Post by yellowjacket on Apr 8, 2014 22:46:15 GMT -5
I'm new here. I was searching around the net for ideas on guitar wiring and I found the guitarnuts webpage.
Background: I have a couple of excellent rock axes already (Mahogany short scale style with HMBs) so I wanted something a little different. Since I like to muck about and customize everything, I decided to score something used. I got a Godin Redline III in good condition off of the buy and sell. It comes stock with EMGs but I have a set of Bare Knuckle Juggernauts on order. Switching from active to passive means that I can gut all the electronics and rebuild everything from scratch. (And flip the actives as a set) Sounds like a fun project, right?
Controls: 2 holes for Volume and Tone controls. A rout for a strat style blade switch. Currently a 3 way switch in there but I aim to change that. 2 EMG humbuckers. An 85 in the bridge and an 81 in the neck.
Guitar: 25.5 scale hard maple bolt on neck with rosewood fingerboard. JUmbo frets. LFR bridge system. Soft maple body centre and top with poplar wings Rear routed.
Guitar Tone unplugged: It sounds like a fairly dark and well balanced strat with good lows. So, bright and midrangey. It has a nice loud sound unplugged so it's going to sound killer with passives.
Wiring parts: I'm currently thinking of two audio taper 550k CTS pots for Volume and Tone, A 0.022uf paper in oil cap, and a 5 way fender style blade switch. Aside from that I'm going to have to shield and ground the control cavity and install the entire wiring harness. I'll also have to replace the input jack. I read on the Guitarnuts homepage that I should put a capacitor between the ground wire and the input jack?
Pickups: Bare Knuckle Juggernaut set.
Pretty straight forward, right?
Setup / Wiring ideas? Now, so here's the thing. Since this axe is primarily for metal and other heavy music, I definitely want the series humbucker tones. That's the priority. My original plan was to simply coil tap the bridge and neck coils in positions 2 and 4 for more traditional strat style tones. Since the guitar sounds like a strat unplugged it will most likely have plenty of quack in these positions. Then I made a 'mistake' and started reading...
Now I have been reading a bit on parallel wiring for HMBs vs coil tapping and I've heard that to get more output with a single coil - ish sound (Apparently sounds like a P-90) the pickups can be switched from series to parallel with the 5 way blade switch. I was also told that if I wire for series and put a 1k resistor between the grounded pickup leads and the ground, some of the signal from the 'off' humbucker will bleed through, giving slightly greater output similar to a single coil tone.
So, questions: I have another guitar with a 3 way switch and a push pull pot. It's coil tapping and the single coil tones tend to be much brighter than the HMB (To be expected). They're also much less output and very noisy (also to be expected). I found that I particularly like the sound of a single coil in the neck in addition to the series humbucker tone. I find that with the bridge pickup, I almost never use the single coil tone because it's much too bright and anemic.
1) Is it possible to wire a 5 way to go: Neck HMB Series / Neck HMB Split Coil (With resistor for higher output) / Neck and Bridge HMB Traditional Style / Bridge Parallel / Bridge Series?
2) Has anyone experimented with switching with series to parallel but putting a resistor in the parallel circuit to 'turn down' one of the coils? Is this even possible? Will it interfere with the series operation of the HMB?
3) Would it be possible to have: Neck HMB series / Neck Split Coil (Resistor?) BOth HMBs Series / Split Neck and Bridge / Bridge? That seems like it may be useful but from what I've heard, a parallel HMB in the bridge may be really great too.
4) I've heard Suhr figured out a way to get 250k resistance for tapped coils and 500k resistance for humbuckers with a wiring trick. Anyone heard of this or know what it is?
5) General opinions on Series vs Parallel wiring and what is the optimal setup for a coil tap / single coil tone? (I can already guess that someone is going to say it all depends on what I want / like) I'd like my neck split coil to sound as comparable to a proper single coil pickup as possible, under the circumstances. Also, having a smoother less aggressive bridge tone would be great.
