JiM
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Post by JiM on Jun 7, 2014 7:40:05 GMT -5
Hi there, This is my first post here, after a few years looking from time to time at your crazy Nutzoid schemes ... I'm posting today to share the wiring i did to my trusty Classic Vibe Telecaster, which i believe is very versatile while still being very simple to use (e.g. on stage) and retains stock tones and looks for the unsuspecting audience. I think it's an original scheme, i designed it from scratch. When the push-pull tone pot is pushed, everything is as you'll expect from a venerable Tele. Hmm, except the tone knob, which has a hidden feature. When reducing the volume, a 1nF cap acts as a slightly excessive treble bleed happens while the tone knob is on full. This effect is cancelled as soon as you reduce the tone knob a bit. It's actually quite close to the tone knob on a Tweed amp. When you pull the tone knob, everything changes : - The neck position becomes both pickups in series. I had to add rather large series cap to tame the low-end a bit, as it's a really powerful combination compared to the others. And it's hum-cancelling. Grrrr !
- The middle position provides the bridge pickup with a series cap. This makes a very thin and weak tone, that seems a bit useless at first sight. It is actually quite useful, either for quiet rhythm parts (to contrast with the series mode) or when using high gain distortion to get rid of any muddiness.
- Lastly, the bridge position connects both pickups in parallel, half-out-of-phase. This tone is comparable to, but clearly distinct from the parallel wiring. Unfortunately this one is not hum-cancelling.
Except the push-pull and the caps, everything is stock. I guess this wiring qualifies for the "no terminal left open" concept.
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Post by newey on Jun 7, 2014 9:20:33 GMT -5
Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!The scheme sounds interesting, but where is the schematic and/or diagram of it? Please post that here as well, or I will need to move this thread from the "Schematics" sub-board (which is for the posting of completed schematics and/or wiring diagrams). If you're just describing the tones, then the thread more properly belongs in general Guitar Wiring. No worries about all this, though, as we are understanding of newcomers.
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JiM
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Post by JiM on Jun 8, 2014 4:28:40 GMT -5
Oops, i did post an image (actually a link from another forum) containing both the schematic and the wiring diagram, it appeared fine in the preview (actually, it does appear as soon as i'm logged in that other forum ) I've put it as attachment in the first post, it should work better. Sorry.
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Post by sumgai on Jun 8, 2014 11:46:39 GMT -5
JiM, Hi, and to the NutzHouse! As it happens, you've managed to actually challenge me with that schematic of yours - quite the baroque way of drawing, it made me follow every trace all the way through... no way I could just glance at it and dope it out. Like I said, congratulations. But I must offer a correction to your description. The 3-way pup selector in pos 3, with the tone pot switch pulled up is not "Parallel with HooP", it is fully "Out of Phase, with a "strangle" capacitor added across the Bridge". IOW, adding a HooP capacitor does not negate the reversed wiring of the Neck pickup, that is still OoP with the Bridge pup. I suspect that the sound of this combo might be interesting, particularly on a slanted Bridge pickup such as a Tele or a Strat. As I see it, the 3.3nF cap is essentially inhibiting the lower frequencies of the Bridge, which in a straightforward parallel combo would normally be a full-bottomed tone. Here we have an OoP combo, which is already devoid of bottom end, and now it's going to be even further strangled by this cap. For the record, do you have any sound samples you can post for us to listen to? HTH sumgai
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JiM
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Post by JiM on Jun 8, 2014 13:30:07 GMT -5
quite the baroque way of drawing, it made me follow every trace all the way through... no way I could just glance at it and dope it out. Like I said, congratulations. Thanks ! I wanted that schematic to be rather compact, maybe it's not the most straightforward way of drawing it. Or maybe i've spent too much time looking at DGB Studio.If it may help, here is an earlier version of that wiring, essentially without the caps: I thought that Series was too bass-heavy, that PooP was too weak, and that Bridge alone was redundant ; hence the final design. But I must offer a correction to your description. The 3-way pup selector in pos 3, with the tone pot switch pulled up is not "Parallel with HooP", it is fully "Out of Phase, with a "strangle" capacitor added across the Bridge". IOW, adding a HooP capacitor does not negate the reversed wiring of the Neck pickup, that is still OoP with the Bridge pup. I thought it was precisely the definition of parallel, half-out-of-phase. The bridge pickup is indeed in series with the 3.3nF cap, that lot being in parallel with the inverted neck pickup : (B*C)-N This equals to subtracting just the treble of the bridge pickup from the neck pickup. You get basically as much bottom end as the neck pickup alone, but strange things happen in the treble range. It feels like a notch in the hi-mids, and maybe some comb filtering as well. It's about as loud as the straight parallel wiring, with a significantly different tone which reminds me of a Strat intermediate position. I'll try to record some samples.
