Tone Monster Wiring Diagram

[JohnH]

Runewalker,

Before I do a wiring diagram for the HH circuit, could you let me know your answers/preferences for the following:

Tone control

There’s lots of options for how to do tone control on this design. The following 7 options are the ones I can think of: Which do you prefer? or can you think of something else?

1. As the schematic, there is a blend control pot, but no tone control
2. No blend pot, and a master tone control instead
3. A push/pull switch on the blend pot, to switch in a fixed amount of treble cut, using a capacitor or a capacitor in series with a resistor, values chosen to taste.
4. As 3 above, but a different capacitor or capacitor/resistor is put across each pickup. Eg, you might find a small capacitor is sometimes most useful across the bridge pickup to take the edge off the treble, and a larger one for the neck pickup to make it a more mellow or darker sound. This is still done with just a DPDT push/pull on the blend pot
5. A push/pull on the blend pot switches it between being a blend control (without tone control), and a master tone control (without the blend function, but still of course with the option of combining the pups in the usual way with the other switches, in series and parallel).
6. Your very good idea, with an extra on/off/on toggle switch to give two options of fixed master tone control (eg two capacitor values), or none
7. Build in another pot, for master tone control

Any of those ideas are fine, with no difficult wiring. I’m attracted to the idea of no new drilling in an SG or LP (options 1 to 5), and I think option 5 would be my first choice.. It would then be very easy to change to say, option 3 or 4 at a later date.

Pickup types

What make of pick ups are you using? The schematic currently shows SD colours. Do you have different wiring colours?. You can see how the coils are swapped between the two pups, to get the phase and hum cancelling correct.

If you are using existing SG pickups I have heard that these can be just two wires and epoxy encased. That would be no good for this design! – so I’m assuming you have four wires per pup. Is there a separate shield wire as on the HSH circuit?

Switch Types

What is the final choice for rotary switch configuration? Is it the Alpha 4 pole 5 position, from Mouser?. To make a meaningful wiring diagram (that shows more info that the schematic), it is necessary to know the layout of poles and connection tabs at the back of the switch. This varies between switches. This switch seems to have two wafers, but I cant tell the actual tag positions from the diagram. If we cant work this out, then I can draw something generic, but then you will need to work out the connections when you get the switch, by looking at the switch wafers and using a meter to see what connects to what.

Best wishes from
John .

[JohnH]

RW - One further thing to check - what are the limits for the depth of switches to fit the body of the guitar? The 4P6W Alpha switch, with the contacts in two layers is fairly deep - heres the diag we discussed before
www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/TW-700031.pdf
Will it fit? If not, 3P4T switches are much easier to find and less deep. You'd lose the 'out-of-phase with itself' options on each Hb, as discussed before however.
J

[Mini-Strat_Maine]

runewalker said:

This hobby may have gotten out of hand.

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
THINGS THAT TOOK ME 50 YEARS TO LEARN
-- By Dave Barry
Boy, I hope I'm the first one to post that; I'm still reading through the whole thread. (And doesn't Dave Barry play guitar in that band with Stephen King and Amy Tan, et al?)

And for whoever it was (on page 2?) all enthused about the blend pot, here's a couple more things that I hope I'm not duplicating something that somebody else posted already:
www.fralinpickups.com/images/blendschem2.jpg
www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-4137.html

--
Doug C.

[JohnH]

Doug C - welcome to this thread. Im enjoying myself in here because I get to design lots of circuits - it beats doing crosswords!

Thanks for those blend links. The first one is similar to what we are discussing for the HH circuit. The second is a dual gang blender of a clever type. Its not what we have been proposing, but theres lots of ways of doing a blend. The trickiest part is getting them to work properly is a circuit that switches between series and parallel.

[Mini-Strat_Maine]

johnh said:

Doug C - welcome to this thread. Im enjoying myself in here because I get to design lots of circuits - it beats doing crosswords!

If I'd paid more attention in the electronics classes I took, I might be designing circuits today, too. Now I have to settle for crosswords, either that or learning to read music.

Thanks for those blend links. The first one is similar to what we are discussing for the HH circuit.

