rmaaronson
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Post by rmaaronson on May 21, 2009 23:44:31 GMT -5
New to the forum, so I hope I am asking this right.
I am modifying a strat with an HSS setup with new pickups. I'm putting a SD hot rails in the neck position, a SD JB Jr. in the mid and an SD Alnico II Pro in the bridge position, so essentially I will have a HHH setup.
So what combination of coil tap/parallel/series mods. would you suggest in order to get the greatest range of tonal possibilities?
Looking for ideas that make the most sense and I don't mind how complex the wiring is, just trying to make a killer guitar!
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rmaaronson
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Post by rmaaronson on May 22, 2009 3:26:58 GMT -5
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Post by pete12345 on May 22, 2009 3:49:00 GMT -5
I would probably have a series/parallel switch for each humbucker, either as a push/pull or a toggle. You could then follow whatever SSS scheme takes your fancy. JohnH's tonemonster2 springs to mind, which requires that the 5-way be replaced with a row of 3 DPDT switches. I think this could look pretty good with the series/parallel switches next to them, and would be fairly intuitive to use, since you have an on/off and series/parallel switch for each pickup, as well as an overall series/parallel switch and an optional neck phase switch.
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Post by newey on May 22, 2009 6:33:28 GMT -5
rmaaronson- Hello and Welcome! Funny you should ask. Yes, we have. guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pup&action=display&thread=4157That's an option for your one full-sized HB, anyway. There are many possibilities for what you do want with your switching scheme. Knowing the things you probably don't want to do will help you narrow the field a bit. You probably don't want to bother with splitting the JBjr. or the Hot Rails, as the small coils in these SC sized-humbuckers aren't really usable by themselves. They're too small, too close together, and too similar to one another. Save any coil splitting for the bridge HB. However, one coil of the JB Jr with one coil of the Hot Rails together might be cool. However, splitting these to individual SCs is not going to be a useful sound, IMHO. Don't bother with phasing the coils within any one pickup either. The neck pup and bridge pup OOP is probably the only phasing you want to consider.
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Post by ChrisK on May 22, 2009 10:19:30 GMT -5
It appears that you want to put the hottest pickup in the neck position.
Unfortunately, this location is where the strings have the largest excursion, and hence will generate the largest output signal.
You may have significant issues with balancing the output levels from the pickups. Usually, the hottest/highest output pickup is in the bridge location and lesser output pickups are used in the middle and neck.
Furthermore, the Hot Rails will already be the darkest/middy sounding pickup due to its large inductance value (which comes from its high turns count). If this is put in the darkest/middy sounding location (the neck), there may be extremes in tonal unbalance between the pickups as well.
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rmaaronson
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Post by rmaaronson on May 22, 2009 11:23:06 GMT -5
Thanks for the ideas so far...still in the brainstorming phase, but i've given it some thought and i'm gonna go with an H-S-H setup with those triple shot switching mounting rings on the full size humbuckers with the alnico II pro in the neck position for that slash-type sound and feel and maybe the dimebucker in the bridge position.
Any other ideas are definately still welcome. Awesome forums here. Thanks
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Post by JohnH on May 22, 2009 17:01:01 GMT -5
Interested in a simple design? - to keep it running like a Strat.
Just wire up your HSH as a normal strat, with one toggle or push/pull switch to split both neck and bridge to single coil. Four extra sounds with one switch and you have a very wide range available.
I bet that would provide all the sounds that you would actually need.
The selected split coils can be chosen to keep optimum hum cancelling with the middle pickup.
As a refinement, I find a bridge humbucker, when split, sounds better if instead of just fully bypassing one coil, it is shunted by a cap of about 47nF - it keeps more low end and gives an interesting mid dip.
Heres a further variant - I quite like this one. Same options, no new switchs at all:
HSH wiring main 5 way as standard Strat instead of two tone controls, have one master tone control the other ex tone control makes a variable split from single coil to humbucker, of both humbuckers at once. It can do this by using the redundant half of a standard Strat 5 way switch, to select which humbucker centre tap to shunt to ground
Having now got 9 sounds, with no switches yet, you can add a bridge on switch and a neck phase switch - both dead simple to do as push/pulls (about 19 sounds total). What that set up does not do is series wiring between pickups. My thought is that that feature is great with single coils, but you dont really need it with actual humbuckers on board.
John
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