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Post by sumgai on Jun 9, 2014 0:55:50 GMT -5
I thought it was precisely the definition of parallel, half-out-of-phase. Nope, not quite. The term "HooP" refers to a sound or tonality, not to a concept of wiring pickups in a certain combination. Your follow-on description is correct, there are "strange" effects in a HooP setup that sound like a phase reversal in the upper mids and highs, but electrically, a normal HooP is wired positive-to-positive and negative-to-negative (in parallel, of course). You've swapped that around to a normal OoP, but with the HooP cap included. That should sound different, to say the least, but I'd expect that the low end would sound much like the Neck by itself, and the upper end to exhibit a unique tonal quality. I wouldn't be the one to guess at what the overall volume would be, but since you're using it, obviously it must be pretty close to matching that of the other combos. Waiting anxiously to hear your sound samples. sumgai
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JiM
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Post by JiM on Jul 10, 2014 14:31:38 GMT -5
I stand corrected. But then, what about those explanations ? sites.google.com/site/kikeysite/1-2-out-of-phase-telecasterguitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/5176/half-out-phaseThey seem pretty much "in phase" with what i thought. It took me a looong time, sorry. Here it is : telecaster.mp3 (615.03 KB) The same-ish riff is played six times, each with a different pickup combination: - Neck
- Parallel, Half Out Of Phase
- Parallel
- Bridge, High Pass
- Bridge
- Series
It's recorded straight to the soundcard, without effects nor processing. In this sample the difference between 2 and 3 is rather subtle, but definitely there if you listen closely. Maybe i should have played something else, or with a crunchy sound. Likewise the Series sound, while louder, does not seem as fat as in real life.
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Post by sumgai on Jul 10, 2014 17:51:19 GMT -5
JiM, I see the underlying problem here. Indeed, you have put the Neck out of phase with the Bridge, but you then added a so-called "strangle" cap in series with the Bridge. Normally, that cap would give us what we call HOoP, but with that now reversed-polarity Neck pup in the picture.... well, suffice it to say, we need to come up with a better terminology. Might I suggest: "270 degrees out of phase", or in short: 270oP? Actually, that doesn't roll of the tongue so easily. Anybody got a better idea? sumgai
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col
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Post by col on Jul 11, 2014 19:32:48 GMT -5
Sumgai, it doesn't matter how my times I read your above post, I don't understand.
If I understand correctly, PHOOP is two pups, in parallel, out-of-phase, but one with a cap in series. How's that different from the arrangement under discussion here?
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Post by sumgai on Jul 12, 2014 11:43:49 GMT -5
No col, you hit the problem on the head. Bear with me here, please. In point of fact, HOoP is the addition of a capacitor to one pickup, but not both. The point being, as I said above, HOoP is a term used to describe a tonal quality, and does not describe the electrical phasing between two (or more) pickups. And yes, as stated in previous threads, we're speaking of 'instantaneous signal phase relationships' here, not phase-shift as introduced by the capacitor. (Nor by the pickup coil itself, for that matter.) Everything boils down to this: as is the custom of many/most/damned-near-all lay people when confronted with something new, the English language was abused. The word "phase" was press-ganged into service to describe the relationship between two pups. It suffices, and it's close enough, although incorrect in the most technical terms.* But to attempt to change the course of the stream now, that'd be a rather gargantuan effort, I'm sure you'll agree. I'm inclined to let sleeping dogs lay, and all that. The problem at bar is this: the term Half Out of Phase was, again, coined by a lay person to describe what he (or she?) was hearing as they added a cap to one of the pups. It sounded close enough to them, so they thought "what the hey, why not call it....", and here we are, "discussing" electronics and language and semantics all over again. As of this point, I'm concerned that using PHOoP mis-represents what's under discussion here. To me, it means that that we have a parallel combination, with a cap added. The same could be said for SHOoP, which is a series combo with a cap across one of the pups. Neither term quite introduces the concept of one of the pups being electrically out of phase with the other. OK, do I have a better answer? No, probably not, but let me spring this on ya: How about POoPH (and of course SOoPH)? We add the final H to indicate an additional cap that lends a certain tonal flavor to the mix, but now we know that the cap is being added to an already Out of Phase combo. Do these terms work for you? Anybody else? Comments? Questions? Other suggestions? sumgai * As agreed between myself, ChrisK and others, the proper word that should've been chosen in this circumstance was 'polarity', not phase. Ah, such is life.
