HBD: a HH (or HSS) Daemon MoBucker

[fenderbender]

Thanks, John. I'll change the treble-bleed parts to the newer values now. I kind of noticed that this was a complicated circuit and took that into account. Have plenty of free time and zero distractions so I'll take it slow and check as I go. Also planning on tackling this one tomorrow. Simpler and have most of the parts on hand already. Figured it would be a good primer for this beast.

[JohnH]

Thanks for tackling this build, and well done for getting it together so efficiently and neatly: Here are links to your other threads:

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=coffee&action=display&thread=5354

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=wiring&thread=5360&page=1#49837

cheers

John

[sonosonny]

HBD Three Holer using Seymour Duncan P-Rails (neck/bridge)

Runewalker has been after me for years to wire up the HBD on my Tradition Les Paul Gold Top, but I have been hesitant due the requirement needed to carve/hog out a bit of wood in the cavity so the 4PDT’s threaded bushings would protrude enough through the carved maple top to get a nut on them. With those concerns I decided to try the Three Holer HBD on a Str@t type guitar I own.

I used a Seymour Duncan P-Rails set, mainly because they have a full fledged P90 and a Single Coil Rail as the two coils of the humbuckers. The HBD is a good fit for these pickups. I had the Bridge P-Rails in this guitar already so I knew how it sounded … and I liked it. I picked up a neck SD P-Rails, P/P pots from StewMac, and the 4PDT’s, PUP selector, and the System Par/Serial switch from other assorted vendors and Rune’s stash. I was ready to proceed.

The HBD project was a bit intimidating on the front end, but it was worth every minute of work in my garage during chilly 100+ degree F Texas weather…. Iced beverages made the work process run a bit cooler along with an ice enhanced fan system.

The most baffling items to deal with were the P-Rails coil wiring codes (start/finish). The neck and bridge pups are coded differently per the P90/Rail coils. The SD support on these questions was fantastic on providing start / finish for each coil in each pickup. I basically had to translate the standard HB SD wiring code colors into the P-Rails Bridge/Neck P-Rails color codes. More on this a bit later.

In addition to the color coding conventions issues, SD decided to invert the polarities and winds in the Neck and Bridge versions. I suppose this was so that in N-single and B-single combos the humcancelling options would facilitate rail/rail and P90/P90 configs. Rune and I still debate the merits of that fixed set of choices. However if I had to I could invert the mag on one then try to keep the additional wire-insulation color conventions straight. Too much cogitation.

I mainly used solid core copper wire color coded with shrink wrap, which really made the wiring easier to follow. I only had one break per my finagling with the whole harness… mainly due to my soldering. Main hot and ground wires to the input jack are thicker stranded wire. For the Pickup selector, I opted for a mini paddle toggle versus a Fender type 3 way for space savings. (glad I did this)



I added the mini DPDT System P/S switch as well. Both of these were mounted in the "PUP selector slot" on the pearl pick guard. I also added a Concentric tone knob so both pups have separate tone controls.



Treble bleeds on both volumes were capacitors 1nF and resistors 150k (Thanks John and Rune) for the best balance. Tone caps were 0.022uF.
The 4PDT switches are mounted offset in relation to the Volume knobs. From a playing/sight perspective this makes them easily visible (not hidden behind the Vol knobs). They are also spaced properly to allow for ease of volume control manipulation. Ergo, configuration and accommodation for live playing are always a good ‘thang’. Pic is a view from a "playing perspective".



I did have to hog a bit of wood for the Neck Vol and the Bridge 4PDT to fit nicely in the rout, but not a lot. The PUP/Control cavity on various Str@t type bodies are always a bit different on each one I have worked on. The wood hogging required was not even close to the pick guard edge so all is hidden nicely. Pic is of the bottom 4PDT switch hogging required.



Here is the finished/patched conductive copper shielding. You can see where I had to cut out a bit of the bottom Bridge "ear" from the rout to snake the PUP cables to the controls.



