HBD: a HH (or HSS) Daemon MoBucker

[Runewalker]

The HBD, a Daemon of
a Mother Humbucker

Building an HH or HSS Uberguitar

Beyond Tone Monsters, and into the
Realms of Mythic Creatures of Tone

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If you can’t stand my indulgent prose (and who could blame you) then just skip down to the Functions Map, Schematics, Wiring Diagrams and activity descriptions for the stuff that matters.

The Beginning

The genesis of this design came from my collecting a number of HH bodies with a 3 way pickup selector (Neck, Both, Bridge), a Master Volume, and a Master Tone. I affectionately term these “3-holers”, and for you who are old enough to remember, or with a breadth of reading experience, this term has a double meaning. This configuration may be the PRS legacy since his McCarty and other models had it, and the PRS mystique spawned a plethora of imitators. Subsequently there was an abundance of cheap “chassis” with this modern configuration that I could pick up inexpensively to pursue my disturbed modification experiments. Many had set-necks, which for me was a plus.

However, having grown up on Gibson Les Pauls and attenuating tone in the combo position by using the volume controls of the individual humbuckers, the Master Volume array was inexcusably unsatisfactory --- that and the paucity of unleashed combo tones inherent in a locked 2 HH, Local-Series-in-Parallel array, was a offending affront to the Tone Gods (or God if you are a monotheist). The Master Tone was less flexible than individual tones, but not as big a compromise as the Master Volume.

So these 3-holers (MVol, MTone, 3-way) seemed both particularly limited in capabilities and plentiful on EBay, even in set neck versions. For these chassis I sought design objectives that:

• Gave the critical volume mixing function between the Neck and Bridge in the combo positions.
  
• Facilitated true independence on the volume controls.
  
• Enabled the 4 main options in a humbucker: Local Series (default), Local Parallel, North coil, and South coil (Local Series OoP was a toss away for me).
  
• Gave both inner coil and outer coil combinations in single coil modes.
  
• Had not only these single coil selections, but single coil combos that maximized humcancelling options.
  
• Provided some OoP options, especially humcancelling OoP
  Had a System Series / System Parallel option, irrespective of the Local array.
  
• Was as intuitive as possible and easy to move between critical presets for live play.
  
• Provided a layout and physical switch settings that conveyed visual and tactile feedback as to which options were engaged.
  
• Had no dead settings
  
• Optimizes settings so that every option is distinct, musical and a keeper.
  

To whom I owe ……

With the scope of this project I knew I needed help (electronic, not just mental). Naturally I sought assistance from the Down-Under, MasterBlaster, and the inimitable Mr. Led Hewitt. Certainly because of his brilliance, but especially for his patience in working with those who won’t learn the background electronics to be able to finish the designs (yours truly). I can dream this stuff up, but can’t produce the electronic engineering. JH can do both, and is one of those sick individuals who enjoys these challenges (Cheers JH). This was a months long, start and stop endeavor. I believe JH also brought in the our own inimitable Unk.

Sidebar: After JH designed his JHJP (Schematics Page) an enhanced and possibly penultimate Jimmy Page mod, I whined that I liked it but wanted the inner/outer combos. He frowned and pointed me back to the HBD we had worked out, and said I already had it, assuming my willingness to drill only 2 additional holes in a Gibby array. The light bulb popped on. I had been so focused on the 3-hole physical limitation that I failed to recognize that I had, what for me, was my reference SG/LP design, right in hand. So while the design was originally developed for 3-holers, this is now my preferred installation is all of my Gibby Style, 4 pots and a 3-way. The exception is of course instruments with appreciating value potential, like my ’68 Les Paul, which will remain stock. To finally take this out of the design lab to the testing bench, a Gibby style SG clone (bolt-on) was selected as the mule for the prototype (a 5-holer converted to a 7-holer with the two minis).

What does the “HBD” acronym mean?

The original design was intended for a guitar that conveyed a visual image that was funny to us in the development stage. However, while bandying the term around among friends was fine who understood the real meaning and were not deflected by how it sounded, it was unsuitable for public consumption …. It would be misinterpreted as being politically incorrect in our “sensitive” age. Oh no, we could not have that. The creators are stuck with the acronym since it connotes too much history in working out all the details and thinking through options.

So like the poet that does not explain his poems, we leave it to the reader to provide their own interpretations of the acronym. Since there are so many humcancelling options here, some possible references with “HumBucker” for the H and B positions might include: HumBucker Deluxe, HumBucking Dervish, HumBucking Devil, HumBucking Dawg …. Daddy, Daemon, Dadist etc. None of those is the one, but knock yourself out …. or not.


Ok, enough history and intro, What the heck does it do?



Schematics and Diagrams
John Hewitt

JH: If you skipped down to here, to recapitulate, this design works well in Gibson SG/LP style guitars, with two volumes, two tone controls and one Switchcraft style 3-way. That chassis will require drilling 2 quarter inch diameter holes for the mini toggles, so it will not keep a “stock” appearance. It was originally designed to modify a modern HH with one 3-way and two potentiometer holes.

