H/S/H needs proof

[semisolid]

Edit by Semisolid October 23, 2010.

I think I might have made a better version off this design. Have a look at post 9 in this thread.





Hello

Have a design for a H/S/H guitar here, and was just hoping someone would have time to have a look and see if it would work as intended.

It uses a stock strat 5-way and two DPDT switches. One will shunt the buckers. (Know all about the cons of shunting, but will use it anyway in this design) The other will use one pole to connect neck and bridge so they will both be on in pos 1, 2, 4 and 5. The other pole will alter the function of the shunt switch.

The sounds you are supposed to get are these. I will use two push-push pots as my DPDT switches, so V is the volume push-push set to shunt and T is the tone push-push set to neck and bridge connect.




The schematic looks like this. Red is strat 5-way, blue is the shunt and green is neck and Bridge connect. The switches is set to Neck bucker only.



I am also thinking about hawing half series in stead of full shunting of the buckers. Would this design work, or would I have to get another cap? Switches is set to Bridge bucker and neck half series.



Semisolid

[guitarist]

I like what you've done but I can't understand your schematic approach. Anything more "real" looking? Good ideas though, did it work?

[sumgai]

ss,

That's quite a circuit! I'd say someone around here is gonna be building that one soon, just to see what it sounds like.

The only thing I might contribute is about your second iteration, the one with half-series shunting via the capacitor....... When you use a cap for this purpose, it's generally a lot lower in value than a standard tone capacitor. Fender uses a 0.003µf cap in their American Standard Deluxe Strats and Teles for this purpose. Other users have suggested values ranging from 0.0015 to 0.005µf, so you have some experimenting to do, looking for the optimum tone. (That is, optimum to your ears! )

Good luck!

HTH


~!~!~!~!~

And guitarist.......

34 months! Glad to have you back. ;D




sumgai

[JohnH]

Hi semisolid

Nice circuit, but its too early in the morning here to fully check it out, particularly around the blue switch. No problems leap out at first glance however.

On the part bypass caps, Ive been trying them on my LP. I think it is definitely worth having the option to choose their value, and also keep the tone control separate so that it works as normal. I found I liked the neck pickup fully cut to a single coil, and the bridge pickup with one coil bypassed with a 0.047 cap. Its almost a single coil sound, but with some extra weight. One of my favorite settings is both those pickups set like that in parallel, for playing clean parts.

In setting up your coil cuts, have a good think about hum canceling, in terms of which coil you cut out and which other pups you are most interested in combining when both are cut. Depending what you choose, you can have any two of N+B, N+M and B+M single-coil combos as hum canceling, or at least hum reduced.

John

[michaelcbell]

semisolid,

Nice design. After taking a look a little more deeply into your design, it seems everything will work as described, except (maybe) pos 1&2 in the "T" column, being that instead of having two humbuckers in parallel, you really have the first coil of each set in parallel with each other, and the last set of each in parallel with each other, with the two sets in series. To try to make it more clear, number your coils 1-5 across your diagram. In pos 1 you get (1p4)s(2p5) where p=parallel and s=series. I'm sorry I can't seem to make that any clearer right now...

Also, I agree with JohnH (as always) in terms of coil selection and hum reduction. There's no magic formula and no way to do it for ALL your possible combinations, but depending on the combos you use the most often, you CAN optimize it by what orientation/order you hook your pups up.

Happy soldering!

[JohnH]

Michael has given you the tick and I cant see any further issues.

What he's pointing out is because in the 'two Hb in parallel' positions, the two centre-tap connections are linked between the two pups, which would not occur in conventional wiring. I would not worry about that however, since I believe that there will be no effects on sound nor hum.

I'm 99% sure because I'm 100% certain that making that link does not change the overall impedance of the pickup combination, and 98% sure that the contributions from each coil to the overall output are the same.

cheers
John

[guitarist]

Well, I will be one that "will be building that soon." I hope Godin uses that switch type. Of any designs that I have seen, which isn't many, that seems very intuitive yet avant garde.

[semisolid]

Hello all

Thanks a lot for your time and efort. Good input there. Yes, thanks to you I not only understands what happens, but also why. I'm learning here. Great.

I never came around to try it out, as he canges guitars as others changes underwere. the parts he bougt were used in a LP copy he bought after selling the Ibanez. If someone have tryed it out, it would be fun to know if it works al right.

Semisolid

[semisolid]

Hello again.

Some time ago I put out the design in this thread to See if someone would proofread it. Someone did, and it turned out it would work OK, but in the position where I was expecting the double humbucker sound, it would be a crazy mix of series and parallel. Read more about this down this thread. Another minor problem with that design was that it was based on shunting to get the single coil sounds. This can suck some tone out off your guitar.

After installing a push-pull pot and a hotrail in a friends strat, I started tinkering with this design again to see if it was possible to improve it. And I think I might have succeeded.

It still uses a stock strat 5-way and two DPDT switches. One DPDT, the split switch, will split the buckers. The other, the mode switch, will use one pole to connect neck and bridge so they will both be on in pos 1, 2, 4 and 5. The other pole will still alter the function of the split switch, but in another way then in the old design. The split switch will always function on the bridge bucker. But when the mode switch is set to neck and bridge coupled, the position off the 5 way will determined if the neck is bucker or single coil.

I will still use two push-push pots as my DPDT switches. They are genius, you can switch 2 or 3 with the slap off your hand. V is the volume push-push used as the split switch. T is the tone push-push used as mode switch. (neck and bridge connect.) The sounds you are supposed to get are these. There are 17 different sounds. pos 3 on the 5 way will always be middle alone.



And the design itself looks like this.



My friends hotrail was very clever, because it had 6 000 ohm on one coil and 10 000 ohm on the other. This means that you can chose the coil that is most suitable for your needs. Hum canceling is another reason why you would wish to be able to chose witch coil to use. If it turns out that you are left with the wrong coil when you do the splitting of the buckers as shown in this design there are several options.

If you are left with the wrong coil in both buckers, the simple solution is to switch ground and hot connections on all pups. But do remember to do it with all pups, including the middle to avoid out off phase issues.

If you haw to cut the coil going to hot on one pup and ground on the other the most obvious would be to either do it by shunting like this:




Or you can use a switch with more poles, like this:



Now what do you think? Would this work?

Semisolid

[newey]

Semisolid-

Your first (newly revised) diagram looks fine. I didn't have the chance to check the 2 variations.

Overall, I think this is a pretty neat scheme, it's clever how you have "meshed" the functions of the 2 DPDTs with each other and with the 5-way.

[semisolid]

Hi newey

Thank you for taking the time to have a look at my design, and for your kind words about it. I really appreciate it.

Semisolid.

[newey]

SS-

Welcome back! It's been a while.

Your reply reminded me I still have to review the other 2 iterations. At first glance, the last one seems OK, but I didn't check every position yet. That's the one that has the 3P2T switch.