridge with coil cut. So with N&B you get a red bridge coil, and with the blue neck coil and B&M, you have red M and blue from the bridge. I’ve coloured the wires per Seymour Duncan.

If you select B only on the 5 way, and pull the coil cut, you get blue, but if you also pull the phase switch, you get red. So all bases are covered but it may be possible to adapt to any specific requests.

What you should do is, check your N and M are opposite polarity (ie, face to face, they attract each other), and assuming one is north and one is south, state whch poles are which on the bridge pickup and work out what wire colours apply to each polarity coil. Then we can consider if any relabelled or recolouring of the diagram is needed. Also, what is the make of your pickups?

The fade knob is optional, and works only in series mode. At minimum, the selected coil which is nearest the neck (ie with the bassier sound) is faded out, and then you can bring it up to full with the knob. I put this is because i like the sound of a bridge pup in series with just a small amount of neck. It is also a nice way to control the mix of out of phase sounds and will work as a 'spin -s-split'when you select bridge only.

Cheers

John

[treguiers]

Hi John, in the neck only position,
if you use the fade knob can you cut the neck pup so that there's
no signal in the neck ony position(ie no sound in neck only position).
This would be useful for that 'rage against the machine' type rhythmically
selecting between the neck pup(off) and another pup(which would be on) via the selector
switch.

[asmith]

I like this muy mucho John. I'm curious about your statement:

I've moved the connections around a bit 'for optimised grounding and avoidance of hanging coils.

Can you explain exactly what there was about the old superswitch layout that you wanted to change?

[JohnH]

Hi John, in the neck only position,
if you use the fade knob can you cut the neck pup so that there's
no signal in the neck ony position(ie no sound in neck only position).

tg – I don’t think so, without messing up a lot of other parts. In N only (and B only) the fade control is inactive, its only working in series setting between pickups.

I quite like the on/off staccato sound as well. On my LP, I sometimes play the song on the bridge pickup, and have the neck turned right down so I can flick back and forth to it as the last power chord fades away.

For this design, if you wanted that effect, it would be better to add a small non-locking push button switch to short the output to ground. I think you would get better control with that than by moving a 5-way lever to get that effect.

Can you explain exactly what there was about the old superswitch layout that you wanted to change?

as – I moved the coils around so that the bridge pickup was on the ground side of any series chains, so that when it gets coil-cut, its ‘groundiest’ coil can be shunted to ground without bypassing anything else.

To arrange which bridge coil gets cut, sometimes both selected pickups are phase reversed on the five-way (no change to sound), so that the optimum coil is cut when shunting the bridge

But there was nothing wrong that I know of with the original version for SSS pickups.

Cheers

John

[treguiers]

Hi John,
Just getting the bits together to tackle this. Would a 20nf cap do instead of the 22nf one? Secondly

[JohnH]

20nF is pretty close - and tone cap values are a personal matter anyway. You could alternatively go with a higher value if you prefer.

john

[treguiers]

Just waiting on bits to arrive from stew mac then I'm going to go for it.
Let me see do I understand fade control: If for example you selected BxM, the fade control would fade out the middle pup? where as if you selected NxM it would fade out the neck....is that right?
As for the tone control, from 1 to 9 does it behave like a normal tone control, then at ten the cap kicks in(in series mode) am I right? Is the tone control an overall tone control or is it specific to a pup?
Anyway John I'm going to build it as is, I'm sure I 'll find some sound gems in amongst all that.
E

[JohnH]

Thats all correct - and the tine pot acts on the whole signal from the selected coils, not specific to one pickup

J

[treguiers]

Ok Pots have arrived. Just some basic questions. The 12345 under the superswitch indicates the direction of the switch 1 being neck and 5 being bridge? Secondly I have a black and white wire coming from my single coils, as phase is important in this design which one will i treat as +ve? I get the feeling it doesn't matter as long as I am consistent, but I don't want to mess up any phase interaction with the bridge.
I'll be a couple of days at it, I'll keep you posted

[JohnH]

The numbers under the switch refer to which lugs are connected at each setting, and also the pickups selected as shown in the table. Note that due to the way the switch is made, the bridge position on the lever corresponds to the lugs at the neck end of the switch (ie on the diagram, 5 is nearer the neck than 1)

For your pickups, you must make the checks and answer the questions in reply 3 above, otherwise we cant work out how to wire your pickups. There may also need to be a phase test done at some point.