I hope this makes some sense, I'm not sure I entirely understand what I'm saying =-/ The pickups will arrive soon and I'm hoping to order the electronics and get this build under way soon.
Background: I have a couple of excellent rock axes already (Mahogany short scale style with HMBs) so I wanted something a little different. Since I like to muck about and customize everything, I decided to score something used. I got a Godin Redline III in good condition off of the buy and sell. It comes stock with EMGs but I have a set of Bare Knuckle Juggernauts on order. Switching from active to passive means that I can gut all the electronics and rebuild everything from scratch. (And flip the actives as a set) Sounds like a fun project, right?
Controls: 2 holes for Volume and Tone controls. A rout for a strat style blade switch. Currently a 3 way switch in there but I aim to change that. 2 EMG humbuckers. An 85 in the bridge and an 81 in the neck.
Guitar: 25.5 scale hard maple bolt on neck with rosewood fingerboard. JUmbo frets. LFR bridge system. Soft maple body centre and top with poplar wings Rear routed.
Guitar Tone unplugged: It sounds like a fairly dark and well balanced strat with good lows. So, bright and midrangey. It has a nice loud sound unplugged so it's going to sound killer with passives.
Wiring parts: I'm currently thinking of two audio taper 550k CTS pots for Volume and Tone, A 0.022uf paper in oil cap, and a 5 way fender style blade switch. Aside from that I'm going to have to shield and ground the control cavity and install the entire wiring harness. I'll also have to replace the input jack. I read on the Guitarnuts homepage that I should put a capacitor between the ground wire and the input jack?
Pickups: Bare Knuckle Juggernaut set.
Pretty straight forward, right?
Setup / Wiring ideas? Now, so here's the thing. Since this axe is primarily for metal and other heavy music, I definitely want the series humbucker tones. That's the priority. My original plan was to simply coil tap the bridge and neck coils in positions 2 and 4 for more traditional strat style tones. Since the guitar sounds like a strat unplugged it will most likely have plenty of quack in these positions. Then I made a 'mistake' and started reading...
Now I have been reading a bit on parallel wiring for HMBs vs coil tapping and I've heard that to get more output with a single coil - ish sound (Apparently sounds like a P-90) the pickups can be switched from series to parallel with the 5 way blade switch. I was also told that if I wire for series and put a 1k resistor between the grounded pickup leads and the ground, some of the signal from the 'off' humbucker will bleed through, giving slightly greater output similar to a single coil tone.
So, questions: I have another guitar with a 3 way switch and a push pull pot. It's coil tapping and the single coil tones tend to be much brighter than the HMB (To be expected). They're also much less output and very noisy (also to be expected). I found that I particularly like the sound of a single coil in the neck in addition to the series humbucker tone. I find that with the bridge pickup, I almost never use the single coil tone because it's much too bright and anemic.
1) Is it possible to wire a 5 way to go: Neck HMB Series / Neck HMB Split Coil (With resistor for higher output) / Neck and Bridge HMB Traditional Style / Bridge Parallel / Bridge Series?
2) Has anyone experimented with switching with series to parallel but putting a resistor in the parallel circuit to 'turn down' one of the coils? Is this even possible? Will it interfere with the series operation of the HMB?
3) Would it be possible to have: Neck HMB series / Neck Split Coil (Resistor?) BOth HMBs Series / Split Neck and Bridge / Bridge? That seems like it may be useful but from what I've heard, a parallel HMB in the bridge may be really great too.
4) I've heard Suhr figured out a way to get 250k resistance for tapped coils and 500k resistance for humbuckers with a wiring trick. Anyone heard of this or know what it is?
5) General opinions on Series vs Parallel wiring and what is the optimal setup for a coil tap / single coil tone? (I can already guess that someone is going to say it all depends on what I want / like) I'd like my neck split coil to sound as comparable to a proper single coil pickup as possible, under the circumstances. Also, having a smoother less aggressive bridge tone would be great.
I hope this makes some sense, I'm not sure I entirely understand what I'm saying =-/ The pickups will arrive soon and I'm hoping to order the electronics and get this build under way soon.