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Post by christophmcguire on Aug 13, 2023 17:53:16 GMT -5
Ok,
This is what I've got going on
3 pickups
Single coil and neck position
Humbucker Middle
Humbucker bridge
Each has an on/off/on switch
For the single quail it will be on off and out of phase
Then for each humbucker it will be on off single coil split coil.
And a master volume
Now the tricky part is my client wants to have an independent tone for each pickup and I don't know where in the flow chart to put the tone and keep it independent .
Any insight would be more than welcome!
Thanks much! Rock n roll
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Post by newey on Aug 13, 2023 19:46:32 GMT -5
Now the tricky part is my client wants to have an independent tone for each pickup and I don't know where in the flow chart to put the tone and keep it independent . Define "independent"  I'm reading a master volume with three tone pots, one per pickup? There will be potentially two issues. First, there will be some degree of interaction between the tone pots. Second, in settings where you have all three pickups in parallel, you'll have 4 pots in the circuit which may muddy things up with that setting. Life gets much easier if it's 2 tones and a master volume, but a decision to forego a tone pot on one of the pickups would have to be made. |
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Post by christophmcguire on Aug 13, 2023 20:13:03 GMT -5
I have a switch ( on-off-on) for each pickup , ideally the client would like to be able to control the tone for each pickup individually with a master volume so 3 switches and 4 pots total .
Single coil telecaster texmex at the neck ,
Semore DuncanJB humbucker Middle .
Rail hammer humbucker bridge.
I told him it may not be possible to isolate the tone control for each pickup especially in series.
Would it be different with them in parallel treating them as if they are all single installs?
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Post by christophmcguire on Aug 13, 2023 20:16:37 GMT -5
I could have a tone* that would work for 2 of the pickups ( middle and bridge) and one for the neck with a master volume ...so 3 pots total ... The seems more reasonable I think
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Post by newey on Aug 13, 2023 21:49:02 GMT -5
I told him it may not be possible to isolate the tone control for each pickup especially in series. You hadn't mentioned any series connections (well, the coils of the HBs are wired together in series, but that's not what you meant, presumably). If you select two pickups, each having a separate tone control, and both are coupled through a master volume pot, then turning either tone control will affect both the pickups- because all three pots are wired in parallel. There's not really any good way around the interaction, but then to some people it may not really matter much. |
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Post by kitwn on Aug 14, 2023 18:23:24 GMT -5
Well, you could get full isolation between the tone control by going active. Pickup, tone control, buffer amplifier, virtual-earth mixer to combine the three. Dual pots would give fully isolated and separate vol & tone for each pickup with what looks from a distance like the conventional three knobs.
That might be a bit 21st century for some tastes though.
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Post by malicemcguire on Aug 15, 2023 0:34:45 GMT -5
Well, you could get full isolation between the tone control by going active. Pickup, tone control, buffer amplifier, virtual-earth mixer to combine the three. Dual pots would give fully isolated and separate vol & tone for each pickup with what looks from a distance like the conventional three knobs. That might be a bit 21st century for some tastes though. Virtual earth mixer sounds neat! I don't totally understand how it works, but it seems cool from what I'm reading ..... Interesting very interesting.. |
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Post by newey on Aug 15, 2023 5:30:24 GMT -5
What kitwn is suggesting gets pretty complex. And, an active circuit inside a Strat-type guitar usually entails sacrificing the tremolo so that the battery can reside where the springs were, or requires some enlargement of the control cavity to accommodate things. Depends on how involved you want this to get. So, the way this would get wired is that the bridge pickup's tone pot gets wired "across" the bridge pickup, before the pickup switch. The neck/middle tone pot would get wired after the switches for those pickups, but before the master volume. The downside is that the middle/neck tone will always be in circuit, so it will affect the bridge pickup as well when the bridge is selected by itself. A common Strat mod is to switch the middle pickup tone pot to the bridge pickup, so that you have tone for neck and bridge but none for the middle pickup. On a regular Strat, this means no interaction between the tones because one never has N + B pickups with the regular Strat wiring. With your scheme, there would still be interaction if N + B is selected. Another option would be to use a dual-gang pot for the volume control, this would at least isolate the bridge pickup when selected by itself. |
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Post by sumgai on Aug 15, 2023 13:57:23 GMT -5
Christof, First, Hi, and  to The NutzHouse!  Let's get back to the basics here. Does your customer intend to have series combinations only, or does he/she want to be able to have parallel combos as wells as series combos? In another thread, I've outlined almost exactly what would work well for you, should you decide to 'dial back' to 2 tone controls (and the master volume). In that one, the posting member ( vince20) wants the Middle and Bridge to be controlled by a single tone knob. Where I went 'sideways' was to use the three DPDT slide switches found in his Jaguar to implement the third (newly installed Middle) pup, yet I was able to isolate them such that when either the Mid or the Bridge is selected alone, the other is not in the circuit. This can be a problem that stumps many a modder, until they start thinking outside of the box.  As with newey's point above, when both tone controls are in the circuit (via the selection of Neck + Mid or Neck + Bridge), the sound (tone) can become a bit less 'bright'. This is an interaction that can't be avoided, short of kitwin's suggestion of active circuitry. But first we need an answer to my question above, what about series versus parallel, etc. HTH sumgai |
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Post by malicemcguire on Aug 15, 2023 20:27:55 GMT -5
Ok first this is the same person who started the thread my phone just keeps using this login...
The series / parallel question .... No preference, was gonna play it by ear so to speak, I welcome advice ..
