The Strat SP

[bluemurder]

Hi,

First post here.

I built this design with three Di Marzio Area pickups (61 bridge, 58 middle, 67 neck) and 500k audio pots throughout, and it worked flawlessly on the first try. Of course with the humcancelling pickups there are no issues with humcancelling or polarity. Very pleased with it. Some comments from a musician's viewpoint:

1. In the parallel mode the design gets very easy access to all the best strat tones - I much prefer the bridge + neck combo over the middle pickup alone.

2. The PooP tones to me work best in a high gain situation. Played clean there is too much volume loss.

3. Series mode is great, too, especially with the fade knob! Indeed this does get you the middle pickup alone (N*M with N faded down). Turning the tone control back a notch gives you the expected series tones (a bit louder and darker than the respective parallel tones). Turning the tone control up to full provides that extra treble JohnH described but it also slightly changes the overall character.

4. The in between fade tones to me work best in clean amp settings - both B*M and B*N can be used to make the bridge pickup a bit fuller in the low end. In high gain settings the difference is very subtle to my ears.

This is simply a great design - it gets so many different tones but is yet very easy to operate.

Many thanks John for designing and sharing this - it's very much appreciated!

One question on the enhanced tone control: what would the change be if I changed the 0.047uf to a much smaller one, e.g. 0.0047uf? What I am looking for is that with the tone control turned up full that it just gets brighter. With the big cap it's a bit like the bypassed pickup gets more weigth.

Cheers Stephan

[newey]

Bluemurder-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

We're always glad for feedback on the designs here, JohnH's SP is certainly a good one.

Welcome a'Board!

As for your question on cap value, I would think that a value 10X lower would result in almost no effect at all. But that's a guess only, I'll let John or others weigh in on that.

[JohnH]

Hi bluemurder and welcome to GN2. Thankyou for your feedback, which is very much appreciated. Its only when players and experimenters such as yourself try these designs that they fully become real, so your input and suggestions are valuable.

On the extra cap in the tone circuit, 47nF as shown, its job is to gradually bypass the more bassy pickup in series mode. Id expect that its exact effect will vary a bit depending on your pickups. Yours being noiseless, may be a bit different to simple single coils. I havent tried it with noiseless pups, but I have used it on a few different guitars with a similar principle.

The larger than cap is, the more it tends to fully bypass one coil, leaving the single sound of the other. On my LP. I fisrt had it at 180nF, on a tone control that acts on the two coils of the bridge pickup, and it tended to a tone that was just a little more bass than a single coil, ie, alot brighter than the two coils. Ive since dropped it down to 82nF and now 47nF on that guitar, based on how it sounded - now providing a 'thick single' sound.

But, back to this SSS design, I have also tried dropping it down to 22nF (wherupon, it can actually be repositioned so it is the same cap as the tone cap) and the effect becomes less noticeable, ie, it just gets just a little brighter at 10. So I would expect that with a very small cap, it may become too subtle to be noticed.

It may be hard to predict which value you will prefer.

If you want to play with it, and if its on a Strat where you have to take the pickguard off, id suggest rigging it in a way that you can try a range of values, maybe running a pair of wires temporarily back through the trem cavity. That way you could try a few values with alligator clips, then solder one semi-permanently (some electrical tape to insulate it), and only wire it permanently inside when you are ready to break into it for another purpose.

Ill have a look at your HSS questions...
cheers
John

[bluemurder]

John,

Thank you very much for this information. It basically confirmed my thoughts. I will try the 22nf cap first as this may already get me what I want - just make the series sound a bit brighter. The SSS pickguard is off at the moment anyway.

Cheers Stephan

[bluemurder]

Well - I finally decided to leave the series cap at 0.047uf since it would have been too much hassle to change it. I only made some minor refinements - changed the tone cap from 0.047uf to 0.022uf, added a treble bleed network to the volume control and added a 560k resistor from the volume Input to ground to provide a load closer to 250k. This to my ears works better for the individual pickups and parallel Combos whereas the series Combos are a bit duller now so I definitely see the design Intention to go for 500k volume and tone.

That's it - once again, thank you very much for this design.

Cheers Stephan

[activa]

Hi, I'm a guitar modding noob, I have no doubt I'll be able to figure out the technical details, but what I'm looking for is advice for the best "bang for the buck" mod out there, and this one looks good. I agree, just because you've got 897 "different" tones doesn't mean more than a handful are useful. So is this the best, most intuitive layout out there? I have an SSS and an SSH pickguard I'm looking to build, so an SSH layout would work too.