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col
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Post by col on Jul 12, 2014 21:24:45 GMT -5
Hi Sumgai, I've had a similar internal conversation about the concept of 'half-out-of-phase', as it is meaningless (the 'half' part in particular). I wondered about introducing 'f' (for filter) into the acronym, but upon reading your post (suggestion of using 'H' - is that for 'half'?), it occurred to me that we might instead use 'C' for 'capacitor'. Using your suggestion (use of 'polarity' instead of 'phase'), the acronyms remain 'SOOP' and 'POOP' (good for consistency) and we can append the acronyms 'SOOP' and 'POOP' with '-C', which should satisfy our inner child: 'SOOP-C' and ' POOP-C'.
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Post by sumgai on Jul 13, 2014 3:27:09 GMT -5
col, Oh Gawd, that's awful! Awful good, that is. Yes, the bit about "half" is totally out of whack, but like I said, I'm not in charge, and I find it hard to believe that I can single-handedly change everyone else's thought patterns to fit my personal world-view of how things should be. Also, the "H" suffix was indeed intended to denote "half out of phase cap added", and I though it was rather clever to sound out the acronym "poof" (even if "soof" didn't have any particular taste (or Mojo) to it). But it is rather more meaningful to use "C" instead, regardless of how one pronounces the acronym. I'd surely go with that, if everyone else does, too. What say, gang - do col's suggested acronyms have merit? sumgai
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Post by newey on Jul 13, 2014 19:33:56 GMT -5
Yes, the term "HOOP" has indeed been bandied about hereabouts, and not always clearly defined. But I'm not sure more acronyms is going to help the situation.
Maybe we need an unpronounceable symbol, like Prince had for a while (at least until his record company said: "Ah, former Prince, how are we supposed to market it if we can't pronounce it?").
Or do what other branches of science do- use a Greek letter. We can simply say that "two pickups with one partially bypassed by a cap" is called the "theta effect" or some such, and abbreviate it as "θ".
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col
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Post by col on Jul 13, 2014 20:37:02 GMT -5
If I were devising a syntax for guitar wiring, I think I would start with something like this:
[pu.B-c.]||p.N
'-' denotes a series connection; '||' a parallel connection.
pu. (Pick Up), po. (Potentiometer), c. (Capacitor) denote component types; N, M, B, V (Volume), T (Tone) capital letters to denote specific components; numbers to denote more generic, but specific components (such as capacitors in a more complex tone system).
It would be more complicated than this, as we would need to deal with pot wipers, coil taps, and maybe some other intermediate connections (which do not immediately spring to mind). I can't imagine there would be a great deal of interest in devising a (near) complete syntax. But I think there would be even less interest if we were to use Greek letters (not least because they are not immediately accessible through a keyboard).
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Post by JohnH on Jul 14, 2014 4:39:58 GMT -5
Acronyms are not much use unless they are simple, easy to say, and not rude ("heh..heh...!..he said poop...")
On that basis my suggestion would be to reserve these ones just to express series or parallel, and in or out of phase, dropping one if the 'O's for tbe word 'of'. Hence we would have SIP, PIP, SOP and POP.
Extra less common features would be explained a bit more verbosely eg SIP with bypass cap..etc
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col
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Post by col on Jul 14, 2014 13:44:53 GMT -5
Agreed, John.
And in any case, a schematic will always work better for anything that is not immediately understandable through a simple, widely understood acronym, or a sentence or two of explanation.
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