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Post by JohnH on Apr 23, 2024 1:37:43 GMT -5
I think it's a great idea! The inductance of most pickups is right in the range that can have a nice effect in a mid-shaper or Varitone circuit. And being a pickup rather than just a passive coil, they can contribute to the input signal as well. That could help mitigate the tendency for such circuits to reduce the volume.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 22, 2024 16:06:58 GMT -5
I'm glad you're trying out the treble-bleed recipes and it's good to experiment to find what sounds best for you at the reduced volume that you use. It's also good thst none of them affect the full-volume tone so that is always available.
You may notice that the ones with parallel resistors slow down the pot taper, which personaly I like on a log pot, to make it more controllable turning down.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 19, 2024 15:31:03 GMT -5
Hi David, nice to see you again and sorry to hear about your guitar. Regarding Santellan, it looks like he last posted here 10 years ago, so he may not see the message.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 18, 2024 19:07:36 GMT -5
That on-on-on is a usefully thing! A Gibson-style toggle is good to use, and other than that, most on-on-on's are the mini toggles which are great for tone tweaking but too fiddly for changes while playing.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 17, 2024 16:04:47 GMT -5
hi gdw3 and welcome to GN2. Most probably the switch on your guitar is a simple toggle, with three lugs, as would be used on other HH guitars such as LP's etc? If so, then I think you are right. It's not feasible to add the blender in a simple way without affecting the outer positions. It could likely be done if you could add another switch to engage or disengage the blender, switching between blended and toggle switching. Also, if you can change to a different type of 3-way such as a Telecaster switch. But it's a very different mounting arrangement on the guitar though. The blending pot may be different too. Do those options sound like more than you'd want to change?
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Post by JohnH on Apr 12, 2024 18:49:59 GMT -5
That sounds right. So it's a one-lane path from volume pot through the tone pot , through the tone cap, to ground. Break the path anywhere eg by removing the cap and no treble can bleed away. The no-load pot does this by breaking the circuit as the pot gets to 10, then below 10 its like a normal pot.
My HSS has a single master tone pot which is 250k no-load, and I also have some interesting blending features using what was the second tone pot. I have a 250k volume pot. I find that the 250k no-load is fine, and it gives the full bright disconnected no-load sound the same as a 500k no-load would. As it goes from no load to 250k, it's a very small tone step so I don't feel I need to subdivide it with a 500k. If you found with your cap/no-cap test that it was just a small (but useful) step, then you might conclude the same.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 12, 2024 16:19:51 GMT -5
Hi @thunderroad and welcome to GN2
The usual tone circuits on guitars work by the pot joined end-to-end in series with the cap. This bleeds some treble to ground, reducing the brightness, through the cap and controlled by the pot. So if you remove the cap, the whole thing becomes ineffective.
I like HSS guitars, I think they can be a perfect mixture of tones. There's no right or wrong way to wire them (so long as it works!), but there's always a choice between keeping the brightness in the thick-toned humbucker, vs taming the treble of the singles.
I quite like using no-load pots for treble, that cut out at 10. If you tried without the cap with your bridge tone, apart from the fact thst the pot didn't work, what did you think of the slightly brighter tone? There are ways to have that with no-load pots and still have tone control.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 10, 2024 19:19:29 GMT -5
Its probably an issue that others may recognize, even with other superswitch designs
Any comments from others?
I think, as you have worked out, the superswitch is 'break-before-make' meaning that it disconnects as it leaves one setting to get to the next. Can anyone confirm if this is as usual?
To suppress the crackles, it might help to connect some high-value resistors between lugs or lug to ground, maybe around 5M, but you can try the idea with lower values eg 1M (with small tone affect maybe)
Has anyone tried that?