[newey]

activa-

Hello and welcome to G-Nutz2!

There are any number of good SSH designs, but as you can see from the comments above, this one is pretty highly regarded. You could certainly do a lot worse. JohnH has a number of other Strat schemes around here, so do some browsing!

[JohnH]

Hi activa, thanks for your interest in this design. It was intended to give a player many tones to explore, while keeping the core Strat tones easy to find.

They are so many ways to wire a Stat! I think all good schemes need to be intuitive, but there are many options as to the range of sounds vs the complexity of switching.

If you would prefer a simpler wire-up based around a standard 5-way switch instead of a superswitch, you can do a lot just adding one dpdt toggle or push/pull. My offerings are in the schematic section, eg SN, SSM3 (for SSS) and SM2 (for HSS - my fav). Many are derived from other designs.

The most classic scheme here using a Superswitch is probably the Mike Richardson mod, also in schematics. Elsewhere, if you want a bif more, search google for 'Phostenix' and you will find a huge resource of designs, all well presented.

[genmce]

Hey all,

I just finished wiring this one.
I spent the last week messing with hhh. It was getting me down. The split coils were not giving me that stratty quack I like so much.
Then I kept looking at my white strat with hsh - and while I like it - it was time for a change.

So - I put it into my mim white strat.

I love it!

My only changes were an A250k push/pull pot for tone and .033 cap as I could not find the .047 cap... I want to change that out when I get another one of these.

I really like the sc sound...

This design has lots of room to roam about and get different tones.
Thanks much!

I would love to say it was an easy build... I made only two mistakes during wiring.
I find wiring easier, early in the morning - before my children wake and provide me with a multitude of distractions.

1. Wired the neck in place of the bridge - whoops! That showed up when I tested with screw driver pull off for phase test.
2. Wired the middle out of phase. I put the white wire as hot - in the right place but may have crossed it on the pp switch. At any rate - changed that around on the superswitch as this setup has very tight space to work linking these two pp switches.


As a side note - (not meant to derail thread) I recently found myself wondering why I even bother with this stuff... I am no spring chicken and don't gig. I'm not a particularly great or even mediocre guitarist. I jam with some friends weekly (sporadically) without aspirations to get anywhere... It seemed like a waste of time to mess with guitar wiring. However, I must say, when I let go of "why bother?" and just let myself enjoy the process, I had a great time. I did not get frustrated or have to hurry to finish. When I did not expect it to change my life and enable me to have a secret sound that propelled me to stardom; when I followed all the colorful lines, as best I could, it was almost therapeutic. I had to stop several times to chat with the wife about our new dog... etc... and without getting impatient, I just enjoyed our conversation. Then, came back to the job and enjoyed the process.
The tones are the ultimate reward, but the building was, dare I say it... fun!

Thanks again!

I am looking forward to trying the Strat 5+5 next with my noiseless pickups.
I will post on that thread as I assemble all the parts and get started.

[JohnH]

That's a great story, thankyou for posting - it has made a good start to my day! I'm glad it worked out.

[genmce]

Hello nutz!

I have done this strat sp as stated above.
I have some questions about which pickups to put where, in this wiring setup.
I play funky/rock/country/reggae as state above.
Can someone make suggestions as to what pickup to put where?
Goals
1. max quack on 2,4 standard parallel strat settings
2. Mellow jazzy neck on 1
3. Clear clean - not too much icepick on bridge.

This is what I currently have wired (all pickups are alnico unless otherwise noted)

A (n) = 6.08k and 2.3h polarity NS
B (m) = 6.4k and 2.6h polarity SN not rwrp *(I may be confused here - see below for question)
C (b) = 5.89k and 1.9h polarity NS

My first inclination is to switch A and C

Other sc pickups I have around I could use

D = 6.81k 2.1h NS ceramic
F = 7.08k 2.7h SN
F = 13.8k 5.9h NS

G = 5.41k 2.8h noiseless hot SN


Thanks for advice, it is much work to swap pickups and I don't want to do it 20 times.
What I don't know is how the DC resistance/inductance influences my choices.

* rwrp - we can change the winding to reverse by swapping the leads yes? We cannot change the polarity?

[Runewalker]

I play funky/rock/country/reggae as state above.
Can someone make suggestions as to what pickup to put where?
Goals
1. max quack on 2,4 standard parallel strat settings
2. Mellow jazzy neck on 1
3. Clear clean - not too much icepick on bridge.

