Suhr Guthrie Govan wiring

[endowug]

John,
I forgot to keep you informed about the latest consequences of my GAS (gear acquiring syndrome): I ordered the Suhr pickups! Neck SSV, middle FL standard rwrp and bridge SSH+. I don't know the colours used by Suhr, but I think I will find out as soon as I've got them, or maybe you already know.

[JohnH]

I read somewhere that Suhr follow Seymour Duncan colours, but plesase let us know what you find out. Need to figure out which coils to combine the middle pup with.

John

[endowug]

You're right, it's the Seymour Duncan colour scheme.

[santellan]

FYI the Suhr switch is a 4pdt.

I have a similar switch style but it is a dpdt. It is 2.54mm tall in the up position and is flush in the down position. It's mounted to a pot that secures the switch to the pickguard or control plate. Here's more information if you want. santellansounds.com/SwitchModule.aspx.

As for the schaller lever switch you can customize them since they use a circuit board for their contacts. You can also remove the spring and reverse it to decrease the tension for a smoother feel if you find it too stiff.

LS

[endowug]

Your switch would be perfect if it weren't only dpdt. John used a 3pdt in his schematic, and it seems almost impossible to find a switch like yours with 3pdt. From the way it looks I think that Suhr also use a combo of switch and pot, and maybe I'll try to get it as a replacement part from my German Suhr dealer. Otherwise I would have to use a toggle switch, but I'm not willing to give up yet.

[JohnH]

I was also thinking of a 4 pole switch, and ignoring one pole. I had a look on www.mouser.com , and there is a few choices there as a button switch, whereas the 3 pole ones are not available. So here are some more issues to consider:

How the switch is mounted - the easiest method is just to drill a hole and have it mounted with a nut on the front face. This is how the mini-toggles are fixed and some push switches. Other types need to be fixed by soldering to a board, and are not positively fixed to the front panel. Your guitar has the wiring installed from the rear, with no plastic front panel. How thick is the wood behind the switches? A standard mini-toggle will work with a panel thickness of up to 6mm or so, and there are ones with longer shafts avilable. This needs to be considered for a push switch, and it is also an issue if you are changing pots - you may need long-shaft ones.

How deep is the constrol cavity, allowing for the recessed back plate? - ie, how deep can switches and pots be and still fit there?

Where would you be buying electronic parts from? are you in europe?

cheers
John

[endowug]

The wood behind the switches is about 6-7 mm thick. The controls cavity is about 30-35 mm, but that was measured around the volume pot. The Ibanez S-Series has a very slim body towards the edges, and I think the neck split will have to be put into the volume pot position. I live in Germany, and of course the easiest thing would be to buy the components here. Did you have a look at santellan's switch-pot-combination? I remember the Suhr guy mentioning a PCB, maybe he talked about the board on which the bush-button is mounted, just like santellan's switch. This kind of solution would not only be the aesthetically most desirable one, but would also give best access of the button, because I could put it left of the volume pot (from the player's point of view) and not between the pots. Maybe it would work with a push button if I could come up with a weird contraption to fix it directly to the guitar instead of mounting it on a board...
Anyway - still many questions unanswered, but slowly we're getting there.

By the way, I blatantly asked my German Suhr dealer if he could organize a blower switch replacement part for me - we'll see if that works.

Endo

[JohnH]

This link should lead to all the 4pdt push buttons from Mouser:

au.mouser.com/Electromechanical/Switches/Pushbutton-Switches/_/N-5g30?P=1z0z2qm

Heres one to consider from that selection:

www.nkkswitches.com/pdf/MB2000Bushing.pdf

Its a 4 pole push/push switch, panel mounted with what looks like just enough bush length to mount to your wood surface with a nut, so no board required. The shape of the switch body seems to be very similar to an equivalent toggle switch.

This would work, and you can mount it anywhere it will fit. Its not as small and neat a button as the Suhr switches (10mm button diameter) , on the other hand, that may make it easier to punch mid-shred!

But maybe explore the other options. Mouser is a very big supplier in the US, but if we can find a switch type that suits then maybe you an find a supplier nearer to you.

And if you Suhr supplier can get you one of theirs, then I agree something could be rigged up to mount it

John

[endowug]

John,

after two days of intensive searching it becomes clear that getting that kind of switch in Germany seems to be at least difficult. Ordering a switch in the States would be about 30$ for shipping - no way I'm gonna pay that much. I found switches that look like they would do the job:
www.knitter-switch.de/pdf_09/german/dd_md_mpg_40-41.pdf

www.knitter-switch.de/pdf_09/german/dd_md_mpa_36-37.pdf

What do you think? I could also get momentary switches, would do you think about them in general?
And what about this: I there were a 3pdt push-push or push-pull, I could use the volume pot for the blower function and add a toggle switch for the neck split. This toggle could be between volume and tone pots and thus out of way.