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Post by JohnH on Apr 10, 2024 17:24:24 GMT -5
Hi shogenThese kind of pops sometimes happen, particularly on designs with a lot of switch contacts. Pieces of the circuit build up some charges while disconnected, and then cause a small pop when they get switched in. It can also be related to atmospheric conditions (e.g. low humidity), and what other electric things like lights, amps pc's etc are around. Does it happen in all modes? and is it when operating the 5 way, and/or when operating the 4pdt? or between certain modes or settings? Can we assume that each setting really is working as intended in the design? Sometimes these issues can be alleviated by putting some very high-value resistors within the circuit, to drain these charges but without affecting tone. Also, please note that this and other Phostenix designs are hosted here because we think they are great and worth preserving, but we haven't worked on the designs here on GN2 and in most cases I doubt if our members have built them before.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 10, 2024 15:37:30 GMT -5
I'm hoping after the downsizing, you still have the electric pumpkin? Excuse me, but - electric pumpkin? Sure! Let's just leave that concept floating a while in our imagination, until newey posts us a picture!
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Post by JohnH on Apr 10, 2024 5:51:50 GMT -5
That looks neat! I got one of the Classic Rock ones for my son, from the first series before they had FX. It sounded pretty good through good phones.
I'm hoping after the downsizing, you still have the electric pumpkin?
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Post by JohnH on Apr 9, 2024 16:16:04 GMT -5
Thanks Yogi, now with 50's tone control on Neck, and wiring fixed May I ask what software you used to create this final version of your schematic? I know you started with pen and paper, but you ended up with this laid out so nicely here. This inspired me to try to play with your schematic based on my new understanding of how Schecter had routed the wires at the factory, but I couldn't find any schematic software that allowed for a five way switch. I've been using a free online tool from Digikey, called 'Scheme-it' . Obviously, they'd love it if working there leads to sales for them of parts. But It's very polite and doesn't push that. Designs are stored on their server, and you can go back and modify designs or adapt them to make new designs. As an amateur I have no problems with letting them store the stuff, and I can work from any machine, even my office laptop which does not allow installing programs. Scheme-it has just enough parts available to represent a guitar schematic, including switches with 2, 3 and 5 poles. For a normal Strat switch with 5 positions but just 3 connection lugs each side, we have to work with what is available and just allow for positions 2 and 4. Once its done, you can create and download a graphic in various formats including pdf to make a local copy. Sometimes I make a copy and then bring it into MS Word or a graphics program to add more annotation or colours etc. It's easy to edit, move things, copy and paste etc and you can undo edits. Sometimes in deleting a part, it will delete the wires that join to it, which we might not intend. Most of my older diagrams and also layout diagrams I did using simple graphics symbols in MS Word. Link to Scheme-it: www.digikey.com.au/en/resources/design-tools/schemeitYou need to make a user ID, but it doesn't need anything sensitive. There are other free schematic tools, and I tried a few but picked this one for the nice bold and clear diagrams that it makes.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 8, 2024 7:59:05 GMT -5
I wouldn't be sure thst Shekter would necessarily follow SD for n-s coil polarity even if the basic wire colours are matching. But if doesn't matter. Just need to check which wires go to which coil (connect to an amp and tap pole with a screwdriver) or follow what you can work out from the current wiring. Definitely use the coils you want in position 3.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 8, 2024 6:02:54 GMT -5
Well I think my preference is for plastic Cliff jacks or similar. Particularly the stereo TRS type, even for a mono connection. There are three springs giving a nice firm even grip on the plug along its length.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 8, 2024 1:37:52 GMT -5
I'm sorry but I don't have it written out. And there are several parts that combine to make the whole thing. I tend to just go straight in, and verify using a Spice program for some specific test cases.
The main electrical parts are basically a series of sequential voltage dividers, from left to right. If you can grab the very first GF version 1, it's probably the easiest to unpick. It's all based on representing impedances as complex numbers. Resistance is horizontal, inductive reactance is up and capacitive reactance is down. There's a text book needing to be written to fully describe!
Assignment 1: set up a basic RC circuit....
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Post by JohnH on Apr 7, 2024 22:21:21 GMT -5
It all sounds cool and the key thing is that you have a clear opinion based on how you play, of what you'd like this to do.