I would describe your goals as "vintage" level single coils. There is always an argument about how to interpret sounds through descriptions, but I interpret your description as more vintage than modern. There are also interpretations about 50s vintage vs 60s vintage. Convention seems to accept that 50s pups are less "powerful" than 60s pups, 60s>70s, etc. Again, interpreting your description, it sounds like more of the 60s vintage, ie, mellow jazz, not too much icepick. (John's SP in the system series modes will also help the icepick effect).

I have struggled with getting "authentic" (---- Hendrix, SRV, Thomas Blug, etc.) single coil sounds out of strat bods for years. I have finally hit on a formula that works fairly consistently. I tried probably 20-30 diff. models and brands. I got closest with a Fender '69 set, but still felt something was lacking.

The '69s had alnicos, no RWRP and measured about 5.6-7K Hz --- don't know the yy.xh readings. I don't buy the no RWRP argument for "authentic sound." So in the continued search I focused on alnico in the 5.3 to 5.7K range. I have fianlly found some Asian pups that get me where I want that are very inexpensive --- could probably get 4 sets for the price of those '69s.

Some will probably weigh in that you cannot specify a tone off of Resistance alone, and I am not suggesting you can, just giving you the data I have.

So, in terms of your inventory, none hit the range described above. You have pups that are in the hot-normal to overwound range. So I suspect none will get you totally what you seek, but you may be able to accept the compromises. Your A-B-C options, under that criteria, will get you closest. If those do not get you enough chime or sparkle, sometimes lowering the pup height can help that, but the change seems qualitatively less in the hotter wound pups.

YMMV.

RW

[Runewalker]

Zen and the Art of Guitar Wiring Harnesses

by genmce

Jul 28, 2015 12:36:50 GMT -5 genmce said:

I just finished wiring ....
I would love to say it was ...easy....
...made only two mistakes ...
...early in the morning -
before my children wake [to]
provide ... a multitude of distractions.
(not meant to derail ...)
found myself wondering...
no spring chicken....
not a particularly ...
or even mediocre guitarist.
I jam ... without aspirations...
[is it] a waste of time to mess with ...wiring[?]

when I let go of "why bother?"
... let myself enjoy ... process [&] ... time.
....[no]... hurry .... did not expect
... to change my life ...
... enable me to have a secret ....
... propelled me to ...all the colorful lines...
... therapeutic... chat with ...our new dog...
... without ... impatien[ce]...
... I just enjoyed ....

...tones are ...
... building [is].

[genmce]

I love that book!

I'd say, with your editing, it was a collaboration for sure!

Strat SP guitar update.

Thanks for advice - since I don't have others to mess with - besides humbuckers,
I swapped out C 5.8k with a 7.1K in the bridge.

Oddly enough, I liked it a lot, or I think I did back at 5:30am, this morning.

I moving the whole assembly to a new pickguard and the random pickup heights sounded great...
Until I set them to factory and then it was not as nice... alas.
Now I have to stumble about to find that special place again...

I have a buddy with some old squire pickups - I might check them out... but he only has 2 and I am not sure if the polarity will be correct.
Ok, back to Ohio.

[genmce]

Aug 5, 2015 15:39:29 GMT -5 Runewalker said:

I play funky/rock/country/reggae as state above.
Can someone make suggestions as to what pickup to put where?
Goals
1. max quack on 2,4 standard parallel strat settings
2. Mellow jazzy neck on 1
3. Clear clean - not too much icepick on bridge.

I would describe your goals as "vintage" level single coils. There is always an argument about how to interpret sounds through descriptions, but I interpret your description as more vintage than modern. There are also interpretations about 50s vintage vs 60s vintage. Convention seems to accept that 50s pups are less "powerful" than 60s pups, 60s>70s, etc. Again, interpreting your description, it sounds like more of the 60s vintage, ie, mellow jazz, not too much icepick. (John's SP in the system series modes will also help the icepick effect).

I have struggled with getting "authentic" (---- Hendrix, SRV, Thomas Blug, etc.) single coil sounds out of strat bods for years. I have finally hit on a formula that works fairly consistently. I tried probably 20-30 diff. models and brands. I got closest with a Fender '69 set, but still felt something was lacking.

