HSH Blend Circuit - Finished Guitar Pics

[dcgit]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum but stumbled across an old thread describing an HHH dual volume guitar wiring diagram:

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/3157/strat-volume-controls-sss-hss

This interests me because I'm building a partscaster and want to incorporate this dual volume control with treble bleed into an existing wiring schematic. Here are two versions of the same wiring diagram I want to use incorporating two different super switches (Ibanez VLX91 and DiMarzio EP1112):












And here's the HHH dual volume control with treble bleed wiring diagram I found here on GuitarNuts:



Does anyone know if I can incorporate the dual volumes + treble bleed into the Tosin Abasi wiring plan? Also, I want to use a push/pull on one of the knobs for the coil split instead of a toggle switch, probably the tone knob. I'm trying to stick with the standard 3 knob + blade switch strat layout. Thanks in advance for any help related to this. My plan is to do this myself if I feel ambitious or to pay someone more skilled to make the wiring harness for me once I have the plan sorted out. Thanks

[thetragichero]

dcgit this was in the live sound and recording section. I've moved it to guitar wiring where it should get more eyes from folks who are able to help

[MattB]

This diagram has one volume control for the neck pickup, which also controls the middle in position 4, and one volume control for the bridge pickup, which also controls the middle in position 2.

It looks like that's not exactly the same as the two volume Strat diagram you posted. To me it makes sense to do it this way because you get individual control over each pickup in every position.

A treble bleed on each volume pot will work fine. I didn't include them because I didn't want to clutter up the diagram.

I think this will work, but it could do with being checked before you try wiring it up.

Dec 30, 2022 20:26:47 GMT -5 dcgit said:

Also, I want to use a push/pull on one of the knobs for the coil split instead of a toggle switch, probably the tone knob.

If you want the coil tap on selections when the knob is pulled up, connect the grey and black wires on the diagram to the two lugs closest to the pot, and the red and green wires to the two middle lugs.

If you want the coil tap on selections when the knob is pushed down, connect the grey and black wires on the diagram to the two lugs furthest away from the pot, and the red and green wires to the two middle lugs.

This diagram uses a dual gang tone control. Bourns sell a dual gang push-pull which should fit most guitars.

Edit to add: The volume controls in this diagram are wired the normal way round. That means turning either volume down to a very low level will also reduce the level of the other pickup.

The alternative option is to wire the volume pots "backwards", with the input going to the middle lug and the output coming from lug three.  That prevents any interaction between volume controls, but it also means you have to turn the control down much further for the same amount of level reduction, which is more of a problem in my opinion.

[dcgit]

Hi Matt,

Thanks so much for this! Also, you solved the problem of which pickups to assign the dual volume to (I wasn't thrilled about that part)! Control over individual pickups in every position is exactly what I was hoping for. I had originally suggested something just like this but was told that it wouldn't work.

Incidentally, are you interested in doing this wiring harness for a fee? I haven't decided if I want to do this myself or pay someone else to do it. I like to solder and can follow a diagram but I might hire someone who knows what they're doing instead.

Thanks again - you've made my day!
dustin

[dcgit]

Dec 30, 2022 23:00:39 GMT -5 thetragichero said:

dcgit this was in the live sound and recording section. I've moved it to guitar wiring where it should get more eyes from folks who are able to help

Thanks!

[dcgit]

Does anyone have any experience with these FreeWay super switches? They appear to be intended for specific pup settings, but it's a slick and stealthy way to split coils if it could be used. I don't like the look of extra toggle switches and push/pulls are a bit impractical, so this is a nice alternative. 

www.solomusicgear.com/product/free-way-5b5-02-5-way-10-position-pickup-switch-for-hsh-hhh-pickups/

www.freewayswitch.com/schematics-blade/

[newey]

We've had a lot of discussion of the 5-way freeway switch but I don't recall anyone with any actual experience with one. They are set up for some specific wirings but can certainly be used for other things.

But for a coil split solution without drilling extra holes, a push/pull is going to be the cheap, easy solution. If you don't loke having to pull up, consider using a push/push pot instead.