As always, if you can do it with a HH you can do it with a Fat-Strat., as long as the mid or neck is RWRP. You could even keep the standard Strat pickguard by substituting a Tele style 3 way in the slot for the lever switch. But I think if it was me I would get a new pickguard with no slot and put in a Switchcraft 3-way just to annoy and throw people off.

Focusing on the SG/LP style configuration, the volume and tone pots have push/pull switches. In addition there are two 4-pole mini toggles:

• The toggles (S2 and S4), one for each pup, are mode switches for the dual-coil humbuckers, whereby the “pilot” selects ‘2-coil’ or ‘1-coil’ operations for either the neck or bridge pickup.
  
• In 2-coil mode, the push/pulls on the tone pots (S1 and S3) select local series (in) or local parallel (out).
  
• In 1-coil mode, S1 and S3 select inner coils or outer coils. There’s no phase switch, but when single outer coils are selected, they are phase reversed.
  

S5 is a normal 3-way toggle and S6 is the system series/parallel switch, which bypasses S5 when activated by pulling the neck volume p/p switch.

In combinations of single coils, hum-canceling is automatically optimized by:

• either selecting a north and a south coil in the same phase, or
  
• two of opposite polarity but one reverse phased.
  

Hence, both inner or both outer coils are in the same phase and are hum-canceling.

Picking one inner and one outer coil however, delivers a combo that sounds out-of phase and is also hum canceling. Having the outer coils reverse phased and the inner coils normal phase also provides a variety of options when both coils of one pup and two of the other pup are selected.

RW: This may be easier to “see” in the Functions Map below, but will take a little study to fully reflect on the vast array of options available. While this may be a matter of opinion, there are no “trash” options and no switching choices that are dead. Certainly some will be favorites, but every one of them is musical and usable.

JH: The volume controls are ‘forwards wired’, ie, in normal parallel mode, they are like most stock LP/SGs. Treble bleed capacitors and resistors maintain the tone at lower volume, to compensate for capacitance of the guitar cord. An implication of forwards wiring is the interaction where in parallel combos, one volume can cut out both pups. Its not a big problem in practice because the mixes that we want are all at volume settings way above where this interaction occurs. But this design, when adapted to use an on-board buffer (see below), can be amended to add extra resistors to separate the pups and avoid this interaction. In series mode, the volume and tone controls are fully independent and act only on the sound from their respective pups.

RW: In playing this turns out not to really be an issue. In SysSeries, where you would want more VolControl independence, you have it. In SysPara, rarely would you turn one pup all the way off anyway -- You would just flip a switch if you wanted to get away from a pup. The blend effect is more pronounced in SysSeries.

JH: The drawings here are with passive wiring as built so far, but it also works very well with either an on-board buffer or a buffer cord. We include the original HBD with a buffer circuit just to show it, but in that case you would want determine whether you want to include the tone bleeder components.

RW: There are 4 main “ah ha” points of the genius in John’s electronic design driving this project:

• The function of the minis is intuitive and simple. Up for 2 coils and down for 1 coil. While the thing is a bear to wire (tiny little lugs, lottsa wires) in operations is it just so simple to grasp.
  
• The dual functions of the Tone Push Pulls: In 2 coil mode, they determine Local Series or Parallel. In 1 coil mode they determine Inner or Outer coil activation
  
• The visual cues the positions of the switches tells you what you have engaged
  
• When one PP is up and the other down, and at least one primary pup is in single coil mode, you have various out of phase positions.
  

Multiplexed functions out of the same switch reduce the apparent number of switches and because of the operational logic, give ready visual feedback on your choices.


Functions Map




John Hewitt Electronic Schematic




HBD Gibson SG/LP Style - Wiring Diagram, with Tone Bleed Components

This keeps a nearly stock appearance with the exception of the 2 unubtrusive mini toggles. A true wolf in sheep's clothing here.




HBD Original Wiring Diagram (3-Holer) with Buffer Shown




Buffer Option

If you have very hot pickups, like this test unit, then a buffer circuit or buffer cable really helps clarify the tones. It is especially useful in clean settings, conveying a separation and crystalline shimmer to the output in the single coil, local parallel and OoP modes. This clarity, however, also forces you to play better because every mistake is also clear. So be forewarned.

In the refinement phase of the design, we are experimenting with the unused Bridge PP to either add a cord capacitance emulating capacitor, or an on-off switch for the buffer. To my ears, the buffer is a little too brittle when it comes to hard overdrive power chords and lead work – suffering the same issue as trying to play metal with a Strat --- it’s just wrong. In that situation you can dial in quite a bit of tone pot but it still is not the same as a no holds barred, crank it up and burn, normal guitar-to-cord-to-amp sound.

Sonic Evaluation

This is the most versatile range of settings in an HH guitar I have ever had. This turned an SG style guitar from a 2 or 3 trick pony in Gibby configuration, into a vast surfeit of sonic options covering Teles, Strats, Ibanez/ESP/Jackson Shredders, traditional Gibsons (solid bodies and jazz boxes), and other nether world instruments not invented and unexplored by humans.

