Wiring Ideas? 2 Humbuckers, 3 potentiometer holes.

[toolatetotheparty]

I have this Warmoth project that I can’t decide what wiring to go with. 2 humbuckers (air Norton + at-1) 3 way lever switch and it has 3 potentiometer holes. I used to have this as a vol, tone and kill switch but I got tired of that. Not really a fan of coil splitting so it’s a no on that. Any other ideas? Back up plan would be vol, vol, tone. I can solder but as far up coming up with original wiring ideas I am way at the bottom.

[newey]

toolatetotheparty-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Lots of possibilities here. I am going to assume, for starters, that the 3-way lever switch will be used as a regular pickup selector, with both HBs in parallel in the middle position. Are you averse to adding push/pull pots or do you just want to use the components on hand?

Back up plan would be vol, vol, tone.

To avoid wonkiness of the controls, this is best done using a "dual-gang" pot, essentially 2 pots controlled by a single shaft. This is then wired with each pickup having its own half of the dual gang pot for its tone. You wire the controls just like an LP with dual V and T pots.

[toolatetotheparty]

Hello,

I am open to using push/pull pots and switches. Yes the 3 way lever will just be used to select pickups.

Do you mean concentric pots? Sorry I am not so familiar with terminology. If that is the case, I had a Fender Jazz bass that I wired with 2 concentric pots for individual vol/tone and the last hole for the plate was a mini 3 way switch for pickup selection. Loved that setup.

[toolatetotheparty]

I am doing a bit of research and the Passive Bass Treble from G&L looks cool too. Does it have to be a reverse 1Meg Potentiometer for the bass cut?

[newey]

Jan 28, 2024 23:29:51 GMT -5 toolatetotheparty said:

Does it have to be a reverse 1Meg Potentiometer for the bass cut?

No, but that taper works best.

A concentric pot is a pot with two "gangs" (i.e., two resistive elements) with two "nested" shafts, which uses concentric knobs- the inner knob controls one "gang" of the pot, the outer "ring" knob controls the other. You could use concentric pots, certainly, and thus have separate tones for each pickup using just one hole. A dual-gang pot also has two gangs, but both rotate on the same shaft, a single knob controls both.

The problem with a straight V-V-T setup is that, with a master tone after the individual volumes, the controls will interact. When you have both pickups "on", turning either V pot will reduce the volume of both. Separating the tone controls to separate pots (or separate gangs) doesn't totally eliminate the interactions when both pickups are on, but it minimizes the issues.

[stevewf]

As for different options, there's serial/parallel and out-of-phase. Varitone. Bass-cut or PMT. Active electronics.

Serial/parallel could be applied in different ways: how the coils within each Humbucker are related, or how the two Humbuckers are related.
Usually on a Les Paul, within each Humbucker, the two coils are in serial with one another; the two Humbuckers, when combined, are in parallel.
With push-pull switch(es), these can be changed.
If you decide to try the two Humbuckers in series, then you may wish to reconsider coil-splitting, as four coils in series can be pretty heavy. Or maybe that kinda heavy is good.

Out-of-Phase: Back on our "usual" Les Paul, the two coils of a pickup are in phase with one another, and the Humbuckers are in phase too.
Doing out-of-phase with the two coils within the Humbucker produces very little signal, so it's almost never done. But putting the two Humbuckers OoP with one another is more common, and can be done with a push-pull.

You could also try a Varitone type of rotary switch. Tip: get a rotary switch with at least two poles in order to keep the two pickups' tone controls separated, like newey said about concentric or dual-gang pots.

Bass-cut. You could reduce to a single Master volume knob, and replace it with a Bass cut control. Or you could keep the two volumes, and convert the tone knob to a PMT (either bass cut or treble cut, depending on a switch you put somewhere - usually a push-pull on the same knob). Or you could go with a concentric pot and have a treble cut and bass cut at a single control position.

Actives: there are a zillion options. I think they all need a battery.

[toolatetotheparty]

Thank you for the information. I will try the G&L style PBT wiring for now. The out of phase humbuckers seem interesting too.

[gckelloch]

Someone else might know more about this, but I've wired guitars this way:

You could have a master Volume and Tone, and use an A250k blend pot as a series resistance blend in the middle switch pos. Wiring the pickups in series with the blend pot without the other side of the pot connected to the ground offers much better control of the blend sound because the overall output of the blended pickup doesn't drop nearly as much. It won't be completely out of the circuit, but it is more than enough when all the way down and is bypassed in the 1 & 3 switch positions. I'd recommend trying it with the pickups wired OoP, or you can make one of the other pots a P/P to allow either option.

You'd just need a standard 2P3T on-on-on Tele switch to wire that all up. The spring-loaded ones are best.
-Wire the V knob as usual from the jack, and then to both common switch lugs.
-Run a wire from one of the pos 2 Tele switch lugs to one each of the opposing outer lugs on the blend pot. The pickups then connect to one each of the middle lugs of the blend pot as if they are tone knob caps. I'm not sure which outer pot lugs would be correct on the blend, but you can determine by using a V-meter with the blend pot set in the middle. The lugs closer to 25k than 225K are the ones you want.
-Then, just run wires from one of the 1 & 3 Tele switch lugs to either pickup (to where they are attached at the Blend pot). That will bypass the Blend in pos 1 & 3.
-Wire the tone knob from whichever of the unused Tele switch lugs you want it active on. You can even use caps from each lug to the knob, and then wire the output lug to the ground if you want different tone knob peaks for each switch pos. I do that on my guitars. You could also omit the tone knob on pos 2 if it isn't quite bright enough with added R load, or if you just prefer it that way.
-If you use a P/P phase reverse switch, just wire one of the pickups on it after the Blend pot, making sure the pickup chassis ground is separate from the coil and grounded.

While it's true that both pickups would have ~25K R in front of them with the blend pot in the middle, it's also true that the circuit Q (and frequency) increases with the pickups in parallel, so it may not be too dark even with the tone pot attached.

[toolatetotheparty]

Just wired it up with vol and PBT. The bass cut really helps Never really treied i t before. I used a A500k, the C1M seems like a pain to find for body mounted potentiometers. I did see them available at G&L for $12 each. I'll try this tomorrow with my fuzz pedals.