Other hardware enhancements include steel saddles and a steel trem block (both Guitarfetish) which makes the bridge beefier (highly recommended). GraphTEK TUSC nut and string trees. Wilkinson tuners.

To finally get the pup wiring harness to fit properly, I had to remove a bit of the wooden “ear” from the bridge PUP routing cutout. This Str@t body had 3 separate cutouts for bridge, middle, and neck pups…not a bathtub rout. Careful usage of a sharp chisel made it a quick and clean job. The entire rout is shielded in conductive copper tape for zero to little hum (high gain settings only) when using the single coils.

The Str@t type body is alder I obtained from Rondo Music … not a high dollar boutique body, but it is a very nice body with good solid tonal characteristics. Neck is a Guitarfetish maple/maple. Again not boutique, but it contributes the snap I would expect from an M/M neck. My final planned hardware enhancement is to install steel 8/32nd threaded inserts in the neck along with stainless steel 1 ¾” – 8/32nd threads through the body to solidly attach the neck to the body. I have done this on one other guitar and the results were noticeable to my ears. Tuning is more stable as well and the neck is definitely more rigid. Regardless if one can hear the difference, it absolutely improves the “purchase” between the neck/body.



After Rune and I tested the”3 Holer HBD” during our July 4th “Firecracker Jam/Texas BBQ Fest”, we both agree the P-Rails set was an excellent fit for the HBD in that there are the two full fledged coils in each P-Rail (SC Rails.P-90) versus a standard slug/adjustable coil in standard Humbuckers. Each of these coils can stand on their own tonally and when switched to their HB modes they blast off in fine fashion. The serial HB is thick, meaty and clear. The parallel HB is clear, articulate, sonically substantial and a gas to play arpeggiated chords through. Sort of a chimey PAF.

I oriented the P-Rails with the P90’s outer and the SC Rails inner. Rune and I discussed this at length and concluded that the two inner SC’s together would yield better “quack” They do.

The outer P90 in the bridge is where I would have put it anyway. Monster lead blues tones.
Neck outer P90 has an excellent Jazz comping sound for chording. Your PUP orientation is a matter of your personal tastes. I could go on for a while about all the combos and the blending of each PUP to the other, but will spare you the verbage. With the right amp/stompbox/playing techniques, I have gotten credible Texas style Billy Gibbons, Eric Johnson, SRV, Freddie King, T-Bone Walker and other quality tones from this scheme.

I am totally astounded with the palette of tones available with the HBD/P-Rails combo. The HBD is an inspired wiring scheme and I hope many of you “Nutz” out there will jump on the bandwagon and join these two old Texas coots (runewalker and sonosonny). Others that have tackled this are DarKnight from Finland, FenderBender, and Zamzara.(UK). So this thing is international with British, Australian, Finland and that whole other country, Texas imprints all over it.



Sincerest kudos to Rune for his conceptual ideas and to John Hewitt for his time and efforts in the schematic/engineering part of this project. Maximum Karmic points for their work.

After you familiarize yourself and have been enjoying the HBD switching scheme (even en old cat like me can get it), then playing a standard Str@t or a standard Two HB 2.Vol-2-Tone configuration is like someone trying to convince you their beef chili is “spicy” because they used bell peppers and beans in it (both felonies in Texas).

I will play this build out live with no problem. The control options are easily learned and quite intuitive, since the direction and up or down positions inform you as to the configuration. But the harness and options are really exceptional in a recording environment. With the P-Rails, lots of SC, P90, HB sounds and PUP combinations to choose from that will inspire your composition and creativity. I am confident other conventional HB’s will shine as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some hints for HBD Construction:

Seymour Duncan P-Rails specific wiring codes---

Neck
P90 – North Polarity
Start -- Black
Finish -- White
SC Rail - South Polarity
Start -- Green
Finish-- Red

Bridge
SC Rail – North Polarity
Start -- Red
Finish -- Green
P90 - South Polarity
Start -- White
Finish -- Black


Standard SD Humbucker wiring Codes
Screw Pole Coil– South Polarity
Start -- Green
Finish -- Red
Slug Coil - North Polarity
Start -- Black
Finish -- White



Dis-regard PUP connective wire color in the pics, just orient per your preferred Inner (start/finish) and Outer (start/finish) PUP specific wiring codes. Some “Nutz” will prefer different slug/adjustable coils on inner/outer….