[dcgit]

Jan 1, 2023 8:34:10 GMT -5 newey said:

We've had a lot of discussion of the 5-way freeway switch but I don't recall anyone with any actual experience with one. They are set up for some specific wirings but can certainly be used for other things.

But for a coil split solution without drilling extra holes, a push/pull is going to be the cheap, easy solution. If you don't loke having to pull up, consider using a push/push pot instead.

Thanks for this advice - I hadn't considered a push/push switch. Also, I think this wiring harness is something I'd like to hire someone to do for me as it's a bit complicated.

[reTrEaD]

Dec 31, 2022 15:41:23 GMT -5 dcgit said:

www.freewayswitch.com/schematics-blade/

Free-Way has some resources on their site for various switches they make. It's sort of a mixed-bag. Very nice in terms of providing maps of the pickup selections in the various switch positions for several wiring schemes they propose but sorely lacking documentation on the internal switch conductivity for each position. Good if you find one of their diagrams that suits your needs. Bad if you want to get creative.

[dcgit]

Jan 1, 2023 14:01:17 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

Dec 31, 2022 15:41:23 GMT -5 dcgit said:

www.freewayswitch.com/schematics-blade/

Free-Way has some resources on their site for various switches they make. It's sort of a mixed-bag. Very nice in terms of providing maps of the pickup selections in the various switch positions for several wiring schemes they propose but sorely lacking documentation on the internal switch conductivity for each position. Good if you find one of their diagrams that suits your needs. Bad if you want to get creative.

This was my impression as well. I tried to like the pickup selection options that they have on offer in their schematics section, but each seems to lack something that I want. I wrote their technical department and asked if an alternative wiring diagram could be acquired for a fee; I was told, "...a mini-toggle switch could be reassigned to switch the centre position in the lower bank from neck & bridge humbuckers (as shown) to neck & bridge coil split." (Schematic A1, 5B5-02 Switch)

[stevewf]

Jan 1, 2023 8:34:10 GMT -5 newey said:

We've had a lot of discussion of the 5-way freeway switch but I don't recall anyone with any actual experience with one. They are set up for some specific wirings but can certainly be used for other things.

The "pinouts" of the Freeway blade switches appear in one such discussion here: guitarnuts2.proboards.com/post/101823/thread.

I agree with some posts above here: If you like any of the wiring schemes offered by the manufacturer, the Freeway switch can be a smooth solution... but if you want to customize the switch's function, that's difficult.

[MattB]

Dec 31, 2022 13:26:04 GMT -5 dcgit said:

Hi Matt,

Thanks so much for this! Also, you solved the problem of which pickups to assign the dual volume to (I wasn't thrilled about that part)! Control over individual pickups in every position is exactly what I was hoping for. I had originally suggested something just like this but was told that it wouldn't work.

Incidentally, are you interested in doing this wiring harness for a fee? I haven't decided if I want to do this myself or pay someone else to do it. I like to solder and can follow a diagram but I might hire someone who knows what they're doing instead.

Thanks again - you've made my day!
dustin

Thanks, I'm glad I could help. My soldering skills are ok, but I'm not really at a point where I would be comfortable charging for work.

[newey]

dcgit-

You can do this. Wire, solder, pots etc are cheap, if you screw something up, you're not out a bunch of $$. If you are weak on soldering skills, practice soldering/desoldering on some old radio parts or whatever. There are a ton of YouTube videos to help with technique.

A "third hand" device is recommended, you'll avoid a lot of frustration with one. Also recommended is to cut a cardboard template to the size of your cavity, with appropriate holes for the pots, switches, etc. You can then use the template for soldering, and when your done you just remove the completed harness from the template and drop it into the guitar, just have to wire the jack leads at that point.

However, everyone has their comfort level; if this is beyond yours, you can certainly find someone to do it for you.