It has, of course, the traditional Gibby settings of Local Series pups alone or combined in System Parallel (yawn) so no convention is ignored.

Key tones beyond the limited Gibson choices include:

• Local Parallel settings: Completely quite, near single coil shimmer, especially with a buffer.
  
  
• Neck Local Parallel with Bridge Local Series Fills out the restrained string amplitude heard with just a bridge Local Series humbucker. Like adding a PAF (in this guitar) at the neck.
  
  
• Neck single options with Bridge Local Series. Similar to the N-Local Para, but a slight bit more power from the single coil neck. In clean setting, subtle difference between the N and S neck coils. Can’t hear the differences in overdriven modes.
  
  
• Inner/Inner, System Series or Parallel. This gets more in the direction of the Neck/Mid 4th position Strat sound in System Parallel. Mild to no hollow quack in this particular guitar but nice shimmer. It is like the 4th position has been smoothed. I think in a 24 fret chassis you could even get quacky, which might get you arrested if you did so in public
  
  In System Series it is like having a 3 humbucker Les Paul and shoving the mid humbucker in the circuit. Humcancelling of course. Very cool.
  
  
• Outer/Outer, System Series or Parallel. More Tele-mid-position like - treble definition but still nice and full. Kind of a beefy-meets-piercing in System Series. Very usable. Humcancelling to boot.
  
  
• Bridge Local Series, in System Series with Neck Single-coil Outer (reverse phase) and in amp at medium overdrive. OMG, Houses of the Holy. Keep Jimmy P away from the dealer.
  
  
• System Series. Neck Single Mode, Neck Tone PP up for Local Parallel, both volumes way down around 2-4. Setting is reverse phased. Quack Master. With the Bridge in low output local parallel, the outer Neck cut coil position OoP, and the volumes way down, the hollowness kicks in. Must be shielded well as this is partially hum-canceling.
  
  
• Home base. System Series. Volume on both at home around 3-4 or 4-5. Neck and Bridge in Local Series to start. Here is where you can stay all night. More treble, then adjust the volume mix, or kick in the Neck single or local parallel, adjust the mix. Or kick in System Parallel for more clarity. More beef for a searing lead, hit the overdrive foot switch, roll up the Local Series Bridge and burn, adding base with more volume on the Local Series Neck, or more treble with cut-coil neck or Local Parallel neck. Get quacky with the OoP version. Most key go-to tones are one movement or a mix adjustment at the volumes.
  
  Here you control tone by the mix and the add-ins or take-aways. Of course there are always the tone controls, what ever the heck those are
  

Referring back to John’s previous tech description:

Picking one inner and one outer coil delivers a combo that sounds out-of phase and is also hum canceling.

These are useful, musical tones that emulate many Fender tones, yet are smoother than OoP settings I have heard in other installations. This is where quack can start happening.

Having the outer coils reverse phased and the inner coils normal phase also provides lots of options when both coils of one pup and two of the other pup are selected. This last feature produces sounds more in the Jimmy Page OoP tonal spectrum. The OoP is the more ragged type I typically associate with OoP, and pushed with your amp can peel the potatoes should you care to.

Pickup Choices

Hot or Vintage, “Authentic Strat sounding singles…” and “to quack or not to quack, that is the question.

For HHs that employ the cut coil options, I prefer modern, higher output humbuckers, opposed to the PAF and other “vintage” styles. It is just a personal preference, with inherent compromises, as any design decision is. With respect to the cut-coil part of the design the rational for higher output pups is threefold:

• I tend to prefer a beefier single coil in the direction of a P90 than the thinner sounding (to my ears) Strat style coil. While the P90s sound is influences by the breadth of its coil and the double magnet structure (oppose to a smaller profile, magnetic poles structure of a Strat), they were out of the box higher in DC resistance. And not to get into “higher DC resistance does not necessarily mean more powerful” argument, almost all agree they are a beefier, fuller sounding single coil. Higher output humbuckers have higher output individual coils, which in single coil mode tend to take some of the edginess off the Strat style sound. That combined with the unavoidable interaction with the inactive adjacent coil, give it single coil sound, but not usually a “strat sound”, which is also affected by other things than a stand alone single coil.
  
  This, the longest bullet point in the world translates to: I want a higher output single coil, so I choose I higher output humbucker to split.
  
  
• I was a reluctant convert to John’s buffer, but now that I have lived with it I know it gives a clarity and sparkle to clean tones heretofore unachieved. With the buffer, much of the muddiness associated with high output humbuckers, especially in the neck position, is mitigated. And the buffer makes the volume pot much more functional, dispensing with muddiness as the volume is turned down. With then the buffer and a vibrant volume control, turning down the hot pickups renders it into vintage style territory
  
  
• The local parallel options were important to me, although you will hear many cast aspersions on them. With hotter pups the local parallel goes into vintage PAF territory. For example this neck pup comes in at local series of 16.5K, its single coil reading is 8.23K and its local parallel reading is 4.1K. Very nice step downs (or up). The Bridge is slightly hotter. A resident tone is setting the neck to the vintage sounding local Parallel, the bridge to hot Bridge local series, then controlling treble or base with the volume mix and the heat or clarity with the System Series switch. If you were just wanting to play and not think so much about switching, you could stay there all night.
  