[JohnH]

endo - that was good hunting.

I think either of those will work. They are both based on the same type of switch body, similar to the one at mouser that I pointed to and also similar to a toggle switch. The first version of yours looked to me that it has a longer shaft length, which might be advisable to make sure it will fix properly through the front panel wood thickness. Also, I see that the metal shaft is quite wide, at 7mm diameter, so you may choose to use it without an extra plastic cap.

They both come in 3 or 4 pole, so you can choose either.

The first one needs a bigger hole to mount it however.

What I couldn't tell was how much force would be need to press them. You wouldn't want something as stiff as a stomp-box foot switch!

I doubt whether a momentary switch is what you want, you have to keep them pressed to maintain the connection. I often thought they could be useful as a kill switch for making staccato effects.

I have never seen a switch with more than 2 poles mounted on a pot.

So, do you still want to hold out for the Suhr switch, or go with one of these? I'm happy to help with a diagram whenever you are ready.

cheers

John

[endowug]

Yes, there haven't been any news from the German Suhr supplier, but I'll let you know asap.

[JohnH]

Ok, well after a few pms, switches have been found and here is a diagram:



The main thing that needs one more check is the pickup colours. I'm assuming, Suhr pickups, so Semour Duncan colours. Ive coloured them blue for south adjustable coils and red for north slug coils. I'm assuming the middle pickup is one intended as RWRP, hence it is a north coil according to SD convention. Based on switch data, I think all the hot and ground connections need to be swapped, from normal, as I have done here (ie green is on hot side). This should not affect phase but makes the right coils active. Ive based this on putting the adjustable coils where Suhr puts them.

All the above needs more checking!

I have shown 500k pots and treble bleed on the volume pot, but that is optional - not needed unless wanted.

The blower switch is a three pole push-push (or could have been a toggle) - Make sure the 3x3 lugs are orientated so the poles are all along the centre horizontal line on the diagram - the lugs are usually flat, so Ive shown them that way.

Not shown, all pickup screen/bare wires, and bare wire from bridge, go to ground.

cheers
John

[endowug]

John,

The diagram looks terrific! Only one detail has to be changed: The Ibby's cavity is much too shallow for a push/pull at the tone pot's position, so S2 for the blower has to be in the volume pot position. I hope it's no big deal to change that. Anyway, I will get the pups no sooner than mid-February, so that means there's enough time to check on all the details.

Again, a big thank you to all those contributing to this project, especially to John.

Endo

[JohnH]

Endo - Great - thats no problem. When you get the pickups, well do some tests to check the pole polarity etc. One check will be to see if the blue/red colours I've used to represnent magnetic polatity are right, by seeing if what I expect to be similar poles repel each other.

John

[JohnH]

After a few months, endos pickups arrived, and so this design can be completed. The main issue was to confirm the pickup colours and polarities, so that everything connects as intended, with the right phase and humbucking characteristics. It seems, following some pm’s in the last week, that it will work out fine, and even the bobbin colours make a nice zebra pattern.

The pickups are Suhr, based on SD colours, except that it is evident that the polarity of slug and adjustable coils is different on each pickup. I’m not sure if this is common when buying a pair of Hbs (does anyone know?), but it seems to be ideal for this design.



Endo - A few things to note when wiring this up:

Based on your last message on this thread, I moved the push/pull to the volume pot. There are a large number of wires being grounded here. P/P pots have a grounding lug at the back of the switch, which is actually quite easy to solder to, but unless you have 9 hands, getting all those grounds connected to it will be a lot of fun. One trick that I have used to help this is to use a bare wire for the connection from the ground lug to the volume pot right lug (black in the diagram), then connect the other grounds at points along this, one at a time.

The blower switch has 3x3 lugs, hence there are 4 ways to fit it, only one of which is correct! If you still have that multimeter, you should use a resistance setting and measure between a centre lug and outer lug, and so work out which way round it should go. When pushed in (blower setting), the three inner lugs should connect to the three upper lugs.