[dcgit]

Jan 2, 2023 9:25:41 GMT -5 newey said:

dcgit-

You can do this. Wire, solder, pots etc are cheap, if you screw something up, you're not out a bunch of $$. If you are weak on soldering skills, practice soldering/desoldering on some old radio parts or whatever. There are a ton of YouTube videos to help with technique.

A "third hand" device is recommended, you'll avoid a lot of frustration with one. Also recommended is to cut a cardboard template to the size of your cavity, with appropriate holes for the pots, switches, etc. You can then use the template for soldering, and when your done you just remove the completed harness from the template and drop it into the guitar, just have to wire the jack leads at that point.

However, everyone has their comfort level; if this is beyond yours, you can certainly find someone to do it for you.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I do have experience soldering and have all the related tools (even heat shrink and a heat gun), however this is more complicated than the usual custom cable or speaker installation that I'm typically up to. Perhaps I'll give it a go, although I'm not so sure about which parts to buy. 

[dcgit]

Dec 31, 2022 4:17:34 GMT -5 MattB said:

I think this will work, but it could do with being checked before you try wiring it up.

Matt - are you fairly confident about this wiring diagram? I'm not sure how I would check your work before I get into this. I don't know enough about electronics.  

[cynical1]

Jan 2, 2023 13:23:08 GMT -5 dcgit said:

...although I'm not so sure about which parts to buy...

I had a similar reaction the first time I had a good design...but only saw lines on paper with no idea where to find all those circles and shapes...This is typically a point of confusion or consternation when you start down the rabbit hole of custom guitar or bass wiring. Wait until you try rotary switches...

Digi-Key, Mouser, Guitar Electronics are all good places to source parts. They all have good search functions on their sites and will have everything you need...granted, at a few of them you'll only use 3-5 pages of the 900+ pages that may be in the their catalog...

I always made a list of the values of components, then went looking for someone who sold it.  Price is typically the first thing everyone looks at, but you may find you can get a higher quality component from the big supply houses at the same price, or less, than the more "urban legend" suppliers.

I may not be your first choice with spec questions, but there is a lot of empirical knowledge here and most of us have already found a good source for oddball parts.

To paraphrase the late chrisK, "...it's low voltage...experiment".

Enjoy.

HTC1

[dcgit]

href="https://www.digikey.com/"]Digi-Key[/a], Mouser, Guitar Electronics are all good places to source parts.

Thanks, I very much appreciate the help and goodwill to be found on this forum!

[cynical1]

Jan 2, 2023 19:21:13 GMT -5 dcgit said:

I very much appreciate the help and goodwill to be found on this forum!

Thank you. We like to think of this as the adult side of the Internet.

HTC1

[newey]

Jan 2, 2023 13:45:49 GMT -5 dcgit said:

Matt - are you fairly confident about this wiring diagram? I'm not sure how I would check your work before I get into this. I don't know enough about electronics.  

MattB means for one of us to double-check it. I haven't had the chance to do so yet, perhaps tomorrow, or if anyone else wants to jump in?

[MattB]

Jan 2, 2023 13:45:49 GMT -5 dcgit said:

Dec 31, 2022 4:17:34 GMT -5 MattB said:

I think this will work, but it could do with being checked before you try wiring it up.

Matt - are you fairly confident about this wiring diagram? I'm not sure how I would check your work before I get into this. I don't know enough about electronics.  

I'm pretty sure it will work. There's always a chance I made a dumb mistake somewhere but I've had another look and it seems fine. When I first drew it up I hadn't checked every position- I made changes to the original that should logically work, assuming the original diagram was correct and worked how I thought it did. I've checked every switch position now and I don't see any errors.

Also, don't let my reluctance to do the job put you off trying it yourself. I'm sure I could solder this up and make it work. The hard part for me is getting everything neat and tidy, with the right amount of slack on the wires and everything secured nicely and so on. 

[Yogi B]

Jan 2, 2023 22:25:57 GMT -5 newey said:

MattB means for one of us to double-check it ... if anyone else wants to jump in?

Two things jump out at me.

First is an easy fix, each half of the dual gang tone pot should use its own cap to prevent signal bleeding between the two halves as they're turned down.