That one's suggested for Fralin's single-coil sets, on their page <http://www.fralinpickups.com/stratstyle.asp>. It says "An optional Blender Pot is available to add to the versatility of your instrument, mixing the neck and bridge pickups." I don't think they were quite expecting to have the three pickups in any LF set all going at once. ;D

The second is a dual gang blender of a clever type. Its not what we have been proposing, but theres lots of ways of doing a blend. The trickiest part is getting them to work properly is a circuit that switches between series and parallel.

And that's one of the things I liked about the "original" Tone Monster concept, being able to switch between series/parallel on all three pups, plus lead/rhythm selection. Phase changing isn't something I'd get all spun-up about, though. But I would like to try the other functions of the TM, maybe with a Blender/Master Tone/Master Volume. I think I'd go for the volume as the push/pull for the lead/rhythm switch.

Along with switches, etc., I'm looking for a good ("not terribly expensive") replacement pickguard with no holes cut for switches, as an essential component of a good Tone Monster project.
I haven't learned much about musical notation, but I haven't done a crossword puzzle for a long time, either.

[Runewalker]

DougC-Mini-S:

Your custom pickgard typically will not come cheap because it is a limited run, but this is pretty comprehensive pickgard co. and I think they have the shaped blanks, or can make you one.

www.terrapinguitars.com/

Is this thread insane? Unequivocally.

I got into this because I needed to replace my venerable ax, and everything I looked at in production was either prohibitably expensive or limited in possiblities.

Production guitars are designed for the masses, because that is where the bulge in the bell curve is, and the largest potential market.

These type designs are incredibly varied and flexible, but a little overwhelming in options for your grundger.

The thrust of the thread is both working through design options and the patient John H conducting a seminar on wiring theory and reality.

Hats off the John H as an educator and incredible resouce for the hobbists.

I have about 10 projects in the pipeline executing various permutations of this design. I hope to complete them as time and budgets allow, then get back to playing, because this part of the 'hobby' is taking some backfill time.

But I am learning a great deal, and am significantly less intimidated by the guts of the control cavity. I could not say this before the thread started and trialing some custom wiring projects.

[Runewalker]

JH:

Back to the content and away from editorializing.

The project for the HH is an SG buildup. Have the body/Neck and these parts:

- 2 Rotary 4P5T
- As many 1 meg Alpha pots as needed,
- 1 1 meg push pull

Rotaries: These are the Mouser units you pointed me toward. I was going to post their DataSheet, but their server seems to be refreshing right now.

Model numbers are: 10WR045
Alpha Rotary, 4P5T

They have pretty good Data sheets showing the switch config. I love the $3.17 price.

(I know my fixation on pricing seems like I am a cheap bas**** but with over 10 guitar projects in the pipeline the scale of expenditures is daunting. My objective is to create a harem of great guitars at a low per unit cost, which means the cost is controlled by effective parts shopping and my unpaid labor, what we call in strategic planning - opportunity cost).

Pups: are new alnico 4 wire units. They have the Jackson color coding. I obtained these for $20 bucks each, but will not know if the tone is as cheap as the price until installed. If I don't like the tone for me, my daughter will get them. (don't tell her). I have had great luck with GFS's and the ones I like are only $36 each.

This is a ground up build and not a Gibby SG conversion. It in fact is a bolt on and not a set neck. So I am not dealing with the issues of "ruining" a 'vintage' instrument. While tempted I wont do this to my LesPaul. I might consider a Jimmy Page type conversion, but these other projects give me so much more, so why bother?

Here is the config layout for the SG:

www.thefilebucket.com/userfiles/paladin7/SG%20Pot%20and%20Toggle%20Configuration2.doc

I want to experiment with the dual value capacitors for tone cuts (on-on-on, for value 1, value 2,a nd none), but do not yet have the courage to elimiate the tone pot completely yet. I will in a future project, but not the SG. I think there would be some experimentation to select the right value for a total frequency cut, so right now since I have the room I will stick with a conventional tone pot. I selected the 1 meg pot though to have as much total tone through put as possible with out opening it up and doing the scratch off thing, at least on the tone pot.