For that number 3 position, your arrangement is giving you hum-canceling, and that's worth having. That boils down to having a North coil and a South coil. But it doesn't matter which is which. On my diagram I called them Neck (n) at top left, and Bridge (s) at lower right, which mix together for setting 3. But I didn't need to know which was n and s, so long as they are different. All your settings have one of each.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 7, 2024 16:10:00 GMT -5
The schematic type of diagram is the only way I can think through how a circuit works electrically, unless its very simple and standard. It let's you tease out the parts independently of how they will be physically placed, to help visualise the signal flow. Plus for me, I started thinking this way as a teenage electronics nerd in the '70's, and what we learn at a young age is much easier learnt. Also, I have to start with a piece of paper and a pencil in most cases.
But then, transcribing it to a wiring diagram and adding the thinking about where each connection goes physically is an important final step before wiring it up, unless it is simple.
For many circuits, you can assemble the design out of familiar part-circuits or modules. In this case, the obvious starting point for the series-parallel switching is that each pickup would have two poles for this job, because usually that's what they do when this is done with toggle switches. Then you have another pole to switch the output, analogous to basic LP switching. So then there's 5 poles needed and we need to think harder.
The key here is that it's never required to have full series-parallel switching on both pickups at once, and it turns out that one pole can be shared. I dont think we have any hanging-from-hot issues in this one. That's an example of the enjoyable mental leap or light-bulb moment that can make these interesting or frustrating puzzles to solve. For me, it tends to happen (if at all, and much slower these days) over multiple scribbled sketches on paper.
Actually, I'm a structural engineer and I teach design. But in a tricky situation, the same process can apply to finding the solution. I'm really interested in this as an abstract topic. How do other people do this? How about younger folk who grew up and are familiar with more modern design tools than a pencil? Our guitar circuits can be a very nice self-contained toy-box for exploring how design is done in general.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 7, 2024 6:36:46 GMT -5
hi someguyThanks for your interest in GF. It is due for an update, and I haven't done anything major to it in a few years. It does rely on quite a few excel features, mainly for buttons and sliders, but the maths of it is quite simple. Porting it to other systems isn't perfect. But the nearest version that runs on a free software is from GF6.4 where there is a link to a Libreoffice version. Google also has a spreadsheet, but I haven't tried if that might work. Meanwhile, most people who work in offices, or study at colleges etc get access to excel in some form.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 6, 2024 21:32:18 GMT -5
Thanks Yogi, now with 50's tone control on Neck, and wiring fixed
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Post by JohnH on Apr 6, 2024 19:21:20 GMT -5
Here's a diagram which needs a check!
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Post by JohnH on Apr 6, 2024 16:49:11 GMT -5
I think this can be done....
Each pickup has one coil grounded as usual
One switch pole grounds whichever other coil needs to be grounded in a parallel mix.
Two poles take the hot side of each grounded coil to where they need to go, for series or parallel.
Hot side of each pickup goes to its pots
One pole switches the output from each set of VT pots
Will make a diagram...
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Post by JohnH on Apr 6, 2024 3:22:27 GMT -5
We used to worry about such loops here on GN and GN2.
But the usual ground-loop issue between units of audio kit is related to equipment with different grounds, which have very slight voltage differences between them due to stray currents, that then get amplified. They are usually fixed by lifting one ground, or using isolatated/balanced connections.
A guitar has a single ground and there can't be a ground loop.
But the shielding does act as a cage (a Faraday cage? ) around the pickup electronics. I had a shielded cavity, and a shielded pick guard. Due to the wiring, I could have the pg connected to the amp as I assembled them together. While separated, there was a slight, normal amount of hum. But as the cavity and pg shielding touched and connected, there was a crackle, and then much quieter as the cage was completed!
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Post by JohnH on Mar 29, 2024 14:47:55 GMT -5
Yogi's circuit is very clever and gives you the tone settings. It doesn't operate the same as the design intent though and that could be an issue for how you want to use it.