Although we have checked colours and coil connections, we have not quite definitively checked the phase of the middle pickup (although we know its magnet polarity relative to the others). The way I have shown it wired is definitely the most likely and follows the convention, but I suggest when first wired, you leave the middle pickup leads long. There is a slight chance that they need to be swapped, black with white, if the sound of the middle pickup with other coils is thin, ie out of phase.

cheers

John

[endowug]

John, thank you for the diagram! Finally everything is prepared to pimp my Ibby, and I'm going to tackle the job after the important show we're playing on Friday. Hopefully I will only post one more message in which I will let you know that everything worked out fine and thank everybody for their help and contributions.
So, this is the penultimate thank you to everybody who helped me with this, especially to John.

Cheers

Endo

[benjamin]

Hello! Can you please post a vid and/or pictures of the final project and specify what you've used exactly?

Thanks a lot! Benjamin!

[endowug]

Hi everyone, I have to apologize for being so late to reply, but I was so happy about my new guitar that I completely forgot about my promise to thank everybody, and especially John, for their support during its way of creation. I don't think it would be very useful to post pictures, because there are no spectacular insights you could get from them. I used the Suhr pickups Guthrie Govan uses in his Suhr, and they made a big difference, at least compared to the original DiMarzios. ALL the pickup combinations are useful, the blower switch works perfectly, so does the split option for the neck pup. I simply followed John's great diagram, which was dead simple. If you have a guitar with an HSH setup, it's worth thinking about this mod.

[JohnH]

endo - well done, im glad it worked. Great job getting it to work in one go too!
John

[hermanmonker]

[image]



Hi ,My first post here .
I'm interested in adding the red neck mod ( series/parallel ) to the bridge humbucker with John's excellently
drawn out wiring diagram .Is it possible to add an on/on switch or use a push/pull switch to the existing diagram.

Cheers Steve

[JohnH]

Hi steve
Welcome to GN2 and thank you for your interest in this design.

We can't see an image on your post, but if you are describing using an extra switch to give series/parallel options for the bridge humbucker, the answer is maybe but not definately. The bridge coils are already being switched in quite subtle ways to combine different coils with the other pickups, and this extra switch could compromise that when in parallel mode. Something may be possible but I dont know what at this point. Even though you could get the parallel sound with bridge alone, and it would all work fine in series mode, it would be a shame to mess up the design if it meant having non-functioning or quirky switch settings in other positions.

cheers
John

[hermanmonker]

Thanks for your response John.Itried to copy and paste your diagram with my question but it did'nt work.
I have wired my guitar using your diagram and it works a treat using a fender push/push switch from acme for the blower switch .The only tone I miss is that Telesque bridge in parallel which I've got on my other guitar but
they dont have the blower switch.
If you come up with any ideas for this stange request I'd love to hear them.

Thanks again
Steve

[newey]

Steve-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz 2!

Here's the skinny on image posting.

[hermanmonker]

Thanks for that newey.
John,is there a program you use for your wiring diagram?

[JohnH]

John,is there a program you use for your wiring diagram?

I just use good old MS Word - using drawing shapes, curves, straight lines and text boxes
J

[hermanmonker]

I never would have thought of using MS Word ,very clever .

I've added an on/on toggle switch for the Series/Parallel for the bridge humbucker and works fine except for the bridge/middle selection if the toggle is in the parallel position there's no sound at all ,but everthing seems ok in the other positions that include the bridge pickup.
I will attempt a diagram and post it tomorrow .
On my other guitars it was'nt a problem but this one I've included the Blower Switch .

[hermanmonker]

I gigged my new guitar using John's GG wiring diagram last night and found it to be not that great .
I made 2 mistakes .
1. I used a Fender dpdt mini push/push switch for the blower when it should have been a 3pdt switch.
2. Wired a dpdt mini toggle for the Series/Parallel for bridge humbucker and the out of phase sounds were
comprimised and lacked punch just like John mentioned in an earlier post.
Good job I took my regular guitar which I changed for the second spot ,it sounded as if a blanket was lifted off my amp when I used my regular guitar.

I've decided to do without the blower switch but keep the Series/Parallel one as I would find it more useful tone wise than not having it .

[raphael]

hi endo and john can u pls send me the right wirring diagram for the suhr gg guitar.......i order already a suhr SSH+ suhr fL and suhr ssv.....thanks

[raphael]

Hi John can u pls tell me tha function of the 3pdt??is it on-on???thanks

[JohnH]

raphael - welcome to GN2. if you are getting the Suhr pickups, then the second diagram is probably best. When you get them, check the magnet polarity by seeing which poles are attracted to each other (will describe more later, and we can adjust the diagram if needed)

The 3 pole switch is a blower to force the bridge only to engage. it is on-on, and the endo got a push type, but it could be a toggle.

John