So I have set it up with:

Master Volume
Master Tone with a Push/pull for in/out of phase
Neck and Bridge Rotaries
Blend between Neck and Bridge pups.

While Doug C seems to think it insane, and he is probably right, the guitar will look quite conventional, unless I go wacky and use chicken head knobs on the rotaries. Which I may. However I have some tres-cool black pearl dome tops I am dieing to use so this may be the project for those.

I had not thought about the push/pull switching between the MastVol and the Blend Pots. I had actually been thinking blend between pups for tonal colors and MastVol for total output.

I rarely use both pups full on together in the LesPaul. It gets in your terms, "a little 'wooly'". (I am not sure exactly what that means, must be Australian. We have more beef cattle than sheep here in Texas, so I may have a paucity of agrarian references to fully understand 'wooly'. i think that means muddy and tonally indistinct). A freqent play-setting is Bridge full vol, and Neck between 3 and 7. So I was thinking the Blend would enable that type of array, and the MastVol then controls output level.


OK. I hope I answered all of your questions. Let me know if I left something hanging

ENVISION:

Black SG, Black pearl dome tops, block pearl inlays on the neck, bound neck, chromed pup covers, chrome bridge/stop piece, chrome tuner heads. Stealth electronics. 100 Watts RMS Fender Twin brain through 2 12" JBLs and 6 10" original Fender/Jenson's. Whoa, Stand back, mama.

[Mini-Strat_Maine]

runewalker said:

JH:
{snip}
While Doug C seems to think it insane, and he is probably right, the guitar will look quite conventional, unless I go wacky and use chicken head knobs on the rotaries. Which I may. However I have some tres-cool black pearl dome tops I am dieing to use so this may be the project for those.

Actually, I think it's way cool. Your comment about the hobby getting a bit out of hand or whatever just made me think of that Dave Barry quote. And as Jimmy Buffet once said, "If we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane." (A few more from the same source: www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/insane.html)

I thought about chicken head knobs for mine, but I really want something that can be marked as to whether it's Tone or Volume, and for which pickup. You know, that "NASA control panel" thing. ;D

Production guitars are designed for the masses, because that is where the bulge in the bell curve is . . .

Hee, hee; eloquent. Good one.

[JohnH]

RW - Great, thats all clear. Ive got the rotary switch data sheet, but it seems to be generic for several versions of the switch and I cant work out how the connection tags are arranged. If you have these in hand, could you send some sort of diagram or photo?

cheers
John

[Runewalker]

Ok, I see the generic-ness of the diagram. I thought that:

www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/TW-700031.pdf

would provide you what you need. But it does not appear so.

I took a screen image and drew (via MS-Word) the solder lugs array for both wafers to show you positions -- if that helps:

www.thefilebucket.com/userfiles/paladin7/Alpha%20Rotary%2C%204P5T%2010WR045.doc

Otherwise we may have to go back to tech support at Mouser.

Their drawing show the 6 position switch I believe, so you will see on my drawing 5 sequetial lugs per side. The long ones on the second wafer go to a different concentric radius than the short ones.

So many rules in this electonic stuff.

[JohnH]

RW

Here it is , a monster indeed! Heres the wiring and also the schematic, adjusted to match pup wiring colours and add the tone control.
people.smartchat.net.au/~l_jhewitt/circuits/HHseriesparallels5wayschematicMk2.gif
people.smartchat.net.au/~l_jhewitt/circuits/HHwiring.gif

Some points about it:

1. The two wafers of each switch are shown next to each other, you’ll have to make the mental leap of picturing them one above the other!
2. I’ve shown in a box, the ‘pre-wiring’ that you can do within each switch, before introducing the connections to the pickups and other switches. Both rotaries are wired the same.
3. I have tried to follow Jackson colours as you noted in your message. (note that in previous monsters, I was assuming SD colours, which are the same colours but mixed up)
4. Note how the pickup leads to each rotary are in a different order. The idea of this is to swap the north and south coils for neck and bridge. This is the key to getting all the single coil and out of phase combos to be hum cancelling, and it is also related to why we don’t want a separate phase switch on this design (it would mess up the hum cancelling)
5. The push/pull switch is shown on the tone pot. Again, hard to draw, but I believe the end of the switch nearest to the pot in the diagram should also be the end facing the real pot. This is to get the parallel setting to be the pushed in one. I think this is most logical because parallel is the ‘normal’ way for connecting pups.
6. I’ve not shown any grounding to the switch bodies, which should all be touching your cavity shielding, which has a single connection to the ground point on the back of the volume pot
7. I’ve followed your layout for control positions, but it is drawn as if looking from the back
8. The poles of the rotary switches, top to bottom on the wiring diagram, correspond top to bottom on the schematic
9. The 5 connection tags for each pole, top to bottom on the schematic, are read clockwise on the wiring diagram .
10. If you decide to swap the positions of the neck and bridge rotaries, you can do so, there’d be no change needed to the colours, just change the labels
11. If you find that any toggles or pots work backwards to how you think they should, this can be fixed by reversing some connections
12. There’s got to be at least one mistake in this diagram – but I don’t know what it is! – so watch out!. It will need some methodical testing to make sure phasing etc is OK.

best wishes

John

[Runewalker]

JH:

Beautiful Diagram. I think I will work on the rotaries first.

The drawing is a little small. I think I will re-render it, but add some colors to keep the wiring straight in my head. I know it is just hookup wire and has nothing to do with the pups wiring, there just seems to be a couple of connections I can't quite tell what is going on.

So let me try that then check back with you to make sure I understand correctly. Hope that is OK.

Fireworks tonight.

Happy 4th!

[Runewalker]

JH:

I re-rendered the inset so I could make sure I understood it.

www.thefilebucket.com/userfiles/paladin7/HH%20Rotary%20Inset.doc

The colors mean nothing since it is all hookup wire, I just put color in to make it easier for my eyes to track.

I am not clear about the wiring of the inner wafer, poles numbered 1,3 9 and 10. I just can't quite make out on your drawing what connects to what. I will PM you the Word File.

Thanks
RW

[JohnH]

That looks fine RW, matches the inset on my diagram.
cheers

J

[Runewalker]

Ok, so on the inner wafer lugs 1,3,9 and 10 are looped together, and 1 connects to 9 on the bottom wafer, and 9 connects to 7 on the bottom wafer.

[JohnH]

thats OK

[Runewalker]

JH:

Just clarifing a question about the HH rotaries:

Turning Clockwise will the setting cycle through the following sequence (as suggested by you):

Pos 1. Both Coils Series
Pos 2. Both Coils Parallel
Pos 3. Single coil 1 towards the neck
Pos 4. Single coil 2 towards the bridge
Pos 5. Both coils out of phase



Blend Pot On HH:

The blend pot I have is a dual gang, center detent 500K linear ((AllkParts Model EP 0386-000, on the page below). It has six lugs.

www.guitarnucleus.com/gnstore/elec_pots.html

Looks like the pot you is a single and has 3 lugs.

How do I adapt the blend/balance dual gang to the circuit design?

RW

[JohnH]

RW

You are mostly right about the sequence. If turned clockwise, viewed from the back as in the diagram, you’ll get series, parallel, one coil, other coil, out-of phase. Viewed from the front, this will be anti-clockwise. The single coils active in each position are different between the two rotaries. They are best described as ‘inner coils’ (the two nearest to each other) and ‘outer coils’, rather than ‘towards neck’ and ‘towards bridge’. If you pick the same single coil setting on each rotary, the combination will be in-phase hum cancelling (2 options). If you pick different single coils positions on each rotary, you’ll get out-of-phase but still hum cancelling (another 2 options). If you combine any pair of coil1, coil2 and out-of-phase between the two rotaries (9 options), it is always hum cancelling. That is my favourite part of this whole circuit.

The simplest way to try the blend pot using a dual gang is just to ignore one side , using only say, the lugs nearest to the shaft. The circuit only connects to two of them, as in the diagram. If you find that the blend has little effect through most of its travel, then it suddenly all happens at the end, you can solder a connection from each of the two lugs that you have connected to, to the one behind it. That will turn it into a 250k pot by putting the two pots in parallel.