The '69s had alnicos, no RWRP and measured about 5.6-7K Hz --- don't know the yy.xh readings. I don't buy the no RWRP argument for "authentic sound." So in the continued search I focused on alnico in the 5.3 to 5.7K range. I have fianlly found some Asian pups that get me where I want that are very inexpensive --- could probably get 4 sets for the price of those '69s.

Some will probably weigh in that you cannot specify a tone off of Resistance alone, and I am not suggesting you can, just giving you the data I have.

So, in terms of your inventory, none hit the range described above. You have pups that are in the hot-normal to overwound range. So I suspect none will get you totally what you seek, but you may be able to accept the compromises. Your A-B-C options, under that criteria, will get you closest. If those do not get you enough chime or sparkle, sometimes lowering the pup height can help that, but the change seems qualitatively less in the hotter wound pups.

YMMV.

RW

So I got a set of these.
www.ebay.com/itm/G-M-62z-Alnico-5-Single-Coil-Pickup-Set-Cream-/271884917309?hash=item3f4d9a9a3d

Pretty cheap for $25. Shipping worked quick, and it looks like they have a bunch of different options for pickups.
I have yet to install them.
It is somewhere on my agenda.
Specs slightly diff N = 5.4k, M = 5.77k and B = 6.08k than advertised, but in the right direction.

[genmce]

Just got the new (cheap) pickups in this guitar, in this Strat
SP sss. Not sure I like the color of the pickup covers...



The cat wants to play!

I made the vol a500k, no load and the tone a250k no load as well.
Not sure I needed to, but - it's already done. Will it impact the series caps?



I have noticed - in the short time I have played it... 10 mins, that when series is on there is more noise.
So - normal (series off) - 2 and 4 are humcancelling, but when series is on those positions have more noise, is this to be expected?

[JohnH]

Sept 19, 2015 11:24:41 GMT -5 genmce said:

Just got the new (cheap) pickups in this guitar, in this Strat
SP sss. Not sure I like the color of the pickup covers...



The cat wants to play!

I made the vol a500k, no load and the tone a250k no load as well.
Not sure I needed to, but - it's already done. Will it impact the series caps?



I have noticed - in the short time I have played it... 10 mins, that when series is on there is more noise.
So - normal (series off) - 2 and 4 are humcancelling, but when series is on those positions have more noise, is this to be expected?

A no load converted pot will still work for the special tone control provide the wiper can still connect to the third lug at 10, but the extra series brightening will only be at 10 rather than blended in from 8 to 10. Series combos are never quite as quiet as parallel. They are hotter and have higher impedance, so they are more sensitive. Plus, exact coil matching is more critical whereas in parallel, a mismatch can be very much self compensating for hum balance.

[DanT]

Wow. I’ve somehow wandered the interwebs for weeks looking for super switch wiring diagrams to accomplish this simple goal: wire my SSS strat so the five positions work as normal, except the 3 position gives n+b in a Tele-like combo. Then have a push-pull switch to choose between series/parallel for the combos, and a push-pull switch to select phase for any combo. It seemed a simple quest, but all I was finding were switching diagrams (and very few at that) that were not very intuitive, duplicated some combos, and offered weird combinations based on the up-down positions of the two switches in ways that defied all logic and intuition as a player holding a guitar.

You can imagine my utter delight at finally stumbling onto this page somehow along the way tonight! This is the Holy Grail I’ve been seeking.

Then to read through many posts and threads and see how supportive, open, and collaborative the environment is here? Where folks like JohnH actually TEACH and SHARE knowledge, teaching us to fish, as the parable says, instead of just feeding us. This is a guitar modder’s Garden of Eden and I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this for so long. Thank you all for the great stuff I’m reading here.

Now... a couple of questions on this mod before I try it on one of my three ratty old MiMs I’m using as experimental subjects...

1. Elsewhere JohnH has pointed to the Mike Richardson mod as a classic design (which I was pleased to also find thanks to this site). One thing I like about the MR mod is the availability of all three pickups combined in parallel and in series at the 1 and 5 position with the s/p switch pulled up. Can this Strat SP diagram be modified to allow for these combos?

I am a relative neophyte at wiring. I understand the basics and even the wiring concepts behind series/parallel and phase, but I’m not yet very skilled in understanding how all that gets accomplished in these super switch diagrams, so I can’t yet look at the MR mod diagram and the Strat SP diagram and understand how those wiring combos might be combined, if at all. I’m beginning to understand it when I see it, but not yet able to imagine how to do it myself, if that makes sense.