Layout
Per layout on the 3 Holer HBD, I suggest attempting to replicate your cutout routing onto your wiring template or actual pick guard for accurate placement of all the switches. This may not eliminate having to minimally hog some wood, but at least you will be aware of the rout and switch placement. Awareness of the ergonomic switch layout while playing is also a consideration.


Wiring up the SD P-Rails with an HBD, made me think (ouch!) about these specific wiring components and I hope this info will help others.


Son O Sonny on GNuts2

[cynical1]

Click below for images:

Fixed image link.

Pictures of the guitar...and one of Santa Claus are here.

And that's a damn nice looking guitar you've got there. +1 to you, sir.

HTC1

[sonosonny]

Thanks for info.
I figured out how to link images from Flickr and hopefully these will motivate other Nutz to step up and into the HBD "Matrix"

Regards

Sonosonny

[Runewalker]

I will confirm that Son-o did a great deal of planning before hauling out the iron, and it paid off in that the harness worked the first time it was plugged in for a real sound test. I remember my first HBD and it took a couple of runs to have every thing up and going.

I am intrigued by these p-Rails, enough so that I am thinking of a conversion. We worked the beast pretty hard on the Firecracker jam and it was as versatile as this design normally provides. However, Son-o is right that the rail side and P-90 side of each humbucker do sound significantly different.

When I use a humbucker with mirror image coils, the differences between an inner single and an outer single on the same humbucker are hearable but subtle. If you have a humbucker with adjustable poles on both coils and they are at the same height the differences are neglible. With a conventional slug/adjustable array, the slug will be further away from the strings (typically) and have slightly less gnarliness, and with the slight difference in geometrical location you can hear the difference.

The P-Rails however give distinctly different tonal profiles. So the configuration in an HBD array becomes even more versatile.

I also found a wide range of tones by putting the OoP array in, then mixing the volume and tone controls for slight to intense OoP.

One last comment on this post is that am torn on the sort of forced single combos of either rail/rail or P90/P90. I think that array would be great the way Son-o set it up, but on a 24 fret guitar. I think that the quack factor would be emphasize with closer proximity of the inners. However, I would have liked to hear a P90/Rail combo.

Son-o’s HBS Str@t is a one of a kind, personal tone profiling machine.

As always a big thanks to John Hewitt.

RW

[JohnH]

So’S did a great job of getting this project together. Clearly a lot of pre-planning went in, but there was only a few days between messages saying “I’m building an HBD” and “It works!”. Its a nice job too.

The P90/rail pups do seem ideal for such a set-up. For those who have not read back through this thread, the main switching features, other than overall series/parallel options are two switches per pickup. One of these selects ‘1 coil or 2 coils’, the other, in ‘2 coil’ mode, puts the pickup coils in series or parallel, or in ‘1 coil mode’ it selects either of the two coils. In ‘1 coil’ mode, you get to choose the P90 or the sc. Very handy. But the trick is, one of these ‘1 coil’ options is reverse phased, which is only relevant when combining two pickups. So there’s no actual phase switch, but you can get ooP effects, by taking for example, a P90 from one pup and an sc from the other. Or a full Hb from one pup and whichever of those coils is the reversed one from the other.

The reason we did that was because it suppresses all unnecessary non-humcancelling combos. All combinations of a coil from each pup are as humcancelling as they can be.

What you miss out on, as RW describes in this version, is the in-phase combos of an sc from one and a p90 from the other. If you did have them, they would hum, to about a similar level as a single coil.

