WOW!! Thank you all for the quick responses!…and your time to do so! I know you all must be very busy…I know how busy I am…and to take the time to respond with this kind of detail takes time…many thanks!!
And sorry for the “wire it tonight” comment…didn’t mean to come off pushy…when I got home yesterday the last of the parts I’ve been collecting for nine months had arrived. To say I was a little excited would be the understatement of the month!
Great advice…all three. I’ll put your suggestions into practice…many sound like best practices no matter what I’m trying to accomplish.
Sumgai –- Thanks for your input, and the best practice suggestions.
- When you break down a project into smaller parts, do you complete them to the point of plugging the guitar in and operating the mod to confirm. Or, do you test with multimeter, and
or connect work to a test circuit and tap on pups, etc…?
- Love the “Truth Table”…at your leisure can you send me a link to an example?
- Again sorry for the “wire tonight” comment. I didn’t mean for it to sound rude…
which isn’t what you’re saying but now that I think it through it could be misinterpreted that way…was just excited, began to prep the wiring job and realized I was going to need help to combine the mods I wanted to Wolf’s circuit.
Newey – - Series Parallel Switch
- You’re correct…DT4P was a typo. The switch is 4TDP, which I believe is the switch used in Wolf’s drawing on 1728.org. My understanding of that switch being present in the circuit is
the ability to have whichever pickups are on at the time working together in either series or parallel.
* Is that correct?
- Dedicated Phase Switch – Humbucker
- The CTS push/pull is “intra-pickup”. I want to be able to have the humbucker on by itself, and have the option of its own coils be in/out of phase with each other.
- Conflicting data regarding bridge tone pot
- Sorry for the confusion on this one. I guess what I’m referring to, and I hope I’m communicating this correctly, is independent tone control when multiple pups are
engaged. Some references that address this topic indicate that when two tone knobs are wired in circuit it results in both controlling the entire load rather than effecting the pups
they're intended to effect independently. I guess this would make sense…so my questions then would be…
* Are these references just talking about standard strat wiring?
* If so, is there a way to wire the tone pots so each only effects the pickup it’s intended to control?
**E.G. – have the ability to roll off some of the treble on the bridge pickup without effecting the tone of the neck pup when both are engaged.
- Redundant Functions
- What I intended here is exactly what you’re addressing.
- Knowing that the foundation of my configuration is based on Wolf’s drawing from
1728.org, and assuming that I would like to have all of the options it offers remain intact…
are any of my
proposed additions to that setup going to basically give me the same tone option as Wolf’s circuit is already providing as is?
*Additions being:
**Humbucker Series, Split, Parallel switch
- Aside from the humbucker providing a different tone than a SC, I envision this switch giving one the ability to mix and match these three humbucker options with the tone
options already available with the SS mod giving the circuit two additional tone options.
**Intra-Humbucker Phase Switch
- Thinking here is to add three additional tone options:
1) Humbucker Series/Out of Phase
2) Humbucker Parallel/Out of Phase
3) Humbucker Split/Reverse phase when other pups engaged
**Series, Split, Parallel Switch
- Thank you for the “Triple Shot” suggestion. It's something I never even considered. I've already spent the money on the parts to wire as proposed
(which in hindsight I should have had this discussion before I committed to buying any of the electronics for this guitar…note to self for next guitar) so I will initially try it as is, but will keep it in mind as an
option as this goes together and for future mods.
John H. –Thank you John. Keeping Wolf’s circuit intact, and simply adding the few options I’m proposing is exactly my intention. Your guidance to accomplish this is appreciated and necessary!
- The order of how to add these additions is exactly what I need! I think I understand your direction regarding where in the circuit to put the tone pots, and will implement.
* Can you please expand on your comment “that way they will remain independent when possible”?
** Is this referring to the third item above in my reply Newey’s questions?...or similar.
** Any education you can provide would be appreciated!
- Many thanks for sharing your earlier wiring of the similar setup.
* Do you still have a guitar(s) wired this way?
** Do you like how they work?
- When you say “simpler version of his” do you mean the amount of work done to wire it, or the way it operates the instrument once completed?
- One of the reasons I want to try Wolf’s drawing is due to my past experience with the super strat mod. I have another guitar wired SS style, but using the instruction given by Brea
Tone Works on YouTube. The circuit works fine, and there are less parts than Wolf’s circuit, but it seems more complicated to use than I’m imagining Wolf’s drawing to be
once
completed. Obviously, I’m just guessing, as I’ve never experienced Wolf’s circuit in application...I guess that mystery will be solved soon.
**This is probably a stupid comment as I imagine it applies to everyone, but I want as many options as I can get, and have them as easy to use as possible when playing
the instrument. At the end of the day my intention is to discover the tones I truly enjoy, and will actually use, then create a mod that allows for those tones wired in a
way that is as simple as possible to use.
***I almost deleted this entire section…duh…of course that’s what you want!! HA!! I guess ain’t nothing free in life…have to go through it all for myself to figure it
out for sure.
Anyhow, again I want to thank the three of you for replying. I’ve been in the music industry for nearly thirty years now, and rarely encounter a community so open to sharing ideas and helping one another, and in this case a complete stranger and newbie to the wonderful world of guitar modification, and I want you to know that I am truly grateful.
Please don’t hesitate to throw anything else out you think might be helpful to me regarding this project, or anything in general (i.e. reading materials, YouTube videos, exercises, etc…) that would be beneficial in helping me understand these circuits better. Every time I think I understand the signal flow of one…I soon discover that I don’t understand $h!+.
Respectfully, JW
jdub,
Hi, and welcome to The NutzHouse!
As it happens, I need to keep this short, though not so sweet. In a nutshell, everything you envision can be done, all on one guitar, but I must tell you that I question the wisdom of doing so. I think you're going to find more than a bit of overkill (near-similar tones) with this rig.
That said, your diagram needs work. Because of my time constraints, I'll stop at one error: your Neck/Middle tone control is always in the circuit - there's no switching it away from the signal, at least not as you currently show it.
An additional "what the...." moment comes from looking at your Bridge tone control/switch setup. I see too many switch contacts, hence I can't determine what's supposed to happen here. Maybe I'm not reading it the way you intended for a reader to interpret it, but I think there's either "too much information" or else you did some heavy editing, and sort of "forgot" that part about cleaning up afterwards.
Some things to consider, before you start drawing up a new diagram:
1) Large projects go much easier when broken down into smaller parts. Break down the entire job into small chunks that can be easily designed, and then vetted for possible errors. For example, take a pickup and add the phase switch - that's the kind of small chunk that I'm talking about. Add chunks together as they are tested and found to be error-free.
2) Implement a feature we call a "Truth Table". This will tell everyone what your guitar does as you manipulate each switch. (Or what it's supposed to do.....) A truth table can be done as a simple drawing in your main diagram, but it's easier to read if you describe it in text form, in your posting. A nice touch is to include position markers (up or down) and terminal numbers (1, 2, etc.) There's no standard here, make it up as you go, but try to be complete - referencing a terminal in the Truth Table that has no mate on the diagram, that's Excedrin Headache #5.
3) We're here to help, but these things take time, especially over the Internet. If you need it tonight, then I'm sorry, but that's not gonna happen. The NutzHouse members come from all over the planet (literally), and each of us is concerned about you getting a working design, make no mistake about that. But we do have daily lives, so again, this will take more than a few "quick moments".
PUNT! The ball's in your court.
sumgai