So does it sound like a strat in cut-coil mode?

The only reason to bring this question out, is that I have come accross a lot of discussion about cut=coil humbuckers not sounding like strat single coils. There are many reasons Strats sound like Strats, beyond their pups.

Like other cut-coil guitars, this one does not sound like a strat in Neck or the bridge, inner or outer Cut-coil mode. There is a clear single coil sound, but not necessarily reminiscent of a Strat. It is probably closer to a Tele sound. If you read the Sonic Evaluation, there is one setting that sort of gets you to the Strat 4th position, but it was not intuitive that it would -- an OoP, with a Local Para and a cutcoil.

Other cut-coil humbuckers I have had go more in the strat direction. I have one that is less “hot” than this one that gets closer, but still is different. Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio both have pups they claim sound strat-like in cut-coil mode. I have not experimented with them to validate or dispute the claim.

For me it is a non issue, as there are so many Strat clone sounding guitarists out there, it is almost a disincentive to sound like everything else. Plus, if I really want that, heck just go to the rack and pick up a Strat,or install this in a Fat Strat type. As noted previously, the Strats physical construction also contributes to that sound.

Winding this post up (Thank the gods...)

This design is for me what I have been searching for since I started this journey towards wiring and tone nirvana. I suspect this will be my standard mod or install if building for myself or a musician friend or two.

A background agenda was to make one guitar as versatile as possible but one you did not need an aeronautics engineering degree to drive. I have a good friend who plays live a great deal. Two summer ago I went to one of his sets and saw him change guitars 7 times as different tunes called for Strat tones, or Les Paul tones, or, God forbid, acoustic tones. No, he did not have 7 guitars, but the switches were between 3 different guitars. Swapping guitars that many times during a set would be fine if you were supported with your own tech and roadie. He, alone with many “keep the day job” musicians doesn’t have that luxury. So I placed in mind the objective to eventually find an uberguitar he could keep throughout the set, with maybe one backup. With the buffer this guitar could even credibly cover acoustic rhythm tones, and help you grow the hair back on you legs after playing acoustic so many years.

This is that guitar. An uberguitar for the people who play because they love it, not because they can afford it.

It does help to understand basic ideas on what system series or parallel, or cut-coils or local series and parallel do to the sound, so you know where you are driving. But even if you did not, you could learn the settings by listening.

The design is finished as far as I am concerned. But I welcome feedback and will try to steel myself for the onslaught. Also, I'm going back into the mule for some cap tests, etc, and a little luthier work, so I'll try to post a pix or two of the physical wiring. As an aside this is a fairly labor intensive wire up, but very logical with the Bridge and Neck modules being nearly clones of each other.

RW

EDIT by John H 3 December 2010:

Another HDB has been successfully built by Fenderbender - see this link for discussion:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=wiring&thread=5360&page=1#49837

[JohnH]

Its been great working with Runewalker on this and other designs. I think this write-up conveys why it is that we get excited about this stuff.

Good job - I'll probably have more to add....

John

[UnklMickey]

runewalker said:

I believe JH also brought in the our own inimitable Unk.

I appreciate the nod Rune, but my involvement in this was more in the "seed" phase. John and I have had a few discussions in the past, some of them involving you, others independently. John has made some things work, that I was skeptical about. In other cases he incorporated some ideas that I had presented. I think the most credit I can claim, is occasionally pointing John in the right direction. He had the good sense to recognize when I came across a usable idea. He also had the good sense to ignore me when I dismissed a good idea that didn't appear so good to me.

This appears to be an expanded version of the JH-JP. That in itself was quite a nice piece of work. I see John has changed the way the 3-way is depicted in his schematic. This way looks better, to my way of thinking.

Nice work. Kudos to you both.


unk

[JohnH]

Unk - I think you reviewed the schematic for this last December. At that stage it had a single tone control, as shown in the '3-holer' wiring diagram above. Electrically its the same, since to get the tone control correctly on the pup side of the two volume controls, the tone control had to be a dual-ganged.

This HBD design was mostly done before the JP version that I posted. The main differences are in the local switching circuitry and operation. Making a JP design was much easier!

On this one, the local switching with two two-pole switches to get series, parallel and each coil can of course be done with less poles, as you and Wolf have done, and also as in Chris' Binary Tree design. The four pole switch here was the result of getting the built-in phase reversal on outer coils, combined with minimizing hanging coils. We also wanted to sort out the switches so that the 2-coil/1-coil operation was concentrated into one switch per pup, consistently down or up for 1 or 2 coils.

cheers

John

[UnklMickey]

johnh said:

Unk - I think you reviewed the schematic for this last December. At that stage it had a single tone control, as shown in the '3-holer' wiring diagram above. Electrically its the same, since to get the tone control correctly on the pup side of the two volume controls, the tone control had to be a dual-ganged.

