Altering tone in Series

[angelodp]

Here is a question. Given the current wiring I have below, which works very well ( Thanks Newey, JohnH ).... In series I combine the pups and do loose some high end. Is there a way of adding a cap onto the current setup so I can alter the tone in series to regain some high end? So when I hit the series toggle, I also toggle in a high pass filter.

[JohnH]

Yes indeed..3 things to try:

1. Use the unused half of your series switch to connect a cap directly across the two leads of the neck pickup. This cuts out the treble from the neck and lets the treble from the bridge come through more strongly, giving a brighter sound. It would be good to experiment with values, for a normal single coil pickup, I find about a 0.047 is good, but YMMV.

2. same idea and same sound effect, but you can use your tone pot and its 3rd lug to bring in this cap as the tone approaches 10 on the knob. In parallel mode, its a normal tone pot, in series mode, it has this treble addition as you get to 10. Ive got this mod on two of my guitars. The rest of the circuit stays similar, but unfortunately the order of N and B pups and the position of tone pot tone cap is affected, so its a bit a of a rewire. However, I highly recommend this because it gives you an extra sound, and you can still find the current thicker series sound by turning the tone down to about 9.

I suggest you try idea 1 first, to see if the sound you get is good, then if you like it, but are interested you can try it as version 2.

3. Third idea is to use your series switch to cut out the tone pot in series mode, putting less load on the pickups for a brighter sound - different effect to 1 or 2 though.

cheers

John

[Yew]

Maybe using the 'broadbucker' Tehnique coudl be useful? A capacitor between the bridge out and the guitar output allows the treble to work in parrallel with the neck, but the bass notes are in series. I'm quite a fan of it making humbuckers sound good, I would guess it could be a useful sound on a Lipsticked dano too. The same bright treble, but with more bite down low.

I wish I had bought a DC59 last year. unfortunately I went and blew it on an epiphone swingster, that I like, but needs some cool pickups and the wiring fixed

Y

[pete12345]

Just trying to understand that one- isn't in functionally the same as wiring a cap across the neck pickup? In either case, the mid-point of the circuit is wired via a capacitor to the output. It works well in any case. You're basically cutting what high frequencies there are from the neck pickup, while allowing the much more prominent highs from the bridge to bleed through.

Here the extra pole of the switch could be used to switch the tone control from a master control to acting on the neck pickup only in the series position.