And I am using a Jaguar switch plate with an on-off-on for each pickup... My most recent thinking was 3 volumes and 2 tones with a master volume at the end of the line .... And I'm thinking middle and bridge to share a tone ...and wiring the pickups to the switch so in the off position they are out of the mix ...I hope that makes sense
...and thank you guys for all the input ...it's pretty awesome
Rock n roll
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Post by unreg on Aug 16, 2023 7:55:01 GMT -5
Do you remember the problem with 4 pots? My most recent thinking was 3 volumes and 2 tones with a master volume at the end of the line .... And I'm thinking middle and bridge to share a tone ...and wiring the pickups to the switch so in the off position they are out of the mix ...I hope that makes sense So, you now want 6 pots? 3 Vol + 1 Master Vol + 2 Tone == 6 pots. So, I guess you will tell your client that he/she can’t switch two pickups on at the same time, to prevent the tone loss present with 4+ pots in circuit? B: 1 Master Volume + 1 Vol + 1 Tone == 3 M: 1 Master Volume + 1 Vol + 1 Tone == 3 N: 1 Master Volume + 1 Vol + 1 Tone == 3 B+N: 1 Master Volume + 2 Vol + 2 Tone == 5 B+M: 1 Master Volume + 2 Vol + 1 Tone == 4 M+N: 1 Master Volume + 2 Vol + 2 Tone == 5 B+M+N: 1 Master Volume + 3 Vol + 2 Tone == 6 If I’ve misread, or combined 2 threads, please forgive me. |
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Post by stevewf on Aug 16, 2023 16:51:58 GMT -5
Nutz, if one or more of the pots were non-grounded in order to avoid the loading, could it be effective, and would it cause problems other than that loading?
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Post by kitwn on Aug 16, 2023 17:50:15 GMT -5
Well, you could get full isolation between the tone control by going active. Pickup, tone control, buffer amplifier, virtual-earth mixer to combine the three. Dual pots would give fully isolated and separate vol & tone for each pickup with what looks from a distance like the conventional three knobs. That might be a bit 21st century for some tastes though. Virtual earth mixer sounds neat! I don't totally understand how it works, but it seems cool from what I'm reading ..... Interesting very interesting.. The virtual earth mixer circuit is the standard op-amp circuit to combine the isolation amp outputs. A pair of dual op-amp chips and some peripheral components would do the whole job, though some people would prefer to put only discrete FET's, if anything, in their guitar for some reason. The circuit board could be tiny but as Dewey points out it's finding room for the battery that's a potential problem. I'm sure I've seen someone manage to squeeze one in between the trem springs of a Strat if you don't want to get the router going but check with the owner first!
Going active is a somewhat radical option and the mere fact of having to put a battery in your guitar to make it go will put off a lot of people.
Kit
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Post by sumgai on Aug 16, 2023 18:01:01 GMT -5
Nutz, if one or more of the pots were non-grounded in order to avoid the loading, could it be effective, and would it cause problems other than that loading? Yes, there will be problems. Without going into all the hoorah and hubbub, what the user sees as a result of using only two terminals is almost no change in volume for a large portion of rotation, and a drastically large change over a very small part of the rotation. What will also change as the pot is rotated is the tonality. Compared to the volume level, this is a non-problem. That is, unless the Woman Tone® is desired. HTH sumgai |
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Post by malicemcguire on Aug 17, 2023 21:07:29 GMT -5
Question about the op amp option ... Would I be able to have the same switches and pots goin on ... I have the space in the guitar it's semi hallow body..I just have no experience with the tech
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Post by malicemcguire on Aug 17, 2023 21:11:57 GMT -5
Can I upload pictures?
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Post by JohnH on Aug 17, 2023 22:01:57 GMT -5
Since it'll have two humbuckers with internal series anyway, I'd doubt that series connection between pickups would add much to the best tones?
With parallel wiring, you can take a tone control direct to the hot wire of each pickup, before any switches, so it gets connected, or not, along with its pickup. The tones are independent to the extent that you could preset say, a muted neck tone and a bright bridge tone, and only one tone pot acts in each of those cases. But if you combine bridge and neck, tone pots get combined too, so then both active tones act on both pickups.
But if it is series wiring that's wanted, you can have independent tones, hard wiring the tone hots and colds irectly across each pickup. Then each only acts on its own puckup in a series wiring between pickup. eg You can mix muted neck bass with full brightness bridge
Culd consider no-load tone pots for both of these scenarios too
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Post by malicemcguire on Aug 18, 2023 13:20:24 GMT -5
Since it'll have two humbuckers with internal series anyway, I'd doubt that series connection between pickups would add much to the best tones? With parallel wiring, you can take a tone control direct to the hot wire of each pickup, before any switches, so it gets connected, or not, along with its pickup. The tones are independent to the extent that you could preset say, a muted neck tone and a bright bridge tone, and only one tone pot acts in each of those cases. But if you combine bridge and neck, tone pots get combined too, so then both active tones act on both pickups. But if it is series wiring that's wanted, you can have independent tones, hard wiring the tone hots and colds irectly across each pickup. Then each only acts on its own puckup in a series wiring between pickup. eg You can mix muted neck bass with full brightness bridge Culd consider no-load tone pots for both of these scenarios too Wouldn't having the tone connected to the hot before the switch give it control of the volume? I'm trying to wrap my brain around what your saying , because it sounds like it may be my solution |
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Post by JohnH on Aug 18, 2023 16:16:52 GMT -5
It'd still be just a tone control So for each pickup, you'd go pickup hot wire to tone pot, tone pot to cap, cap to pickup cold wire (or ground if its all just parallel combos and pickup cold wires are grounded anyway)
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I'm reading a master volume with three tone pots, one per pickup? There will be potentially two issues. First, there will be some degree of interaction between the tone pots. Second, in settings where you have all three pickups in parallel, you'll have 4 pots in the circuit which may muddy things up with that setting.
to The NutzHouse! 