Yes. I went back through my e-mails, and re-read the discussions we had at that time. I saw v3 which I liked for it's simplicity and low pole count. And v4 (nearly identical to v5) which I was certain Rune would like for it's ergonomics. We were looking to see if there was a way to reduce the pole count on v4, but you already had it as well organized as possible. So really other than any affect I might have had on your thinking from previous discussions about PRS schemes, and 2HB 1superswitch schemes, I really had nothing to add on this one.

cheers,

Unk

unk

[Runewalker]

Well I was hoping for more commetary. Over a hundred views to date and no feedback. I understand, I think.

Let me post a disclaimer, or at least a warning. With the beastly pups I placed in the HBD, she has become quite unruly when shoved into SysSeries times 2 Local Series (Vol PP up, both toggles up, both tone PPs down). Here you see her buzzing the Texas Capitol. I hope I don't get a citation for disturbing the peace of my bucolic little city, the music capitol of the world, and the rest of Texas. Quite a shadow she casts.

BTW I took her to play live on Thurs. She frightened all the women an children, or maybe is was my playing.

[UnklMickey]

runewalker said:

Well I was hoping for more commetary. Over a hundred views to date and no feedback. I understand, I think.

Don't read too much into that Rune. This a MAN-sized project. not some simple neck-on switch mod, for a Strat. It's gonna take some time before the right person, of the right skills to do this comes along. But it will happen. Texans aren't the only extremists in the world.

runewalker said:

BTW I took her to play live on Thurs. She frightened all the women an children, or maybe is was my playing

Or maybe it was just you.

Nigel said:

Really they're quite fearful - that's my theory. They see us on stage with tight trousers we've got, you know, armadillos in our trousers, I mean it's really quite frightening...

[zamzara]

I'm thinking of this mod for my LP. I've just ordered a second 4-wire humbucker from ebay. The main trouble is finding affordable 4 pole switches: do you know if this is the correct type Rune, or anyone? The adviser has said it's a changeover, NOT 4PDT, but they look to me to be the same thing.

[JohnH]

I cant think what a 4-pole changeover switch would be if it is not the same as a 4PDT. Anyone else know?
That looks like the usual size for these switches. One thing to watch for with an LP is whether the bush is long enough to get through the carved top, and mount the nut.

John

[Runewalker]

zamzara said:

I'm thinking of this mod for my LP. I've just ordered a second 4-wire humbucker from ebay. The main trouble is finding affordable 4 pole switches: do you know if this is the correct type Rune, or anyone? The adviser has said it's a changeover, NOT 4PDT, but they look to me to be the same thing.

I am not sure what "change-over" means. The 4PDTs are only $6-8 here so they are not prohibitive.

www.mouser.com/catalog/630/1348.pdf

Echoing Johns caution on bushings -- Bushing length is an issue for any mod conducted on a backrouted guitar body. This switch you show has an 8mm bushing, slightly less than 3/8". This can work on an SG or flat slab-face guitar (strats, teles, LP Jrs with humbuckers, Jackson-ESP-Ibanez styles, Even Vs, etc).

But if possible a 1/2" or 12-13mm is better, and of course more difficult to find.

Carved-top guitars do present an installation challenge, but not an impossible challenge. The longer bushing enables you to be more conservative if you have to Forster out additional wood in the cavity - which I did in this SG clone. I took the thickness down to 1/4" in the area where the 2 4PDTs were to reside. but The bushings I had were also longer - 9mm.

2 of my next conversions will be carved tops, so I will have more info on the idiosyncrasies of how to do these. I fear I will have to Forster at a slight angle to reflect the contour of the carved top.

Also be aware if you are using Forsters, that they have points along the perimeter that go deeper than the flat bulk of the bit, so you want to take the point cuts to the depth you want to go, not the flat cutting part of the bit. Otherwise you risk penetrating the finish with the points. Use a sharp chisel to "plane out the rest of the depth between the point cuts.

This all sounds worse in description than it is in actuality. Just go slow and methodically, measuring frequently. A drill press does let you control the depth, and of course it could be done with a router, or even a sharp hand chisel.

[ChrisK]

The bushing is 8mm long (er, short).


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch

It appears that a 4PDT changeover switch is a 4PDT Center-OFF toggle switch (three positions).

This is not to be confused with a 4PDT Center-ON/4PDT ON-ON-ON/2P3T toggle switch (three positions).

[zamzara]

You guys are right, the 8mm won't be enough. I mounted a rotary switch with 10mm (in place of a volume pot) on the current mod and it just barely fits. For now I'll look for a bigger switch.

[zamzara]

Well, good news. I've just inspected the guitar and the thickness is actually less than 8mm. The Maplin rotary switch has a bush length of way less that the 10mm they claim, as I've tried an 8mm toggle switch in the same hole and it fits easily. No problem after all.

