frobro808
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Post by frobro808 on Oct 16, 2011 23:26:44 GMT -5
lame.. i know! i know! my first time posting in a loooong time and this is all i can come up with???
anyways, i was wondering if a SPDT (ON)-OFF-(ON) MOMENTARY TOGGLE SWITCH would work as the device for a kill switch? or do i need to find a (off) - on - (off) switch somewhere?
sorry for the weak re-entrance (as if i've ever had a srtong one haha)
-frobro808
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Post by asmith on Oct 17, 2011 3:42:10 GMT -5
Welcome back Frobro. The On-Off-On switch will work fine electrically. Depending on how you wire it, I'd expect you to at least have one "signal on" position and one "signal off" position, doing either with the third switch setting. But practically, that switch may turn out to be a pain. I'd recommend using a SPST On/Off or SPDT wired to On/Off. I've played a couple of HH-configuration guitars and used the standard Gibson switch as a killswitch. I turn down one pickup to "0" and switch between the two - one pickup "on" and an "off" setting. It's good enough for Frehley & Wylde so it's good enough for Smith. I find this set-up is rhythmically elegant. At one extreme of the switch settings, you've got a signal, at the other you don't. Flipping the switch back and forth locks in with the rhythm there. Instead of having to be accurate enough to find your "on" setting it's just "back and forth." Listen to the solo from Rage Against The Machine's Guerilla Radio. Tom Morello plays it using a killswitch. Accurately landing on the "on" and "off" positions with an On-Off-On for that kind of playing is a nightmare. Much easier to use the SPST. |
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Post by ashcatlt on Oct 17, 2011 12:06:40 GMT -5
But it's a momentary switch, so if the "On" position is in the middle, it'll just spring back when you let go of it. Push down or pull up to kill, let go and it's back. No searching.
I'm not sure why you'd want that three position switch, but it'll work.
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frobro808
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Post by frobro808 on Oct 19, 2011 23:10:29 GMT -5
hey guys just thought it might be cool but thinking about the practicality of it along with your replies have told me otherwise! are there SPST momentary switches? or should i just stick with the button type like morello?
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Post by asmith on Oct 20, 2011 3:28:27 GMT -5
As far as I know Morello doesn't use a button. He uses an On/Off toggle. Buckethead uses a button. As an aside: personally, I don't like the single-button approach. It marries the action of activating the switch to the 'killing' of the signal. Playing staccato, on-the-beat stuff like the afformentioned Guerilla Radio and Know Your Enemy is ten times easier when it's the other way around, activating the switch on the sound. If the switch is just a button, you've got to lift off it when you want the guitar to sound, and rhythmically, that's hard. A SPST momentary switch would work, as one could just keep your hand holding it to "off" and flick back and forth when they want it on. I think the most useful killswitch arrangement is actually two switches. One to turn the killswitch system on, making the output dependent on the activation of a momentary switch. Then the momentary switch actually activates the signal when needed. If they make an "On-Off-MomentaryOn switch", that'd be even better. Anyhoo, that's me waxing lyri-kill. If you're just looking for a plain ol' push-n-kill, yes, they make SPST Momentary Toggles. |
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Post by 4real on Oct 20, 2011 4:58:52 GMT -5
I did a guitar for someone associated with Morello, definitely a toggle guy. It makes more sense and when I played LP's in bands, I used to use the toggle thing a bit, got it from watching Townsend play...as old as the hills. Basically you are toggling the sound on, playing the sound...where as a "kill" button is toggling the off which is far less intuitive...feels like you are playing the silences, not the actual notes. A big gibson like selector is a better bet...I modded a slightly larger version which was a sprung momentary two way toggle...this means that when you let go, it will always return to "on"...the guitar also featured a push button version, this was an oversized stainless steel affair as used in carparks I believe. Anopther feature was a push pull on the tone control that changed the kill switches from kill to...ummm...we were calling it a miam switch or something for a while. Basically a small cap and trim pot to tune in an extreme tone control so that instead of killing the sound completely, it just killed all the treble out of the sound...kind of like a weird 'wha' effect I guess...  I put an ultra miniature kill button on my tele, but never got to use it much as it seems to make a bit of a clicking noise...could never work out why as it is just grounding the signal. while a bit anti-intuitive, it can make some interesting vibrato like effects...or should that be tremolo. I thought kill switches though were yesterdays fad, had not heard much about them lately...it always felt like a bit of a cheap trick and got tired fast...but I suppose we all do it sometime. |
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Post by ashcatlt on Oct 20, 2011 10:44:04 GMT -5
Yes they do make ON-OFF-(ON) switches. I personally prefer a latching kill switch. Gives an easy way to kill the guitar between songs/sets. For the Morello/Buckethead thing, a standard latching toggle type switch is a bit too stiff in action for my tastes. On my Xavier, I use the Tele-style 3-way for the killing. And a little bit of click is pretty much unavoidable. I don't know how much the physical "bouncing" of the switch contributes to this, but if you switch on or off at any point where the pickup signal is NOT sitting at 0V (more often than not, even when the strings aren't moving), there'll be a stair step from whatever instantaneous voltage it's at down to 0. A step function contains all frequencies (I use it in 5spice for frequency analysis) and theoretically sounds like an instantaneous burst of white noise. In practice it sounds lke a click or pop. |
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Post by sumgai on Oct 24, 2011 11:24:35 GMT -5
Pete,
A very small cap across the switch terminals should reduce or eliminate that clicking (so far as the ear is concerned). Start with a 0.1nf and work your way around from there.
HTH
sumgai
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Post by Yew on Oct 24, 2011 17:32:03 GMT -5
A SPDT three position on/off/on switch with one side momentary could be good, you could have one side (the spring loaded one) to act like a buckethead switch, or you could used the real 'toggle' side to allow you to turn the guitar off when adjusting the amp/clapping hands in the air
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Post by newey on Oct 24, 2011 19:14:07 GMT -5
So that all the Nutz are on the same page here, and as a reference when buying switches, a position on a switch with momentary actuation is designated in parentheses, like so:
(On)-Off means Momentary on/off
(On)-Off-(On) means off in the center, with momentary actuation to each side, etc.
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