2. I’m slightly confused on the diagram where the 47nF cap is connected to the push-pull switch on the volume pot. It might just be that I need new glasses. Am I correct in thinking that it shows the leg of the cap being soldered to the bottom right lug of the switch and then a jumper connects that lug to the bottom left lug of that switch (then on to the super switch)?

Thanks in advance...

Dan

[JohnH]

Hi dant. Welcome to GN2, and thanks for your kind words.

For your questions, this scheme is able to do what it does because it gives up the ootion of combining all three pickups. Its inherent in how it works so sorry no 3x options in this scheme! The basic idea is that the superswitch picks from the three pickups to select just 1 or 2 of them, then the other controls combine them, allowing features like the universal phase switch. I dont think of this as a limitation. I built a multi-toggle Strat before and found that the 2x sounds are much better than the 3x ones 

Your are right about the 47nF cap. Its not the main tone cap, but it comes into play just in series mode, brightening the tone. More about it in earlier posts. If you just omit it, it all still works but just as a normal tone control.

[DanT]

Thanks so much, JohnH! I thought that might be the case, regarding the switch and all three pups. I love the mod as it is, was mostly curious, and perhaps overreaching. Lol.

I hope to put this together within the next two or three weeks.

Thanks!

[DanT]

I’ve continued to study this diagram and cogitate on it and I have two areas of questions, if someone doesn’t mind dumping some education on me.

The two areas basically have to do with:
1) understanding the tone and fade controls as wired in this diagram; and

2) understanding how to modify/remove the tone controls in this scheme to do something different (regular style tone controls, greasebucket, treble-cut/bass-cut, etc.).

Starting with that second question first, am I correct in thinking that if I do not connect the 47nF cap from the first tone potentiometer to the series/parallel switch, do not connect the 22nF cap between the volume pot and the tone pot, and do not connect the second tone pot back to the super switch, then that separates the two tone control knobs out of the circuit and the rest of it works correctly just without tone controls? And I can then put in any kind of tone circuit I want using those two pots?

I *think* I’m more interested in using the tone pots as more of a combined master tone control (such as using Tone1 pot to add a bass cut and Tone2 pot to do a normal treble cut pot or perhaps add a third push/pull pot to have ability to switch between normal treble cut and a Greasebucket circuit. ...rather than as separate tone controls for neck and bridge, for example.

Back to the first question, I also *think* I like the concept of the fade to reduce the bassier pickup in series (is that kind of like a backwards take on a blender pot like Lindy Fralin uses? Subtracting rather than adding?)... my biggest issue is that the tone controls in this diagram totally confuse my weak and ignorant brain. Frankly, I can’t even figure out to my satisfaction which pot does what, and how it does it. So I’m a little scared of the unknown. Could someone walk me through how and why this tone circuit does what it does? Perhaps if I can wrap my mind around the way it works I will feel more comfortable trying it out in place of more traditional tone control ideas.

Thanks in advance!

Dan

[JohnH]

The tone pots and fade pot can indeed be completely separated from the design and everything else is unaffected. You could sub in other tone controls that you might prefer if you wish. Just to explain them a bit more:

Starting with the tone pot, imagine the 47nF is not installed. You should be able to see that the tone pot would then be a conventional master tone control. The middle lug is grounded and the right outer lug goes via the 22nF cap to the volume hot lug as usual.

Now add the 47nF. It is using the left outer lug of the tone pot, which is usually not connected. It goes to the link between the lower lugs of the series switch. This link is the series connection between two pickups, when the knob is pulled, (similar to the connection between two coils of a humbucker). The 37nF takes this point, via part of the pot, towards ground. When the tone pot is at max treble, the 47 nF is directly grounded.. This shunts the centre connection to the two series coils to ground, bypassing the lower (ie nearer to ground) coil via the cap. This provides a more direct connection for treble frequencies of the upper coil, actually making the whole thing brighter because you get single-coil edge from the upper hotter coil. But bass frequencies are less affected, so its thick powerful bass from both coils combined with single coil treble. In practice, its all a smooth transition as you turn up the treble, from fully rolled off at 0, controlled by the 22nF cap, through full series 'humbucker' (at about 9), to this brighter but still powerful series sound at 10. The benefit of this idea is that it counters what is sometimes a rather dull sound from series connections. There's other interesting mid scoops and peaks created too by the interactions of cap and coils.