[Runewalker]

zamzara said:

Well, good news. I've just inspected the guitar and the thickness is actually less than 8mm. The Maplin rotary switch has a bush length of way less that the 10mm they claim, as I've tried an 8mm toggle switch in the same hole and it fits easily. No problem after all.

Those 8s are pretty much all I can find and I use them frequently. Even if I have to remove some wood it's no big deal.

Is your LP a carved-topped?

I hope you can move forward on this. JH and I would appreciate the feedback on it's functionality and ergonomics. It is difficult to get this many options and stll make it easy to get to arrays for live play.

I believe this comes close. It has been tested live by me and a friend (a real musician) and it met those tests.

I don't know about your selection of pups. I suspect the vintage style humbuckers reading 7-8K would be a bit anemic in local-parallel, or possibly even single coil modes. But even with vintage you can get a phantom middle humbucker by combing the two inner coil in Sys-Series.

Good luck and good wiring.

[zamzara]

runewalker said:

zamzara said:

Well, good news. I've just inspected the guitar and the thickness is actually less than 8mm. The Maplin rotary switch has a bush length of way less that the 10mm they claim, as I've tried an 8mm toggle switch in the same hole and it fits easily. No problem after all.

Those 8s are pretty much all I can find and I use them frequently. Even if I have to remove some wood it's no big deal.

Is your LP a carved-topped?

I hope you can move forward on this. JH and I would appreciate the feedback on it's functionality and ergonomics. It is difficult to get this many options and stll make it easy to get to arrays for live play.

I believe this comes close. It has been tested live by me and a friend (a real musician) and it met those tests.

I don't know about your selection of pups. I suspect the vintage style humbuckers reading 7-8K would be a bit anemic in local-parallel, or possibly even single coil modes. But even with vintage you can get a phantom middle humbucker by combing the two inner coil in Sys-Series.

Good luck and good wiring.

I'm not sure what the exact definition of carved topped is, and it's not a real Gibson, but it has what I would describe as a rounded top.

The pickups I'm installing are hot rail humbuckers, about 11k per coil. I've already got one in the bridge with local series/parallel switching and I love it, so I'm installing the same type in the neck too.

I've never played live and doubt I will any time soon, so probably can't help much there, but I'll certainly give feedback on the sound. I've now ordered the switches so should have this complete in a week or so.

[Runewalker]

zamzara said:

I'm not sure what the exact definition of carved topped is, and it's not a real Gibson, but it has what I would describe as a rounded top.

The pickups I'm installing are hot rail humbuckers, about 11k per coil. I've already got one in the bridge with local series/parallel switching and I love it, so I'm installing the same type in the neck too.

... I'll certainly give feedback on the sound. I've now ordered the switches so should have this complete in a week or so.

One week to launch .... excellent.

If your LP clone is 'rounded' then it is probably a 'carved top'. Albeit there are some overseas manufactures who do a carved top emulation, where the guitar is actually a slab top, that has a slope and curved step down following the couture of the edge of the guitar, but about 1.5 to 2 ' in from the outer edge.

The issues on the carved tops for installing additional switched or pots is to accommodate the varying thickness, Gibson had CTS manufacture longer shafts for the pots they used, since the rout for the cavity had perpendicular sides and a flat bottom.

Anyway SG thinks DigiKey has some longer shaft versions of these 4PDTs:

guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1182709897

================

Pups. Since you have some experience with them in local parallel and like them then they will be fine for this project. You will have 5.5K singles, which is about like a vintage Strat pup. So you should have some nice combos and single choices. I would recommend the tone bleeder cap/resistor on the vol pots, unless you go the buffer route, then leave them out. Either will give you noticeably more definition at lower volume settings.

One major strength of the design is that much of your tonal attenuation is conducted with the Bridge/Neck volume mixes, and the tone bleeders or buffer clarifies these adjustments.

=================

Building:

A few hints I have found work for me follow. Everyone has their own approach, and if this is helpful, then great.

There are a number of connections on this thing. It is basically two nearly identical components, one for each pup.

I don't know your approach, but I typically take 1/4 foam board, and make a stand-off box out of it ( just something fast held together with tape. I then draw a contour outline of the cavity and punch holes where the electronic parts would be positioned in the cavity. I then wire up on that little jig, rather than trying to do so in the cavity.

Lottza wires and connections and my fat fingers need all the access possible. I use extreme power reading glasses (3.5) to magnify the lugs and components. I could not use these for reading as they blur everything else, but really expand the view of your work.

Just build the 2 pup components separately. I also use solid core 22 -24 g hookup wire, which tends to break less than the stranded, as you bend and weave all these connections. I also use "pigtails", meaning for those lugs connected to the pup conductors, I stab out a 2-3 inch 'pigtail' from the lug. Then when it is time to tie in the pup I do so to the pigtail, and not the lug. This allows me to easily switch pups, and to build the harness separately and outside the guitar.

If you use pigtails then I would start with the 4PDT. Start the pigtails in the middle row of lugs, because the inside lugs are harder to get to if you already have wired the outer lugs.