The second requires more thought: in addition to the usual dependent volumes problem, both volumes are connected to the output jack even at the outer positions when only one pickup is selected, thus the 'inactive' volume will still load & eventually kill the signal as it's reduced. Though, again, "backwards" wiring (which I also recommend against) would fix the signal killing problem, you'd still have both volumes & both tones in the circuit contributing unnecessary loading.

[sumgai]

Jan 3, 2023 2:25:13 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

you'd still have both volumes & both tones in the circuit contributing unnecessary loading.

Translation: you'd be making the output tone even more muddy than it already is to start with. I'd guess that's probably not your most desired scenario.

Suggestion: investigate ways to put the switching between the controls and the output jack, thus removing the unselected pickup's associated controls from the final output circuit when not needed.

---

Generalized note:

In the great majority of cases, with the exception of battery-powered active pickups, three or more pots (controls) of any value will "load" the output signal to an untenable degree. By this we mean that the resulting tone will lose some of the higher frequencies. That load results from a combination of factors, but the resistive element of a pot is a key contributor here. Overall, the circuit becomes a treble-cutting one, and the output tone will show the results. Again, not usually the desired outcome.

This problem is exacerbated with humbuckers, which are already laden with tone-killing inductance, an unavoidable consequence when using two coils instead of one. There are cases where the user might want to "tame" the bright output of single coil setups, we've discussed such on these pages in the past, but for Hb pups, you want all the help you can get in putting out the best tone possible. The best answer, short of active electronics, is to keep the number of pots down to as few as possible.



tl;dr:

The more controls (pots) in a circuit at any given time, the greater the loss of higher frequencies. It's Ohm's Law, and I have yet to hear of anyone successfully escaping it.

HTH




sumgai

[dcgit]

Perhaps a better solution would be three individual volume knobs - one volume per pup and no tone control, would that solve the problem? If my original plan is untenable, I can live without the tone knob.

I still prefer the two volume plan to three volumes (even without the tone knob), because there is only ever a maximum of two pickups selected at one time and it's intuitive to have a front and back volume knob to match the front and back pups regardless of which pups are selected. Most likely, depending on which combination of two pups is selected, only one volume will be attenuated; the other one will be fully "on". And some blade settings will likely require no adjustments to volume and both will be kept fully on. The intention is to be able to tweak the balance or add a bit of a second pup to the predominant one. For example, I like to use both humbuckers together and roll the volume off slightly on the neck humbucker.

In the three volume and no tone scenario, does a volume knob noticeably affect the tone of the pup when fully clockwise/"on"? What about the two volume, no tone scenario?

I have a great little octal tube amp that has true bypass switches for the reverb and EQ sections because of what you're describing here. The builder claimed that the volume on this amp is essentially a true bypass when set fully clockwise, but that may be unusual.

[newey]

Jan 3, 2023 13:05:07 GMT -5 dcgit said:

In the three volume and no tone scenario, does a volume knob noticeably affect the tone of the pup when fully clockwise/"on"?

If a pot is in the circuit, it's loading the circuit whether it is turned down or not. Ideally, you'd want to use some switching to take the extra pot out of the circuit when not in use.

One of my long-delayed projects (I have the pickups/pickguard wired up, I just need a body and neck to put it into) is a Strat with 3 volumes, one per pickup, and no tone controls (since I usually set my tone at the amp anyway). On mine, each pot has an on/off switch to turn the pickup on or off, so there is no 5-way selector, just an on/off for each pickup. If all 3 pickupss are turned on, I'll have the loading problem sumgai describes, but it is wired such that, whan one of the pickups is off, its pot is out of the circuit (i.e., the pot is wired before the switch). So, if I'm using one pickup, only one pot is in the circuit; if I'm using 2, then 2 pots.

[Yogi B]

Jan 3, 2023 13:05:07 GMT -5 dcgit said:

I still prefer the two volume plan to three volumes (even without the tone knob), because there is only ever a maximum of two pickups selected at one time ... only one volume will be attenuated; the other one will be fully "on".
...
The intention is to be able to tweak the balance or add a bit of a second pup to the predominant one.