Cheers

John

[treguiers]

OK john,
The pups I'm working with are as follows:
Bridge; Suhr DSV+ humbucker (colour code same as seymour duncan)
Neck; Suhr V60 LP single coil
Middle: Suhr V60 single coil(with reverse windings and reverse polarity)
All this information I got from the Suhr website.

when looking at the pups from behind the white wire is on the left black on right for the neck pup, but the white is on the right and the black on the left for the middle.

i hope this answers the question regarding reply 3

[newey]

tre-

You're still going to need to check the polarities to be sure, as we still don't know which coil is which on the HB. As JohnH suggested, simply lay one coil on top of another. Opposites attract.

Ideally, you want the bridge HB coil which is nearest the middle to be reverse of the middle pup, as shown by the red/blue coils in JohnH's diagram. This may require flipping the bridge pickup around the other way- or, perhaps not, but best to check it to be sure since it's easy enough to check.

[treguiers]

OK, you have to explain this to me. Which coil do I put on top of which and which way? face on face? face of one at the back of another? neck on middle? neck/middle on each coil of the humbucker, I've no problem doing it I just want to know the exact way to do it.
BTW, Hi Newey, delighted you've stuck your oar in.

Is it naive to assume that you can judge the polarity of the HB by the direction of the writing at the back of the pup

[newey]

Is it naive to assume that you can judge the polarity of the HB by the direction of the writing at the back of the pup

Yes.

JohnH's explanation, from above, suffices:

What you should do is, check your N and M are opposite polarity (ie, face to face, they attract each other), and assuming one is north and one is south, state whch poles are which on the bridge pickup and work out what wire colours apply to each polarity coil. Then we can consider if any relabelled or recolouring of the diagram is needed.

[treguiers]

OK, removed the neck pup place face to face with middle it attracted, it repelled against the north coil of the HB and attracted against the south. This so far seem consistent with the original schematic. The colours from the HB are green black white and red with a bare earth wire. Internet research says it's the same code Seymour Duncan uses. Is there a test I can do to verify this for certain?
Thanks guys,

[treguiers]

OK...... tested the HB via this method www.projectguitar.com/tut/pickupwiring.htm

It is as seymour duncan wiring
black +ve white -ve on north coil
green +ve red -ve on south coil

So with regard to the neck and middle single coils pups should I treat the white wire on the neck as +ve and the black on the Middle as +ve or should I treat all whites as +ve and all blacks as -ve?


The neck pup is to the left

[JohnH]

I’m showing the bridge wires and polarities matching SD standards, with red and green wires connecting to the (bluish) south coil. When you select N and B, with B coil-cut, you get a north bridge coil, We don’t want that to be combined with a north neck coil, if we want best hum-cancelling in=phase.

So some change needs to be made and there are a few options. My suggestion – keep all of the switch and pot wiring intact, and also all of the bridge pup wiring. Just swap the neck and middle pickups so neck is a south and middle is a north.

On the singles, wire blacks as shown and whites where I show red.

That will probably work and matches SD wiring. The worst possibility is that the whites and blacks need to be swapped to get in-phase. But as described above is the most likely way. If you want to be sure, wire it up that way but before fixing everything into the guitar, do a ‘screwdriver pull-off test’, if possible:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=reference&action=display&thread=4938&page=1

John

[treguiers]

Hi John,
I don't want to be a pain in the rear but the neck pup I'm using is a suhr V60 LP (low peak) it is a little darker than a normal neck single and I really like it. I will swap them if it's the best option. i do have another suhr pup wound the same way as the neck, could I put that in the middle slot?

[JohnH]

OK, keep the N and M as you have them. Ill work out a different way of wiring the bridge pickup wires to adjust, but you can carry on with the switch and pot wiring

John

[treguiers]

Just to be clear about something, in case I'm getting terminology wrong. When I refer to south with regard to the HB, I'm talking about the coil nearest the bridge, and obviously the north coil is the coil closer to the neck.

[newey]

Just to be clear about something, in case I'm getting terminology wrong. When I refer to south with regard to the HB, I'm talking about the coil nearest the bridge, and obviously the north coil is the coil closer to the neck.