There is a balance between a nice tight installation, and having enough slack to be able to manipulate the harness into the cavity. So I try to make the runs a little longer to have some flex in the harness. Not too long of course, because this is one plate-o-spaghetti and you still have to cram all of this into the cavity.

I print the wiring diagram then highlight each wire and connection when completed, or if doing it off the computer, change the color of the wire when completed. That last approach takes the Word doc, however.

Hope this helps.

RW

[zamzara]

Progress so far, most of the bridge pickup side done. I dedided to mount the components on cardboard to keep it steady while I solder, and to allow me to judge the wire length required:



I'm waiting for 2 more push/pulls to arrive but shouldn't be long.

+1 to Rune for the design and assistance.

[zamzara]

I've just been going over the wiring diagrams and I need a clarification on the humbucker wire colours. I've been unable to work out which wires in the diagrams are which. To my eyes, some of the wires look reversed and some not, and it's throwing me.

If I call my HB wires 1,2,3,4 going from - to + in normal local series, can someone number the 4-pole lugs for me?

[Runewalker]

zamzara said:

I've just been going over the wiring diagrams and I need a clarification on the humbucker wire colours. I've been unable to work out which wires in the diagrams are which. To my eyes, some of the wires look reversed and some not, and it's throwing me.

If I call my HB wires 1,2,3,4 going from - to + in normal local series, can someone number the 4-pole lugs for me?

I am not quite sure if I understand your question, but I'll make a comment.

JH is traveling with his family and will be back soon, so I suspect he will have more info or comments if the below does not help.

If you look closely at the renderings of the pickups themselves in the Gibson wiring diagram, you will notice the adjustable coils (slots for the screwdrivers). You will also see they are not arrayed conventionally but designed to place the adjustable poles in the user selected prime locations for target tones. I selected inner for the Bridge and outer for the Neck because those are the tonal geometries I wished to emphasize. The conventional array is slots outer on the bridge and outer on the Neck.

The geographic placement was critical for obtaining the objectives in the write up of having the Inner/Inner and Outer/Outer options, and ensuring they were humcancelling. Of course both could be turned 180 degrees if you wanted the adjustable coils emphasizing different string vibration amplitudes.

Perhaps the row of pup wires in the middle lugs of the 4PDTs appear reversed because they are designed so the north coil of one pup can combine with the south coil of the other to optimize humcancelling in combos.

I am not sure of the brand of your pups (the term is sometimes used generically for bladed pups), but the diagram reflects Seymour Duncan pups. The pups I used followed the SD standard but were not SDs. Below is a wire color conversion chart. Hope this addresses your question.

[zamzara]

I was confused about the colours on the diagram, from that table I think I've got all the info I need.

The centre lugs go on the four pole switches receive the wires like this:

S+ S- N- N+ N- N+ S+ S-

[Runewalker]

Yes, and glad the conversion table helped.

Going back to the write up, key objectives were: "....single coil combos that maximized humcancelling options..... [and] .... OoP options, especially humcancelling OoP...."

In your "S+ S- N- N+ N- N+ S+ S-" "equation," you can see how these objectives are facilitated.

What brand are your pups?

[zamzara]

runewalker said:

What brand are your pups?

Not a major brand. I found the first one on eBay and liked the sound of it so I got a second one the same for this mod. I've identified the wires on them OK though.

[JohnH]

Hi there - I'm back from my vacation, and excited to see the HBD Z version developing. It seems that its all going well, and its good news that the mini-toggles will fit. As RW has explained, the key to the sounds and hum cancellation is in the pickup orientation and colour convention. As long as you have, or can work out, a full translation from the Seymour Duncan scheme to the proposed pups, then all should be well.

cheers

John

[zamzara]

It's complete! Here's the finished result:



(There's a cream LP-type pickguard which I may or may not refit, or I might spray the pickguard black or get a black one to make it truly a demon.)

I had some trouble at first, one of the neck coils was always open circuit but I traced this to a wire that had broken off from its switch terminal and quickly repaired it.

Then I noticed that both neck and bridge humbuckers were locally out of phase, so I still must have been misinterpreting the diagram pickup colours somehow but it also wasn't an issue for long, as reversing one coil's wires on each humbucker solved it. It now operates as advertised.

I can't give a full evaluation of the sound options tonight as it's 10.30pm here already (how the time flies). I did a quick run through and found the local parallel, system series interesting just for a start. I'm sure there's loads more to find out; full sound evaluation still to come.

[Runewalker]

I have to say this is exciting to see another embark on this journey.

Nice job on the install. The blades look wicked.

It takes some time to explore the nooks and crannies of this tone machine. It has of course all the conventional settings you are familiar with.

Did you put in the tone bleeders? If so that unlocks some of the normally hidden passages.

You have found by playing with it that in System Series that the Volumes are fully independent. So that it opens up some settings in the 0-3 range unavailable in non-independent volumes. Inside that range, combined with a local series on one pup and the single OoP (outer) on the other are some pretty good Strat 2nd and 4th position tones. Then there is continuum of tone from Local series to outer single obtained by the volume control mixes that cover everything from P90s to screaming Hbs to even Rickenbacker jangle.