[Runewalker]

JH: "...If turned clockwise, viewed from the back as in the diagram, you’ll get series, parallel, one coil, other coil, out-of phase. Viewed from the front, this will be anti-clockwise...."

Ok, I think we have that inverse logic thing happing, you know, driving on the 'wrong' side of the road. Looking at knobs from a playing position is it possible to reverse the orientation you describe above.

I made a stab at the inset diagram, but since I don't know what I am doing, could you confirm the info. I can send you the Word file if that helps.

www.thefilebucket.com/userfiles/paladin7/HH%20Rotary%20Inset.doc

Actually, although I have never done it you may be able to save the file as a word file, I normally just open it and it surfaces in the brouser.

The second page has the inverted wiring, at least inverted from your diagram.

I guess this is similar to the:

guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUH5R0001


On the second part of your instructions:

JH: "...The simplest way to try the blend pot using a dual gang is just to ignore one side , using only say, the lugs nearest to the shaft. ..."

It sounds like you are saying I need only a single pot opposed to a double ganged blend pot. In that case I would simply use a single pot, and save back the blend pot.

I was thinking it would be more like this base design:

guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUSS2102

or this one for guitars (- the coil tap)

www.guitartechcraig.com/techwire/tech21.jpg

Was I on the wrong track?

RW

[JohnH]

Ill check out your questions later. My logic for the direction of the rotaries was that as you turn the knob, turning towards the neck (clockwise) brings up the deeper (more neck like) sounds, while the more trebly ones are reached by turning the knob towards the bridge. You can have it either way though!.

John

[JohnH]

I got your diagram - in word format. If you do want to reverse the direction of the rotary with respect to the order of the tones, it would be easiset to just do a left to right flip of the connection order on each pole. On the second page, it looks like the connections are instead, rotated around, but still in the same order.
I still think it is more logical as it was (clockwise towards deeper sounds). Another reason is that clockwise will bring up the louder tones (ie, towards the series humbucker), as on the original diagram. Or do clocks go in a different direction in Texas?

The guitar electronics 5-way switch diagram is fine except for being all wrong. The seiries out-of phase sound will make no sound other than a loud hum (it is disconnected). One of the coils is hanging off the hot connection, even when it is supposed to be disconnected, adding more hum to the other single coil. The tones are in the wrong order (my opinion). And if you wired up two of these as in our circuit, you would not get much hum cancelling. Apart from that, its fine. Lets post it on another guitar form just to cause some chaos.

I looked at the blend diagrams, but I cant think of a good way of using them in our circuit, with its series/paralel wiring. they also add extra load on your pups, eating up your tone. My first choice would still be about a 100k single, as the diagrams, with the 'no-load' end scraping, or second choice, around 500k without that.

BTW, I should point out that on this design, the series mode will be operated with the pickup selector to the neck position. If you prefer, this could be the bridge position by swapping wires to the 3-way switch. It is different to the 3 pup designs in that way.

I hope all that is not too much of a downer - keep the faith, this is going to be a great guitar!

John

[Runewalker]

I pulled up the GuitElectronics 5-way because I am trying to understand this whole approach and the more I read hopefully the more it makes sense, at least in theory.

The logic on rotary sequence is drawn from the Gibson L6S, which was actually a great guitar, it just did not get much tracktion in the marketplace.

When looking at the guitar from playing position it has a chicken head knob. At it's top postion as you look at it (no, 1 position) it had it's "bassiest" sound, then it cycled through a total of 6 position ending with it's most treble sound, much as with a tradtional 5-way, as you move down the switch it goes from bassiest to most treble positions.

Neural programing, while not impossible to change, does develop worn behaviorial pathways, and I have some pretty deep grooves in my mind/motor programing. I wired a guitar 'wrong' so that when I turn vol and tone knobs clockwise they turn everything down, the reverse from convention. And it still screws me up.

As far as clock in Texas, heck we have mostly gone digital so analog directional notations are all but meaningless. Then again the cowboys just look at the postiton of the sun

So my feeble attempt at trying to take some of the work load off of you --- failed. Perhaps you could adjust that second page to the correct positons for the rotaries as described? (those connector features are pretty cool, but also have a mind of their on when it comes to adjusting the pathways). I am not confident I will complete your instructions: "..left to right flip of the connection order on each pole. ..." correctly.

