Some Direction for a Planned Project?

[aaronofthe]

I'm new. Hi.

First off - I'm the type of person that likes to know how things work - so don't be afraid to geek out in your responses.

I've got a mexican strat that I rewired and shielded (ala aluminum foil) a few months ago. It was pretty much my first electronics project ever, outside of a semester in high-school.

Now that I'm a little more confident and know which mods I did that are useful - I'm planning my second go. Since the best way to learn something is to surround yourself with people who know - here I am.

So here is what I'd like to do:

Knobs: Volume, Tone, Wah.
1 2-way switch: Series and Parallel.
3 3-way switches: Individual Pickup Off/On/WahOn.


In other words - I'd like to be able to use the bridge pickup with the wah knob at the same time as the neck pickup without it.. and any combination there of.

Any advice, direction to circuits, experience, etc.?

[reTrEaD]

This sounds like it will be a very complicated design. Combining passive pickups with the active output of a wah will lead to problems. You'll need a buffer on the non-wah part of the circuit.

Switching will also be complicated. If either the buffer or the wah has no pickup connected, it will be noisy. You won't want either one to be connected to the output unless at least one pickup is switched to that mode.

Parallel pickups are easy to manage. If the pickup is not selected you simply disconnect it from the circuit. Series is not so easy. If a pickup is not selected, you must shunt its position in the chain.

If you have the 2-way switch in the series mode and two or three pickups in the "wah" position, are you expecting the pickups to be in series or in parallel?

[yakkmeister]

I had a similar idea (with the wah) ...
and after deciding the complexity of the wah onboard would be both cost-prohibitive (compared to using a pedal) and less useful (compared to using a pedal) I decided I wasn't that industrious ...

Having said that, I figured a potential concept would be to have a bypass switch that bypassed the wah when it wasn't in use ...
(this switch would also need to disconnect the battery too)


I decided GuitWah was a cool name ... if nothing else

Dunno if it fixes anything in terms of buffering, but it absolutely won't do the individual control thing you want. So it's probably useless to you.

[axekicker]

Well, it's not that tricky if you're open to installing a mod-board from Guitar Fetish. They make one with an on-board wah tweaked by way of trim pot. This is an active circuit and the board isn't small. Routing may be required. Install that, along with the mini-switches and there you go. There are also loaded Chinese pick guards on eBay that have HSS with 4 mini switches instead of a lever switch to turn pups off and on. Check it out. Those two things put you almost there.

[reTrEaD]

Apr 11, 2012 0:51:40 GMT -5 axekicker said:

Those two things put you almost there.

imho, it doesn't even come close. Read the OP again, particularly this part:

Mar 31, 2012 17:29:46 GMT -5 aaronofthe said:

So here is what I'd like to do:

Knobs: Volume, Tone, Wah.
1 2-way switch: Series and Parallel.
3 3-way switches: Individual Pickup Off/On/WahOn.

[sumgai]

It'd be kinda interesting to hear Bridge with wah, in parallel with straight Neck, no wah......