Superswitch 101?

[emin9]

Hello Guitarnuts,

I'm glad I found you guys. Fisrt post and I am jumping right in, sry My wife got me a Yamaha Pacifica 912 for xmas to "retire" my old Pacifica 712 since the frets were worn down to be something more like silver lines in the fret board. I took this opportunity to expiriment with the wiring, something I always wanted to try but never willing to do being a one guitfiddle kinda guy.

The Pacifica x12 series has a neck and mid single coil with a HB at the bridge. I went out and got myself a GFS Lipstick Tube for the mid and Fat PAF for the bridge so I could tap the coils and get a more traditional Strat single coil bridge sound mixed in.

My goal is:

1. neck
2. neck/mid
3. mid (should prove interesting with the tube in there)
4. tapped HB
5. full HB

I bought a "superswitch" because a) there was one in the guitar already b) with tapping in mind I thought the super would allow more flexability c) I wanted to go with new hardware in case I screwed anything up I could still go back to the original.

My problem (first amongst many) is really understanding how the switch works. As I saw it explained on Stewmac, the super is really 4 switches. Each "switch" has tab 1-5 and a common tab or what is sometimes called "Out".

At its most basic level I reckon position 1 links 1 to Out on each of the 4 subswitches, 2 to Out, 3 to Out... I think this is correct. I think I might be losing it from there in that some wiring diagrams have the pups starting on the out tab, some have ground or hot and some have nothing on the out but have pups wired to the 1-5 tabs anyway.

I take it there is no default method. What would modding be if there was I guess ;D

So question 1 is do I at least understand correctly how the switch works? After that I figure I'll need to pound AC circuitry back into my head. Second question would be do I really need a Superswitch for the config I want? There are many standard 5way switch diagrams but I cant find an even comparison for the Super.

Any advice is surely welcome

Slainte

[ashcatlt]

Welcome. There's no reason to apologize.

Yet.

I think you've got the gist of the workings of that switch correct. It's a 4P(ole)5T(hrow) switch.

You don't need a superswitch to realize the combinations you're looking for, but I don't think you're going to be able to get them out of a standard strat switch, which is actually a 2P3T with "half-way" positions.

I'm not prepared to make you a diagram. Hopefully I've given you enough to figure it out on your own. More likely I haven't helped much at all and you'll be back with more questions.

Then maybe one of the guys around here who know what they're talking about will chime in...

[emin9]

Thanks Ash. ;D

The switch showed up in the mail today and one can clearly see the movement of the arms on the switch. So I had it right. I guess I'll need to scan a drawing and let folks poke holes in it now.

[ChrisK]

Superswitch 101