It looks to me that you'll really need to get that on-on-on to get what you seek. I had in mind that this switch would be a 3-position mini-toggle? Actually, just personally I find such switches are too annoyingly fiddly for me to use while playing (ok for presetting an option though)
But another and very viable option is that the extra switch is either another tele switch, or, a Gibson-style toggle (with care to make sure it fits, maybe an SG type). Then you can have exactly what you need with two robust guitar-optimized switches. You could probably put a Gibson toggle to replace one of the three Strat pots.
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Post by JohnH on Mar 28, 2024 14:07:36 GMT -5
hi bpf8hz, thanks for posting. I'm going to say not, even though it's a good intent and worth discussing. The show-stopper for this use is the middle switch setting, in which with a dpdt on-off-on with 6 lugs, nothing is connected to anything. That leads to either the middle, or the 3-way output needing to be hard-wired on. It doesn't matter which order the options are placed, always there's some form of this problem in some position. The easiest (temporary?) workaround is to consider losing the middle-only option, and just use a 2-position switch either to connect the middle to the 3-way, or switch it off to just have the 3-way output. I think many players don't use M, except as part of a combo. (this message will self-destruct when Yogi shows us how to actually do this even though I've said it's Mission Impossible)
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Post by JohnH on Mar 25, 2024 3:56:30 GMT -5
Hi mullardnerd and thanks for replying. If you can handle a few workshop skills , our design will get you a better result for less $. The Marshall forum thread has grown enormously since I posted here , so best to follow the link back there. The basic design is now M2, which has one coil. Hundreds of these have been built. With all stages engaged, it will reduce power by a factor of 1/1400. That's enough to take a 50W amp down to moderate to low TV volume. But it’s surprising how clear and reasonably loud that is. But if you need quieter, you can add more stages based on the three resistive stages and bring it down even lower. But most find it's attenuated enough. Happy to answer questions either here on on the MF.
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Post by JohnH on Mar 17, 2024 4:05:19 GMT -5
I think you have one spare Ge transistor because a BC108 is a Silicon transistor.
It was my favourite transistor for my teenage projects in the 1970's because I had a bag of them. It was part of a series along with BC107 and BC109 (lower and higher gain respectively) and could usually be bought sorted into gain ranges A, B and C (increasing gain). The above is what I remember, those here into pedals will know more accurately.
For images, you can switch to desktop version even on your mobile. Button at lower right.
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Post by JohnH on Mar 10, 2024 12:20:22 GMT -5
My guess would be that the metal backplate messes with the properties of the dummy coil for both its inductance and tendency to pickup up hum. Because of geometry of the coil or its placement or different winding arrangement, the dummy coil is affected differently to the coils which it combines with, plus the pickup coils are not under the plate, Hence the plate is throwing off the balance of them. The Humbucker is OK because they are two equal coils in about the same position and orientation and they are not directly below the plate.
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Post by JohnH on Mar 6, 2024 2:44:41 GMT -5
hi themfruit, welcome to GN2 A similar arrangement to Carls 3x thread should be possible, if you'd like that simple on-off function with the silenced all-off. Can you post a photo that shows where the controls are and also shows the pickups?
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Post by JohnH on Mar 3, 2024 19:14:14 GMT -5
Thanks Carl A wire from the ground (eg back of tone pot) to the Bridge or trem is normal, and will ground the strings by contact.
Yes the yellow rectangle at the tone pot is the tone cap. It can be whatever you prefer, its not really specific to this design but a good starting value, very common, would be 22nF = 0.022uF. It doesn't matter what style/type of cap it is (although some may have opinions!)
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Post by JohnH on Mar 2, 2024 16:19:51 GMT -5
Hi carlbrunstril Here is a wiring diagram, which took a bit longer to get to, but it should be ok I think: I think it respects your design in terms of which control is where, and which direction the switches work. I added a treble bleed to the volume, which is optional. If you want this and are using 500k pots, then I suggest this should be 1000pF(=1nF) in parallel with 150k. Not shown: a wire to ground the bridge and strings. If somebody had a quick check of this diagram it'd be a good idea. cheers John
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