On the single pot blend: The pots I have are 1 meg. Is there an issue with using them instead of the 100K. I thought the lower the resistence value the higher the system treble bleed, which is why we typically hear the advice to use 250K on trebly guits like Strats, and 500K on darker guits like LesPauls.

I still don't really understand how a non-ganged pot can pan between pups.

JH. "...BTW, I should point out that on this design, the series mode will be operated with the pickup selector to the neck position. If you prefer, this could be the bridge position by swapping wires to the 3-way switch. It is different to the 3 pup designs in that way..."

Do you mean the System Series mode, or the pup series mode? The System series mode is controlled by the Push/pull DPDT, correct? I assumed it only had an effect when the 3-way toggle was in the mid position. So this statement errr... confuses me.

JH: "...I hope all that is not too much of a downer - keep the faith, this is going to be a great guitar!
..."

No, I am not really frustrated, I just wish I understood this more. My effort here is to avoid the way I have done things before, wire, solder and place all components ---- in the wrong config, then have to desolder and rewire correctly. I hate redos, so I want ot make sure on this one and the 3 pup units I do it correctly --- the first time.

Thanks as always JH, for your effort and patience.

RW

[JohnH]

I appreciate your effort to understand. The ideas behind this circuit are an extension of the original design of my Shergold guitar. It had original wiring with a 3 position switch for each pup (series, single and out-of phase), with the same attention to hum cancellig between pups. We have added two more positions per switch, and the system series/parallel.

I agree the L-6S was a great guitar, all maple and set neck. Ive never seen one, but I have an article in a book about it, including a schematic. I also found this post:
www.ibanezcollectors.com/discus/messages/13/6701.html?1086559074
, which is a thread about a japanese version of one. All the same, except for the direction of the controls (!!! hee..hee). Nice pictures too. According to the schematic, the L-6S only had switching to combine the pickups, each pup in itself is just a series humbucker with two wires.

I can do a revised diagram with the flip. I'd prefer to do this on my full wiring diagram, because if we move the connections on the switch, all the other wires that connect to the switch need to move as well. This time Ill colour the wires, and you are welcome to have the word file, then you can blow parts up etc.

I should say that it is quite hard to work all this out on paper and do the diagrams, and get it all right without the parts here. Its a brain strain visualizing it all. I normally figure this stuff out as I build something, testing each stage before moving on. Thats just a watch-it in case errors creep in. I have tried to get pots turning the right way etc, but it could easily be inverted. So some debugging may well be needed when it is together!

The blend is not a pan pot in this case, it just blends, as follows:

In System parallel mode:
3-way switch in neck postion: blend from neck only to fully mixed bridge and neck
3-way switch in the bridge position: blend from bridge only to fully mixed bridge and neck
3-way in centre: fully mixed, blend has no effect

So select one pup, use the blend to mix in a bit of the other

In System series mode:
bridge pup is fully on. the blend mixes from bridge and neck to
bridge only.

OK, heres another thing to get out on the table - the fully blended position in series mode has high resistance, while in parallel mode it has low resistance, so the fully blended position is at the other end of the pot travel between system series and system parallel. I dont think this is a problem. The blend is an extra feature. If you dont use it, you can set it to one end (max resistance) and leave it unmoved, then the 3-way works as normal and so does the system series/parallel. Youll have to experiment to check it out.

If you have a 1Meg pot, you can try it, it may not do much until the end of its travel however, so be prepared to swap it out

My point about the series/parallel, refers to the system series/parallel push/pull. When you want to go to series mode, set the 3-way to neck. This is similar to how Jimmy page LP guitars do it.

Is all this sounding too complicated? Once it is together, I think youll mostly find that you use the system parallel setting, and pick a favorite tone on each rotary and just flick between them using the 3-way. This simple mode of operation still has a wide range of sounds. But then sometimes, when you need something different, you have huge potential for more combinations.