The fade control is a bit similar, also working on bypassing that lower series coil, but with a full shunt instead of via a cap. Its the only way to get M alone, should you want it.

I have both of these controls, or similar, on a several of other guitars and I find them to be very interesting. Blending and tweaking a series sound generates many more interesting tones than mixing parallel connections. eg, a single with just a bit of another coil in series can be a very nice place to play.


All of the above gets multiplied further with the phase switch involved. Out of Phase OOP settings naturally sound quite thin, but as soon as you can unbalance the mix of the two pickups, the tones change profoundly.

Its not hard to rewire the tone and fade pots, so maybe you might like to try them as designed and see what you think, with a view to doing something else if you wish later?

[DanT]

JohnH, thank you so much for taking the time to write this. It made it quite a bit clearer for me.

One of the parts confusing me is I wasn’t clear on how the tone control and the fade controlled worked differently if both were shunting a coil to ground. But I *think* I get it now that the fade control shunts all frequencies from one coil to ground, and the 47nF cap works on more selective frequencies.

And I even think I understand the idea that the 47nF is giving a more direct path for the treble frequencies of the first or upper coil before they even get to the lower coil since it is connecting at the center connection between the upper and lower coil.

Is the 47nF cap actually allowing those upper coil treble frequencies back INTO the signal that the 22nF cap would have sent to ground if the 47nF were not there? Is this kind of like the treble bleed on the volume pot allowing higher frequencies to bypass the tone control and sending them back into the signal as the volume is turned down?

Part of my difficulty is I don’t truly understand how electricity flows in a circuit, especially one with the twists and turns this one has I tend to think of it as a Point A to Point B path, like water through a pipe or patrons passing through those zigzag queues in long lines to an amusement park ride. I think of capacitors as friendly park employees allowing their friends to take a quicker path to the ride by moving aside the rope stanchions for some but not others. Lol. But I’m sure it is more complex and nuanced than that and I haven’t yet grasped how it all works. Lol

In any event, when you mentioned the benefits of these controls on OOP tones you sold me. I love the OOP tones of Peter Green and T-Bone Walker and B B King and one of the reasons I want to try this mod is to have easy access to a variety of OOP tones the try out and play around with on a Strat instead of one of my humbucker-equipped guitars...I actually flipped the magnet on an cheap Ibanez Gio to make it permanently OOP and I love playing it.

I’ve just ordered the caps and resistors a moment ago and plan to break out the soldering iron once they arrive!

[DanT]

Oops. I might have to order some pots. Just realized I had 250k CTS push-pull pots.

Are the specs for 500k pots due to the wiring of the coils in series? Would 250k pots potentially load the pickups too much when in series? (No, I don’t really understand what that means but I read somewhere about smaller pot values “loading pickups” too much... lol) (actually I understand that it means the pot is providing too much resistance to the signal, but beyond that I’m swimming in deep water!)

[JohnH]

May 29, 2018 12:58:00 GMT -5 DanT said:

Oops. I might have to order some pots. Just realized I had 250k CTS push-pull pots.

Are the specs for 500k pots due to the wiring of the coils in series? Would 250k pots potentially load the pickups too much when in series? (No, I don’t really understand what that means but I read somewhere about smaller pot values “loading pickups” too much... lol) (actually I understand that it means the pot is providing too much resistance to the signal, but beyond that I’m swimming in deep water!)

That's right, due to the series options. Its a similar reason that humbuckers generally use higher value pots. They are more vulnerable to losing their high treble if too much load is put on them. Its not like it wouldn't work with 250's though, its just a fine tuning and it can also be subject to personal opinion. But this design has a range of tones and the higher pots will present them better. But it its too bright, just turn the tone down a little and its exactly the same as using 250k pots.


A bit of optional theory: The reason the pot values matter like this is that they, together with the pickup inductance, form an LR filter that rolls off treble above a certain frequency. L is the inductance, which is x2 for two equal coils or pickups in series. The frequency above which treble is rolled off is where the impedance of the coils equals the resistance of the pots. 2Pi.L.F = R. So F= R/(2Pi.L). In this case, R is both pots in parallel (tone cap is not significant), so 125k for two 250k pots. Putting in some typical numbers and with two typical single coil pickups in series (Inductance say 2x2.5H = 5H), this roll off happens above about 4kHz with 250k pots, which you can hear on a guitar.

So doubling inductance with pickups in series halves the frequency at which treble roll off starts. potentially making it sound duller. Compensate by doubling the resistance of the pots.