To me that sounds like you'd be better served by a centre-detented blend control (plus the usual master volume), rather than two volumes. Is that something you'd consider?

[dcgit]

Jan 4, 2023 4:05:58 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

Jan 3, 2023 13:05:07 GMT -5 dcgit said:

To me that sounds like you'd be better served by a centre-detented blend control (plus the usual master volume), rather than two volumes. Is that something you'd consider?

The problem with passive blends, as I understand it, is that when you have an equal split of two pickups, you're not getting 100%/100%, but rather 50%/50%. Then you get a volume jump as you roll the knob in favour of one of the two pickups, and fully clockwise or counterclockwise results in 100% of one pickup. It's better to have two volumes - one per pickup - than one passive blend knob. That way you get a full 100%/100% when both volumes are fully up, which sounds way better in my experience than 50%/50%. Unless I'm missing something about these blend circuits...(?)

Besides, for me, one pickup volume will remain at 100% while the other one is attenuated to control the blend, so I'm still only dealing with one knob. The tricky bit (I think..?) is having the circuit set up so that the two volume controls get reassigned to whatever pickups are currently selected by the blade switch. (I think I'm fine with no tone control.)

I had a similar problem related to blend devices when I tried to find a *true* crossfade device to use for the dual-source pickup systems in my acoustic guitars. I use mic & pickup combinations; sometimes with effects on the pickup, and wanted to be able to control the blend of the two pickup sources with a single "toe knob".  With some difficulty, I eventually found a couple of guitar pedals that would do exactly what I wanted, but these are powered devices - the passive stuff I tried always failed to deliver because of the issues I mentioned above.

[dcgit]

Based on the discussion here, I'm thinking I'd like to simplify my original plan slightly by omitting the tone knob - so just the two volumes + blade switch + coil split:

- DiMarzio Tosin Abasi HSH wiring plan/pickup selections 
- Two Volume Knobs that will control whichever two pups are currently selected by the blade switch
- Volume Two nearest the blade switch will be a push/pull for coil splitting
- Treble bleeds on both volumes
- No tone Knob

Someone told me that there is an issue with the wiring diagram Matt provided in that if one of the volumes is down all the way it will cut the signal for all the pickups. Yogi and Sumgai pointed this out as well.

Is this two-volume plan unfeasible? Should I just use three volumes, one per pup? As I mentioned before, I prefer the two volume plan because there are only ever a maximum of two pups in use at any given time; it's simpler to have a front and back knob assigned to the front and back pups, especially for adjustments in the midst of a performance. Additionally, as Sumgai said, "three or more pots of any value will load the output signal to an untenable degree". I can see now why most HSH guitars have just a master volume and master tone. 

Thanks again to everyone who has offered advice!

[newey]

The problem with passive blends, as I understand it, is that when you have an equal split of two pickups, you're not getting 100%/100%, but rather 50%/50%.

ChrisK on Blend versus pan pots

Someone told me that there is an issue with the wiring diagram Matt provided in that if one of the volumes is down all the way it will cut the signal for all the pickups. Yogi and Sumgai pointed this out as well

Yes, but people have been playing LPs and SGs with 2 humbuckers and separate V and T pots for decades without much complaint. Some use the so-called "'50'd wiring" of the controls which does alleviate this issue, but causes wonky volume performance. As reTrEaD once said, the cure is worse than the disease in this case.

[dcgit]

Jan 4, 2023 16:37:55 GMT -5 newey said:

ChrisK on Blend versus pan pots

Thanks for this - I have mistaken a blend pot for a pan pot

[dcgit]

I'm stalled out on this. Maybe two volumes and three pups is just not a great way to go. (dammit Jim, I'm a guitarist, not an electrician..!) I'd rather be practicing; maybe it's time to pass this off to some professional to sort out! Maybe a center dented blend is the better choice here as suggested by Yogi. I don't know, and where can these be acquired if it is? They seem difficult to source.