When the design is made with symmetrical Hb’s, this loss of an option is not significant, its better avoided IMO. But with the P90/sc pups, curiosity is raised about what may be missing.

This could be addressed by rewiring the pickup switches so the reverse phase does not happen – so all combos are in phase, and you just accept the potential for hum, and then add a separate phase switch, to get a full range of oop combos, including two Hb’s out of phase per Peter Green. Personally I would only consider this for this P90/sc type of pickup, but on the 4 hole version, there was a push/pull switch S7 that did not have much to do, so could do that.

As part of that – I’ve got a question. With these very unbalanced pickups, do they actually hum-cancel when both coils are used? Ie, is the hum significantly less than when only one coil is in play?

Cheers

John

[sonosonny]

John, the P-Rails are extremely quiet in HB serial or parallel mode.

I was testing it last night on my Digitech modeler through my computer/DAW and my stereo system. Used headphones to really hear if any hum was present.

On clean settings I cannot hear any hum on HB settings or the humcancelling PUP combos per Rune/Johns chart.

SC settings on one PUP, there is a tiny bit of hum, but not much=acceptable. I had to really crank the volume on the stereo to hear the SC hum, then the volume level was too loud to play comfortably.

Crunch to Mild overdrive the singles do have very minimal noise but just barely. Again had to crank the vol.

On over the top overdrive models, on SC's, the modeled amp has a bit more noise inherently on any pickup, and again SC's had some noise, but nothing that cannot be gated out.

The whole guitar is shielded with conductive copper tape which probably helps.

P-Rails Readings
Bridge
P90 -- 10.7
SC-Rails -- 8.8
HB Serial -- 18.7
HB Parallel -- 5.0


Neck
P90 -- 7.7
SC-Rails -- 6.1
HB Serial -- 13.2
HB Parallel --3.5

Extremely happy with the build.
To see all pics go to www.flickr.com/photos/sonosonny/

SOS

[highanddry]

does anyone know if a 4pole 12 terminal push push type switch that could be mounted under a les paul pickguard is available anywhere?  

[JohnH]

Sept 8, 2013 17:49:54 GMT -5 highanddry said:

does anyone know if a 4pole 12 terminal push push type switch that could be mounted under a les paul pickguard is available anywhere?  

Hi, and welcome to GN2. Would this be for trying this HBD design? If not, we should discuss in the general wiring area.

On an LP, the pick-guard doesn't have much space behind it, since it floats over the body. Also, for switches and pots through the body, the thickness of the wood needs a long shaft if it is a normal LP profile. I think there are 4pdt button switches, but I haven't found one that would fit well. Another option, but not for an LP (due to this thickness issue) is a fender S1 switch, which is a 4pdt as part of a pot.

[highanddry]

yes it is for that.  I actually had already started wiring my harness with long shaft push pull pots when I started researching options. I was following a duncan JP diagram.  but this plan has more options.  I always want more!!
Thanks for the info and the welcome!  I know Page had one guitar with under pickguard switches but I dont think they were 12 terminal 4 pole.  thanks again
  the s1 sounds interesting

[sonosonny]

I offlined John Hewitt about removing the "automatic OOP" which was not getting me where I wanted to be using the PRails in the HBD configuation. The OOP config was added to eliminate/reduce hum.
John replied:

"It should be very easy to kill off that Oop function on the HBD - which was put in to feed my OCD syndrome relating to hum minimization.
Attached is the wiring diagram from GN2. Take a look at the two 4-pole toggles, S2 and S4. The left side of each of those has two poles wired as a phase switch, with a diagonal cross of red and blue wires. The two centre lugs, furthest to left and 2nd from left go to the pickups. Just move these pickup wires straight down to connect to the left-most and 2nd from left on the lower row below. This bypasses the phase switch part, leaving it all in phase
If you were setting out to build it like that, you could omit that whole switch half and just use a two pole switch."