Not necessarily. The N and S refer to the poles of the magnets for each coil, not to the coils position.

Now, assuming that the Suhr pups follow the SD convention beyond the color of the wires, the North coil should be the slug coil, while the South has the screws- and, normally, most folks would wire the pickup such that the slug coil was indeed nearest the neck, as you suggest.

But some HBs are opposite, the South coil is the slug coil. Jackson pickups, for example, are "backwards" this way.

So, you're probably right, assuming Suhr followed the SD way of designating things- but not necessarily.

[JohnH]

Oct 26, 2011 6:56:32 GMT -5 JohnH said:

OK, keep the N and M as you have them. Ill work out a different way of wiring the bridge pickup wires to adjust, but you can carry on with the switch and pot wiring

John

OK, so just change the colours on the diagram as follows

Diagram------- New colour
Black------Red
Green------white
red/white joined-----green/black joined


What that does is electrivclly move the north and south coils, without changing their phase - so it shoul all work

You are free to phyisically spin the hb 180 degrees if you want without affecting any of that. For best tonal variation, Id personally probably put the south coil nearest to the bridge, so it will combine with the neck.
cheers
John

[treguiers]

John I'm sure it's all good to go as is. I've taken my spare suhr neck single coil pup that I know is wound the same way as the neck pup in the guitar. Doing the face to face test going from neck to bridge I get repel(neck) attract(middle) repel(coil on Hb physically closest to the neck) and finally attract(coil on HB phyically closest to the bridge).....Is that not per your original schematic?

[JohnH]

Oct 26, 2011 18:25:59 GMT -5 treguiers said:

John I'm sure it's all good to go as is. I've taken my spare suhr neck single coil pup that I know is wound the same way as the neck pup in the guitar. Doing the face to face test going from neck to bridge I get repel(neck) attract(middle) repel(coil on Hb physically closest to the neck) and finally attract(coil on HB phyically closest to the bridge).....Is that not per your original schematic?

Those are the coils you want, so the pickup sare physically in the right place. But wired up per the diagram, in an BN combo you will get the bridge coil cut to the one with black and white leads, and from what you have described before, I think that is probably the other bridge coil? If so my suggestion above to change colours was intended to fix this.

But you can wire it anyway you like. Its difficult advising while not seeing it all, if it was here we would sort all this out in 2 minutes.

John

[treguiers]

I'm pressing ahead with the wiring. I am going to leave the pup wiring to the last.
Is all this rewiring just to facilitate my preferences? If I wired my guitar exactly as per your schematic would it function without any phase issues? I do know what I like but I'm very open to surprises, and I am sure I will get loads with your design.....hence my enthusiasm. If my guitars wiring and pup phase/polarity, tallies with your diagram, I'm well prepared to go for you original.

[JohnH]

Hi tg

The changes Im proposing are so that with your pickups, you get optimum hum cancelling. This only makes a significant difference when you cut bridge to a single coil, and combine it with N or M. In theory, these combos can also be hum cancelling, at least to a large extent (not exactly, since they are different coil types). When I did my diagram, i had to assume polarities for each coil in each position, and I worked out the wiring to be optimised based on those assumptions. From the testing you have done, it appears that your polarities are different, hence if you follow the original diagram, it will not be as optimum as it could be and as I tried to achieve. The most likely risk is that hum with N or M combined with a single bridge coil will be greater than it needs to be, like a single coil hum when it could be nearer to being like a humbucker. The sounds would be OK though, in that the sounds will be in and out of phase when they should be.

All you need to do to have the best chance of it being right is to swap the wire colours for the bridge Hb as I described. All the other wiring would be fine. Whether you do this is up to you, but at least let me know if its clear because if its not I can do an amended diagram quite easily.

Whatever way you wire it up, test it carefully because these phase and humcancelling issues can easily happen in these designs when you are building it there and I am thinking about it here, but they can always be fixed.

Cheers

John

[treguiers]

Ok.... I'm now at the point where I've pretty much have everything wired except for the pups. How do I treat the mid pup considering it's reversed wound reverse polarity. Which wire do I treat as the + ?
Thanks..........
Also I put 2 X 1nFcaps(102) in parallel with a 20nF cap(203) at the tone . that should give me the 22nF I need?