John

[Runewalker]

JH: ",,,The blend is not a pan pot in this case, it just blends, as follows:

In System parallel mode:
3-way switch in neck position: blend from neck only to fully mixed bridge and neck
3-way switch in the bridge position: blend from bridge only to fully mixed bridge and neck
3-way in centre: fully mixed, blend has no effect

So select one pup, use the blend to mix in a bit of the other

In System series mode:
bridge pup is fully on. the blend mixes from bridge and neck to
bridge only.
,,,"

OK, that helps explain the single pot approach. When you used the word "blend" I was thinking something like a fader control in a car CD player, where you control the amount of sound emanating from the front to back speakers, or like a balance control on a stereo, so that seemed to call for a dual ganged, center detent pot.

But your approach functions much the same way.
I have a couple of old 500Ks I may try instead of the 1 meg units, since the value seems to relate to amount of effect within different degrees of the arc of travel.

JH: ",,,Is all this sounding too complicated? Once it is together..."

No not really, I work with computer programs and financial modeling all day so this is just a series of switches to become familiar with. I just want to wire it once.

JH: "...I should say that it is quite hard to work all this out on paper..."

And I understand it must be difficult to design without actually seeing the device. Hope my renderings helped, but they are still representative rather than physical.

Sorry about the "reverse" order request. Part of the campaign to assist Australia in driving on the correct side of the road. After all, how many on-horse sword fights have you had lately. Most of my sword fights are sans horse these days.

RW

[Runewalker]

Oh -- the L6S

Seeing the Japanese version was interesting. Man they copied everything, because the L6S was really a specialty guitar that never quite took off. I think it was targeted against Strats and Teles since it had very unGibson like tones in addition to the humbucker tones. I have periodically considered stripping the pickups and doing a custom job. But with so many great pups at reasonable prices, I think instead I am getting ready to sell her.

This world of custom builds has gotten me closer to where I was trying to go than the various guitars (and sold)I picked up over the years. I just had a sentimental attachment to this one, that it is time to break the thread on.

Yes the chicken head was not controlling a single pup, but moved through diff configs of one or both pups.

I was mainly pointing out the logic of moving clockwise from bassiest to most treble. I of course was making no judgements about the superiority of that logic, merely meekly allowing the readers to derrive that conclusion themselves.

[JohnH]

OK - heres the ultimate diagram for the ultimate guitar! - in .doc and.gif formats:

people.smartchat.net.au/~l_jhewitt/circuits/HHwiring3.gif
people.smartchat.net.au/~l_jhewitt/circuits/HHwiring3.doc

Go forth and build, my friend...

John

[Runewalker]

OK and thanks, back to the HSH, then a couple of HHs.

Thanks JH.

Now if we could just get you to drive on the 'right' side of the road.

[Runewalker]

A question regarding the HH design.

The project this is designated for is an SG build. Before we worked out the infinite tone design, I had already bought the pups. Most of my builds have been open coil, but for this one I was going a little dressier, and bought chrome covered buckers. Usally installation of these covered and adjustable pole pup has the bridge pup with the adjusting screws towards the bridge, and the adjusting screws of the neck pup towards the neck.

Since the thrust of the design is maximum tone options, maximum hum cancelling, this requires selecting either the north or south coil of the bucker to sustain hum cancelling when both pups are combined.

So the question is: will the metal covers compromise the output of the hum coil that has no adjustable poles when they are engaged in the signal stream. In other words is the output of the non-adjustable single coil different than the adjustable coil in an actual strung-up, plugged-in installation (not a bench resistance test).

when trying to describe these configurations precisely it always sounds alot more complicated than the question really is.

RW

[JohnH]

Good question. I think the two coils may sound different, and that would be great because you will be able to select either one on the rotary.

Just with the single coils options, youll have four single coil sounds, two in phase hum-cancelling combos and two out of phase hum-cancelling, and they will all sound different (and another four such combos using the system series/parallel switch!).

My Shergold has adjustable poles on all the coils, and I like to wind one set up and the other down to emphasise the differences.

John

[Runewalker]

Well even with the open coil designs there is usually only one coil with sloted screw adjusters.

I was just concernted the covered part of the pup would significantly diminish the output of that coil. You idea that that may be preferrable is one I had not thought of.