Wiring - Is This Possible ?

[anningan]

Hey, I was recommended this site after asking around about wiring up a guitar I'm building in the next week or two. I've still not completely decided which pickups to put in it, but at the moment it's likely I'll be putting EMG89s in it.

Anyway, I had a few questions about what was possible - these pickups are designed for coil tapping now - I only want two pots on the guitar and a LP style pickup selector. Is it possible to make concentric pots which can also be used as push/pull coil taps thus giving me a tone and volume control for each pickup.

The alternative is omitting the tone control - how much would this affect the guitar? Also - something I've always wondered - is it possible to make a pickup selector using a knob rather than a switch that you could just roll around.

And finally, one last question - I'm thinking about putting in a piezo system eventually and was considering hiding its controls in the control cavity on the back f the guitar - I'm really not a fan of buttons all over the front of my guitar.

Anyway, thanks for any help you can give me.

[JohnH]

welcome anningan

I have not heard of a concentric pot that is also a push/pull switch. It would be very complex to make, but maybe someone else may know of one.

If you omit the tone control, the sound is very similar (a micro-tad brighter) than having a tone control on 10. Alot of people dont use tone controls. On one of my guitars, I dont have them and I dont miss them - - there is always the controls on the amp to twaek the tone.

Instead of a selector toggle switch, you can have a rotary switch with three or more positions. Another alternative is a blender pot from Stewart Macdonald

www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Potentiometers_and_push-pull_pots/4/Potentiometers_and_Push-Pull_Pots.html

Mind you, there is some benefit in the quick change between pickups that you can do easily with a switch.

I dont know about piezos

cheers

John

[CheshireCat]

anningan said:

Anyway, I had a few questions about what was possible - these pickups are designed for coil tapping now - I only want two pots on the guitar and a LP style pickup selector.

First of all, you are not talking about coil tapping, but rather splitting, and the 89's do neither.

Rather, there are two actual pickups in one casing (relatively speaking), and it serves as a dual mode pickup, toggling between either an 85 or an SA, and ergo the usual splitting conventions that you'd use for Duncans, for instance, won't apply here. Therefore, you'd need to use the instructions that come with the 89's and stick with straight ahead DPDT's.

anningan said:

Is it possible to make concentric pots which can also be used as push/pull coil taps thus giving me a tone and volume control for each pickup.

While I've always wondered that myself, and toyed with the idea, the truth is is that that wouldn't really serve you well. You want to keep the controls simple, and sideslammable at that, and the idea of having three contrary controls built into one space would be daunting to say the least. That definitely wouldn't serve you in a live setting.

Also, speaking of which, I'm not really a big fan of vol pots for each pickup. Unless you do some sort of stepped vol setting for each pickup or perhaps a Rhoadian fluttering tremolo or something, then it doesn't really serve you well, and takes up a control space that could be used for something else. Unless it's absolutely necessary, instead look to a master vol pot.

anningan said:

The alternative is omitting the tone control - how much would this affect the guitar? Also - something I've always wondered - is it possible to make a pickup selector using a knob rather than a switch that you could just roll around.

Like JH said, not many people in these here parts use tone controls. I don't. Instead, I use 3-Band EQ, but that's just me. Suffice to say, many regard the tone control as a waste of a perfectly good vol pot.

Also, define "just roll around". You mean like the rotary that JH alluded to?

anningan said:

And finally, one last question - I'm thinking about putting in a piezo system eventually and was considering hiding its controls in the control cavity on the back f the guitar - I'm really not a fan of buttons all over the front of my guitar.

First thing you need to look at is what kind of piezo system you wanted to get. Your best bet would be the GraphTech GHOST Modular Pickup System, with the AcoustiPhonic Preamp. That's about as clean as it gets, and if you ever wanted MIDI in the future, the extra pcboard just snaps in place and you're done.

As far as the controls hidden in the control cavity, that depends. You'll want some basic controls on the face of your guitar, but then this is where using stuff like no tone pots and one master pot comes into play. This is what I mean by freeing up control space that could be used for something else.

Also, another thought: one of the best mods for LP is the Jimmy Page LP Mod, which gives you series/parallel switching, phase inverting, and the afformentioned splitting. Now, with the 89's, you can run them outtaphase because they are EMG's. I.E., they can't run "backwards". However, you can use an EMG-Pi2, which acts as a phase inverter for active pickups.

You could also use an EMG-BTC and an EMG-VMC for 3-Band EQ, which only take up two spaces, and can use any kind of concentric knobs you like.

So, if you were to put it all together, you'd have your regular Switchcraft LP toggle for pickup selection in the upper left bout (in the usual place); two "vol" pots with one being the master mag pot with a push/pull series/parallel selector, and the other being the piezo vol pot with a push/pull darkswitch (which gives tone control to the piezo); two EQ controls (aforementioned EMG circuits); and then a small cluster of mini-toggles in the center of the four control spaces, made up of the two splitters (one for each 89), the Pi2 for phase inverting, and the GT QuickSwitch for switching between mag, piezo, or both.

You'd get all that incredible sound and diversity, without changing the appearance nor playability of your LP, apart from the addition of some rather tasteful, discrete mini-toggles.

Make sense?

Chesh