Strat-o-Various for HSS or HH

[reTrEaD]

The circuit is built upon this architecture:
Guitar Wiring Design Tutorial: Strat-o-Various Project pt3

It's meant for HSS or HH.
We can think of the Neck and Middle of the HSS in much the same way as think of the two coils of the Neck HB in the HH. In both cases, the North coil is the neck-most, so in the HH the Neck HB is rotated 180 degrees from the typical orientation. There is only one selection (Position 1) that is not hum-cancelling.  To maximize the number of useful combinations, I skipped doing the bridge pair in parallel.

Because we don't use the SL/Gnd connection in positions 5 and 1, S-Mode results in only a singular path being valid (Hot/Hot).

- I chose to make position 5 a "hum-sing" in Parallel mode and just the neck-most coil in S-Mode.

- Position 4 is Neck and Middle (or the two coils of the Neck HB), in Parallel or Series.

- Position 3 is Neck and Bridge-South (Outers of the two HBs), in Parallel or Series

- Position 2 is Middle and Bridge-North (Inners of the two HBs), in Parallel or Series.

- Position 1 features both HBs (local series) in parallel with each other in the Parallel mode and the Bridge HB in S-Mode.





I hope JohnH , Yogi B , or some other experienced nut(s) will take some time to vet this for me.
EDIT: Thanks John!

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Here's an alternate version that places the three coils in series in S-Mode position 1, although I reckon the original version might be a better choice.

[JohnH]

That seems very good, I traced it through successfully

But obviously, I had to find something! And its a red wire crossing a black wire near the top left switch pole, and a pink crossing a red near the lower right switch pole, without the neat little white gaps!

[reTrEaD]

Aug 26, 2023 15:50:15 GMT -5 JohnH said:

But obviously, I had to find something!

Thank you! I do appreciate your time and attention to detail. I corrected the original diagram and added a second diagram with a slight twist, but I think most will find the original more useful.

[bobeng]

Thank you for this. I was thinking of using this on an HH guitar. But is there an easy way to have only the bridge single coil? I don't mind adding another switch if needed.

[reTrEaD]

Jun 12, 2024 13:24:52 GMT -5 bobeng said:

Thank you for this. I was thinking of using this on an HH guitar.

You're welcome.

This should work well with a HH but I do recommend putting the neck pickup in a non-traditional orientation so the "inners" and "outers" are hum-canceling pairs. Instead of having the screw coils of the neck pickup closest to the fingerboard, the slug coils should be closest to the fingerboard.

Jun 12, 2024 13:24:52 GMT -5 bobeng said:

But is there an easy way to have only the bridge single coil? I don't mind adding another switch if needed.

No additional switch would be needed if you're willing to change one of the existing combinations. For instance, in the #2 position, we have "inners" (Bridge slug coil and Neck screw coil) in series and in parallel. We could make a slight change such that in S-mode, we have only the Bridge slug coil and in parallel we'd still have Bridge slug coil and Neck screw coil.

OR . . .

If it's important for you to keep the inners in series, we can replace one of the other five selections. For instance the hum-sing in position 5.

We'd have the Bridge north coil as a single in S-mode. In parallel we could add the Bridge north coil, which would give us both Bridge coils in parallel (that doesn't occur in any of the other selections. Or we could have Neck south in series with Bridge south added to the Bridge north in the parallel mode.

ALSO . . .

After we've determined the five selections you want to use, we can sequence them in any order you wish.

[bobeng]

Thank you so much for your help. You're amazing. I think I got it figured out. I want inner series more than outer series. But also I want outer parallel more than inner. So in position 3, if I swap neck north and bridge south + connections at the top of the switch, that gives bridge south in series mode and outer parallel in parallel mode. Thanks again.

[reTrEaD]

Jun 14, 2024 21:01:58 GMT -5 bobeng said:

So in position 3, if I swap neck north and bridge south + connections at the top of the switch, that gives bridge south in series mode and outer parallel in parallel mode.

That will give you what you expect but I wonder if there is a better solution. Bridge south is very close to the bridge so the fundamental and lower harmonics will be very weak. This is more thin and brittle than I would want (which is why I suggested having a combination that would result in Bridge north in S-mode single.) But tastes vary so I won't work to discourage you from trying this.