Series/Parallel/Phase/Tap with 2 P/P pots.

[asmith]

Hi folks. I designed this for my brother who's getting a new bass and thought I'd share. The bass has a centre-detent fading pickup selector that selects between two humbuckers, a master volume control and a master tone control. Since the centre-detent volume control uses a dual gang potentiometer, it can't be replaced with a DPDT push-pull pot to my knowledge, so I drew this up to get more sounds out of just two DPDT switch options.

This can be used with any instrument with a humbucker and two DPDTs, be it six-stringed or bass guitar.

Click here for an old schematic that works, but may have a 'hanging from hot' issue.

[newey]

Asmith-

This is fresh- +1!

While you diagram reads "scheme for one Humbucker", this could easily be used for 2 SCs, or 2 HBs if not 4-wire and/or if coil splits weren't desired.

The fact that the OOP is in series is nice, since parallel out of phase is less robust.

Note that your statement that, in parallel mode SW2 selects "only the North pickup out of phase" is meaningless, as a pickup can't be out of phase with itself. If this were part of a larger scheme, it might be OOP with other pickups, however.

Good job!

[asmith]

Due to this post informing me that a pickup being shorted and simultaneously connected to the hot output can cause a noise issue, I've done a little wire swapping here and there. Here's Version 2.



Whilst the diagram changes which pickup is selected in 'Single Coil' mode (it was North, it's now South), there shouldn't be any electrical noise issue any more - in theory.

Newey: whilst it sure could be used for two single coils, two humbuckers, etc. etc., I feel it's important to note that the 'Out of Phase' option on the scheme puts the two coils out of phase with another hypothetical pickup, off-diagram, and not out of phase with each other. So if 'Single Coil' mode is selected, and another hypothetical pickup is outputting sound as well, that selected single South coil will be out of phase with it.

[axeman11]

Hello,

I'm a total rookie, and I have been working on making a strat that has 3 humbuckers, all four wire. I have two push/pull pots, that are both 500k, and I got a fender tone knob that I want to use as the master tone. So with these two push/pull pots, I would like to wire one knob to be a volume for the bridge, and neck pickup, and have the second one be a volume for the middle pickup. I would also like to keep the five way selector the same as a standard strat, and would like to use the diagram shown in the previous post for the push pull pots, except I would like to do it for all three pickups. Like I said I'm a total newb, but any help would be greatly appreciated! Really you guys are like super smart, and I'm super not when it comes to wiring.

[newey]

Axeman-

Hello and Welcome!

Asmith's scheme above uses 2 switches (which can be P/P switches, each is a DPDT switch just like P/P pots have) to control 1 humbucker.

You have 3 HBs, so 2 push/pull switches aren't nearly enough to allow you to control all 3 HBs in the same manner as asmith does with one.

To do the same thing with 3 pickups, you'd need 6 switches.

Now, if you want ideas for a 3 HB set-up we can certainly help. But that will be only tangentially related to this wiring module, so please repost that request in the general Guitar Wiring area, not in Design Modules. Your request is more of a general question which will probably generate various replies which won't really belong here.

[4real]

Link and diagrams down...anyone got more info on this?

[genmce]

+1, where are the images?

[MightyBouch]

Hey!
Can someone please reply with a fixed link or with the diagram?

Thank you!

[Yogi B]

Oct 1, 2021 2:09:10 GMT -5 MightyBouch said:

Can someone please reply with a fixed link or with the diagram?

I can't, the diagrams went missing before I was a member. And I can't find the images anywhere else online. Perhaps asmith still has the originals and could reupload?

---

In the mean time, I think we have pretty much all the information we need in order to reconstruct a workalike diagram. Knowing the four resulting settings that need to be distributed between two two-position switches gives us six possible switching arrangements.

Jan 10, 2011 8:58:01 GMT -5 newey said:

Note that your statement that, in parallel mode SW2 selects "only the North pickup out of phase" is meaningless, as a pickup can't be out of phase with itself. If this were part of a larger scheme, it might be OOP with other pickups, however.

The notion that there exists a "parallel mode" which contains the parallel setting and also the reversed phase split coil, implies SW1 selects between this "parallel mode" and a separate "series mode". This leaves only two possibilities.

Additionally it's a pretty safe bet that the two reversed phase settings are grouped together, i.e. toggling SW1 when the reversed phase split coil is selected results in selecting the reversed phase series setting. So we've narrowed the options down to a single possibility:

SW1	SW2
A	A	Parallel
	B	Reverse Phase Split Coil
B	A	Series
	B	Reverse Phase Series

Given the above, below is a schematic that implements that switching. Note, that when the split coil is selected the other (unused) coil is shunted to ground — as I presume was the case in the second (revised) diagram.

[newey]

Yogi B- Nice bit of detective work, worthy of a Sherlock Holmes or a Nero Wolfe!

You didn't ask, but the schematic checks by me.

[MightyBouch]

Oct 1, 2021 15:38:12 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

Oct 1, 2021 2:09:10 GMT -5 MightyBouch said:

Can someone please reply with a fixed link or with the diagram?

I can't, the diagrams went missing before I was a member. And I can't find the images anywhere else online. Perhaps asmith still has the originals and could reupload?

---

In the mean time, I think we have pretty much all the information we need in order to reconstruct a workalike diagram. Knowing the four resulting settings that need to be distributed between two two-position switches gives us six possible switching arrangements.

Jan 10, 2011 8:58:01 GMT -5 newey said:

Note that your statement that, in parallel mode SW2 selects "only the North pickup out of phase" is meaningless, as a pickup can't be out of phase with itself. If this were part of a larger scheme, it might be OOP with other pickups, however.

The notion that there exists a "parallel mode" which contains the parallel setting and also the reversed phase split coil, implies SW1 selects between this "parallel mode" and a separate "series mode". This leaves only two possibilities.



Additionally it's a pretty safe bet that the two reversed phase settings are grouped together, i.e. toggling SW1 when the reversed phase split coil is selected results in selecting the reversed phase series setting. So we've narrowed the options down to a single possibility:

SW1	SW2
A	A	Parallel
	B	Reverse Phase Split Coil
B	A	Series
	B	Reverse Phase Series

Given the above, below is a schematic that implements that switching. Note, that when the split coil is selected the other (unused) coil is shunted to ground — as I presume was the case in the second (revised) diagram.

This is awexome!

- Thank you!!
    MightyBouch