The lower vols are interesting in Local Para, you just can't turn one pup off, or both will go off. But you will want more volume in Sys Para anyway. Things get very clear and articulate without the mud associated with turning vol down.

Most of the new sounds are clearer in clean settings, of course. But I found a number of combinations that give new voices to the same pups when used in overdrive. The ability to mix in a lot or smidge of OoP is a unique "tone control."

I will be very curious of your impressions of those nooks and crannies, and those you discover I have not mentioned. How does the character of these pups you are familiar with and like, expand?

I find it an odd sensation to be playing a Gibby style guitar and be sounding like a Tele, or Strat or Rick. It is almost disorienting.

Let us know what you think about your new ride.

[JohnH]

Congratulations ZZ, you did a fine job. I'm also impressed that you got to 10.30pm with a new toy, and didn't then play with it all night.

As you explore he combos, if theres any doubt, Id suggest checking each setting to see if phasing and coil selection has all turned out right. A gentle tap on poles with a screwdriver will check which are working, and all sounds should be in phase, except where one outer coil is selected in a combo, which will be 'outa phase'

My two favorite non-standard sounds with this sort of wiring are:
Bridge humbucker in series with neck single outer coil - and crank up the gain for J Page fantasies
Bridge single coil in series with neck Hb, with neck tone fully turned down. Its nasty/edgy with as much bass as you dial in with teh neck volume pot.

Have fun.

I think I may have to build one of these!

cheers

John

[zamzara]

All settings now work correctly; confirmed both with tapping the pickups and with ohmeter on the cord jack. The phasing is also correct now as the out of phase positions are distinctive and have very little bass.

Bridge humbucker in series with neck single outer coil

Yes! That's exactly what I concluded today too, and mainly what I came here to say. It has an almost acoustic like tone, but clearer. And there are a whole range of subtle variations on it as you adjust the four controls. Switching the bridge to local parallel makes it quackier but slightly less clean.

*The bridge coils and neck inner all in series is nice too, like the above but bassier.

*The neck outer coil alone is nice, quite like the strat neck position.

*All 4 coils in series is good, better than the stock bridge + neck: I think Gibsons should be wired that way as stock.

*Single bridge with single neck out of phase is similar to neck and bridge out of phase on a strat, but unlike on the strat I think I prefer them in parallel here, probably because of the hotter pickups.

*The bridge single coils are very bright but lose definition with the tone down so not much good alone, but better when combined with the neck humbucker.

All very enjoyable so far.

[DarKnight]

Built this in my Lynn with a slightly modified wiring.

I already posted my opinions about this wiring in that thread, but I'll state here also, that this seems to be superior design to anything I've seen before. Easy, intuitive and there is NO useless sounds! I implemented this in H-H -configuration, but I can imagine the potential if used on S-S-H or similar composition.

In my wiring the only additions to original is the three-way rotary switch which acts as some sort of "master"-control.

Position1: Kill switch (not 100% correctly wired, some signal bleed thru in global series, but it's not problem to me.
Position2: Normal operation
Position3: Both volumes bypassed

I also used one push/pull dpdt for switching tone controls in or out. These two controls together let me modify the circuit to "simpler" forms so I don't have to worry about some knobs.

I wired the tone controls so that there are caps in both ends. So the middle is the "up" position. This seems to work very well in my case. There prolly is always some leaking of highs present, but in my case it's not a problem, cos the guitar is very bright sounding.

Thank you guys for a very cool design!
Cheers

Dark

[fenderbender]

First off, hello! And what a neat site/resource this place is.

I recently became interested in playing again after decades off and wanted to make some mods to a few guitars. Then decided, perhaps foolishly, that this was the one for me. With some help from my dad (retired electrician) he pointed out all the values of the caps and resisters on the schematic with the exception of one. (Schematics are something I need to work on, but I can follow the diagram just fine.) Anyway, that little bugger on the S7 switch between the shield wire and the push-pull lug. If someone in the know could clarify its value it would be greatly appreciated. I stole the image from first post so there'd be less jumping back and forth.

Thanks for any help!

[JohnH]

Hey! This is one of the more complicated, but entertaining mods that I worked out with Runewalker. The switch S7 was a bit of an afterthought. All the knobs have push/pull switches, plus there’s the two toggle switches and the main 3-way selctor, to make 7 total. But only 6 were actually needed to create more guitar tones than could ever be needed. So the last one, on S7 was not really part of the main controls. What it does is it adds a very small cap across the output, to slightly change the frequency response. Its value is a matter of choice, and it could certainly be left off. But something around 2.2 or 3.3 nF should have a noticeable affect, either for good or evil.

On other values, recent research in GNut laboratories has determined that treble-bleed components are probably best as 150k and 1nF, instead of 220k 1nF.

BTW, this scheme is not entry level, guitar-wiring 101.

Cheers

John