I must say to John, that worked perfectly to eliminate the OOP. Rune and I are preparing to wire up some set necks with a 3 hole HBD config and space is rather limited in the wiring cavity. As per John's reply above if we were to use just the two pole switches, how would this be wired? Two Pole would use less space than the 4 pole.

Apologies for lack of schematic/signal flow /switch knowledge. If needed, I will slog through it.
Hope one of the Nutz out there can help so the build can commence.
I promise to document these builds and post pics.


Son-O-Sonny

[JohnH]

Hi SoS. Im still here!

Happy to help but my main computer is stalling and making such grinding noises that i fear it has minutes left to live before it goes down. Im not turning it on again until im ready to attempt a final back up into an external 'lifeboat' hard drive and then abandon ship ( make an orderly line...photos and guitar designs first!)

So i cant do a diagram on this cell phone, but you should be able to work it out. Start with the base wiring diagram, and imagine the wiring move described above by which oop was removed. Now imagine that the left sides of the 4pole switches will be deleted, and so the wires that will then be disconnected need to be reconnected to the remainder of the switch, or s1,s3, following the fixed wires on the diagram to work out where.

John

[sonosonny]

Thanks John. I will try on my own per your directions. If your PC is resurrected, and you have a moment, a diagram would be fantastic.

My job is computer/network support, so hopefully the grinding is only your CPU fan or one of the fans on your board/computer case
Hopefully it is not the HD.

Crack the case and get a can of air or an air compressor works well too. Clean out the CPU fan, and others.
Could also be a bearing on one of your fans= fan replacement. Sure hope it is not a failing HD.

Those fans get crudded up with dust/humidity/etc and it cakes up all over the place. After cleaning, a touch of light oil to the fan bearings could help or possibly a new heatsink/fan for the CPU. To clean fan bearings, I sometimes use a spray contact cleaner. Protect the motherboard components. You may get a bit more life out of the fan, but usually replacement is the real fix.

You may also have to clean the HeatSink fins on the CPU. I swear I have seen some CPU heatsinks that looks like concrete has been applied to the cooling fins and it is difficult to clean off.

As always thanks for your help to the Coots in Austin, Texas.

Son-O

[JohnH]

I got everything off onto a portable drive, and the new quad-core box is on its way. A note book will suffice for a few more days. I don't know how long hard drives usually last, but the old pc is 6 years nearer to death than it used to be, so I reckoned its time to upgrade.

Anyway, here is one way to reconnect the wiring using all two-pole switches (changes within the dashed circles):

[sonosonny]

John,
As always, you are exemplary in response and helpfullness. Glad your got all the data off the failing PC.
With all the wiring and engineering you have done for so many of us Nutz, the HD probably was just worn out.


I sincerely appreciate your assistance with the diagram. I will take pics and document this build. Thanks.

Son-O

[sonosonny]

Concerning a neck single coil and a middle RWRP single coil, what are the equivalent North/South Start/Finish components as compared to a humbucker???

Neck has black/white wires. Middle has black/yellow wires. I can work this out but am requesting some guidance from my brother Nutz.

A new wiring configuration/finished guitar is coming your way and this would be a big help in it's completion.

Pretty sure all will enjoy the resulting conclusion per this current project.

[JohnH]

Hey sono, great to hear from you!

You'll have to work this out, relati8ve to the HB that these will be paired with.

First, take the HB, and use a compass to decide which side is north and south, or maybe it is a known pickup from a supplier who will provide this info? If it cant be worked out, no matter, just assume a north and a south for the two Hb coils, then decide based on that, which of N and M pickup is north and south, based on opposites attract. Its the relativity of north and south that is important, not absolutely which is north and south.

Then youll need to do the screwdriver pull-off test from the reference section, and test out various arrangements of the two singles wired in series so that you find a setting that is in the same phase as the humbucker, all on the bench, not necessarily in a guitar. Then when you have all pulsing the same way, you can back-figure wire colours.