[DanT]

Thank you for the optional theory! I appreciate it, and am slowly beginning to grasp it. I’ve even started studying up on how to read schematics instead of just wiring diagrams. But, like algebra so many years ago, I understand when I see it but can not yet begin to extrapolate it into my own practical applications. But if I live long enough I just might.

Well, “Midnight,” the MiM strat I’m putting this into has just had its copper shielding put in place. Perhaps not the prettiest job, but the multimeter tells me it has continuity, and I put shielding inside the pickguard and that has continuity with the internal copper when in place (tested through an open pickup slot) so I guess I’m off to a reasonably good start!





“Midnight” has a flat black pickguard with black Hardware and a rosewood fretboard. I think the Fender body color is Violet? She is a 2001 and I don’t know her immigration status for sure but I think she entered the USA legally. But I’m not asking.

[DanT]

Super Switch is wired. Waiting for 500k pots to arrive to finish up.

Hoping I didn’t fry the switch or have cold solder joints from my inept soldering. Time will tell!

[newey]

Hoping I didn’t fry the switch or have cold solder joints from my inept soldering. Time will tell!

Time will indeed tell. But so would some testing, and you won't have to wait the time to find out. Nor will you have to disassemble the guitar should all not be in apple-pie order.

A multimeter is the ticket here, and if you're going to do any serious wiring ("serious", in my definition, includes anything requiring a Superswitch), it's a necessity. Cheap ones can be had for under $20USD and will work fine for most guitar stuff you would encounter.

Testing the pickup switching becomes easier if you had first measured the resistance of each of the pickups before wiring it in, but we can work around that if you didn't. Testing will also be easier if done before the V and T pots are wired into the circuit.

[DanT]

May 29, 2018 21:29:21 GMT -5 newey said:

Hoping I didn’t fry the switch or have cold solder joints from my inept soldering. Time will tell!

Time will indeed tell. But so would some testing, and you won't have to wait the time to find out. Nor will you have to disassemble the guitar should all not be in apple-pie order.

A multimeter is the ticket here, and if you're going to do any serious wiring ("serious", in my definition, includes anything requiring a Superswitch), it's a necessity. Cheap ones can be had for under $20USD and will work fine for most guitar stuff you would encounter.

Testing the pickup switching becomes easier if you had first measured the resistance of each of the pickups before wiring it in, but we can work around that if you didn't. Testing will also be easier if done before the V and T pots are wired into the circuit.

So I woke up at about 3AM my time from a dead sleep with this very thought! I realized I could test the continuity of all the solder connections to each other and to their destinations on the common lugs. So I climbed out of bed and went to my project desk to grab my multimeter.

Then I logged on here and saw your suggestions that I do exactly that newey! Thank you!

I came up with good news and bad news. All the solder connections had good continuity across the jumpers and to the appropriate common lugs, EXCEPT one set of lugs...when I switched the selector lever, the selected lug did not have continuity to the common lug, although the soldered connections themselves showed appropriate continuity across jumpers, etc.

So I pulled out my magnifying glass and looked inside the switch. The wiper for that set of lugs was bent at an odd angle such that, while it made a connection with some of the lugs, it did not come close to touching the bridge lug at all. I, of course, tried using a screwdriver to bend it back into the correct position, without success. I'm not sure whether the switch came this way, or whether in soldering that section of lugs, I may have soldered a lug while the wiper was in contact with it and heated it up too much that it warped the wiper causing it to bend in this strange way. That's entirely possible I suppose. In any event, whether factory error or my error, I now have the opportunity to get a new super switch and wire it all over again.

At least I confirmed that my solder joints weren't cold, so I'm taking that as positive news. And a successful practice session....

Also, this means I can test the resistance of the pickups before attaching them to the new switch! Thank you for that suggestion, newey!

[reTrEaD]

May 30, 2018 3:16:41 GMT -5 DanT said:

I'm not sure whether the switch came this way, or whether in soldering that section of lugs, I may have soldered a lug while the wiper was in contact with it and heated it up too much that it warped the wiper causing it to bend in this strange way. That's entirely possible I suppose.

Dan, overheating is unlikely to warp a contact. You might oxidize the copper, causing a partially insulating layer or soldering flux might migrate to the contact surface, crystallizing and preventing proper contact with the wiper. But I don't think you can achieve temperatures which will cause warping with a soldering iron or gun.