5 way switching to make a MM into a DuoSonic II?

[dbl9]

Hi All,

I am a first time poster. I am pretty good with a soldering iron and can follow a schematic but my experience is limited to replacing a pot, pickup or switch here and there. Having said that, I need some expert help with my current idea.

I bought my son a Musicmaster. I want to take the original pickguard with the pickup and pots left out and save it, and put a new pickguard with new pickups and all new electronics and make it into a Mustang/Duo Sonic II. The caveat is: I don’t want to have to modify the body at all. No new routing. I can’t route a vintage guitar.
I ordered some vintage spec PUs. They are RWRP.

I could just put them in with a standard three-way toggle but then I started thinking…

My first idea was a 5 way rotary switch. I am not sure that this would work, but if it could. This would be nice.
Position 1 N
Position 2 N+B with the B phase flipped
Position 3 N+B series
Position 4 N+B with the N phase flipped
Position 5 B


Then in researching this, I came across the Free Way Switch at Stewmac.

There was a thread about it on GuitarNuts here:
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=5542

And in that thread was a link to a pdf that shows a number of ways the switch can be used. That is here:
www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-0040/i-0040.pdf

As I looked at those layouts it seems to me it might be possible to use that switch and in that case the guitar would even look like a stock Duo Sonic. Plus, and maybe I am reaching here, there is even a place for one more tone. N+B in parallel.

So it could go:
Position 1 N
Position 2 N+B series
Position 3 B
Position 4 N+B with the N phase flipped
Position 5 N+B parallel
Position 6 N+B with the B phase flipped

Are either of these ideas possible? Any insight or alternate ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks

[newey]

99-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

What you want to do can certainly be done, subject to fitment of the switch. The Freeway switch is a big item, it requires routing to go into an LP. Since I've never had a MM, much less had one apart, I don't know how much room you have to wrk with. Measure carefully since, as you say, it's a vintage piece.

However, when speaking of out-of-phase settings (OOP), a single pickup cannot be OOP with itself. The term OOP only has meaning when we have two pickups- one is OOP with respect to the other.

Therefore, when you speak of having a setting where the neck pickup is OOP with respect to the bridge, and a separate setting where the bridge is OOP with the neck, that's not two different things, it's only one thing. It matters not whether one put the bridge OOP with the neck, or the neck OOP with the bridge- the result is the same, both electrically and sonically. IOW, your proposed positions 2 and 4 (or, 4 and 6 in your second scheme) are in fact identical.

As a matter of convention (at least, on this Board), we use a multiplication sign- "X" or " * "- to mean a series connection, and a "+" to mean parallel. Instead of writing "N + B, series", just write "N * B" and we'll all know what you mean.

But we can certainly point you in the direction of a scheme to do what yuo want, once you finalize your switch selection and decide on exactly what sounds you want.

You should also consider that OOP can be either series OOP ("SOOP") or parallel OOP ("POOP"). SOOP is a much more useful sound that POOP. Parallel OOP sounds very tinny and low-output.

[dbl9]

Newey,

This information is very helpful. Thank you.
I will open the MM up again and take some careful measurement to see how much space I have to work with. Then I can determine which switches would fit.

Regarding the possible sounds:
The way I understand it is this. Let me know if it is correct.

The standard Duo Sonic has one 3 way toggle:
1.N
2.N*B (am I correct that these are normally wired in series?)
3.B

The Mustang/Duo Sonic II has two 3 way switches on-off-on, with the second on position having the opposite phase. So the possible combinations would be:

-0- -0- both pickups off
-0- 0-- N pickup on (back)
-0- --0 N pickup on (forward)
0-- -0- B pickup on (back)
0-- 0-- both pickups on, inphase
0-- --0 both pickups on, out of phase
--0 -0- B pickup on (forward)
--0 0-- both pickups on, out of phase
--0 --0 both pickups on, in phase

OK. So, lots of redundancy there. There are really only four tones: N, B, Both, and BothOOP.

So I could easily get all these tones with a standard 3 way toggle plus a mini toggle to flip the phase of one of the PUs.

The only other possible tone would be N+B. Would that be a little like the 2 and 4 positions on a strat? If so that might be useful.

I will try to find time to pull this thing apart and see what kind of space I have to work with.
Thanks again for you help☺

[newey]

The standard Duo Sonic has one 3 way toggle:
1.N
2.N*B (am I correct that these are normally wired in series?)
3.B

No, other way around. Parallel wiring is the standard way that two pickups are combined on most guitars, including all vintage Fenders (more lately, Fender has added things like the "Baja Tele", which has a 4-way switch that adds a series setting). Gibson LPs and SGs are also wired in parallel, and most other guitars as well.

Series wiring (apart from modders like us) was available only on a few guitars. Famously, the Brian May guitars were all series wired, and in the past Danelectro and Teisco used series wiring.

Series wiring is like a daisy-chain- the "hot" wire of one pickup is wired to the "not hot" of another. The sound is louder, since the pickups combine together. It is also darker sounding ("muddier" to some ears).

But the center position on a Duo-sonic was (and is) wired in parallel (N + B).

You are correct that the Mustang/DuoSonic II wiring is redundant. It is often modified to eliminate that. Usually, this involves replacing one (or both) of the slide switches with an On-On-On type so as to have a series election instead of one of the redundant OOP choices.

On the original Mustang, the OOP is also in parallel (POOP), which is generally regarded as less useful, as I noted above.

Another useful option is what we call "half out-of-phase" ("HOOP"), which uses a capacitor to change the interaction of two OOP pickups. Similarly, a cap can be used on one of two pickup in phase- it gives a "mostly one, with a touch of the other" sound.

So I could easily get all these tones with a standard 3 way toggle plus a mini toggle to flip the phase of one of the PUs.

Yes, although the toggle would be a non-standard mod requiring an extra hole in the pickguard (unless you cram it into one of the slide switch holes, which won't be pretty). A Push/Pull pot could be used instead, replacing either the V or T control, so as to avoid having to modify a pickguard.

The only other possible tone would be N+B. Would that be a little like the 2 and 4 positions on a strat? If so that might be useful.

As noted above, series is the one you don't already have on a regular Duo-Sonic. The center position on the toggle (N + B) is more like a Tele sound, subject to the differences in the pickups. The Strat 2 and 4 position sounds (that famous Strat "quack") are more a function of the pickups' positions along the string. You won't get that sound without a middle pickup.

[dbl9]

OK, I am on a couple of learning curves at the same time here. I am going to try to post some photos. I hope it works.


Newey,

This really clears a lot of things up for me. I had seen a guy demoing a Duo Sonic on youtube and he labeled one on his tones as Half Tone. It sounded very cool funky. So that would be the HOOP sound I assume. He also demoed N, B Series and OOP. He had just the two switches. He must have done some of the mods you talked about.

Here is the link in case anyone is interested. Nice demo from a very good player.


I have been reading various posts here to try to get up to speed and I came across this post you made.
Simple 2 SC Superswitch Scheme ("S2SCSS")
guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=6380
Great work. The combination if the schematic and the wiring layout were so clear. They really helped me understand how a four pole switch worked. This would be perfect! I could call it a Newey Sonic! Unfortunately, after opening up the guitar and doing all the measuring I see there is no way to fit one of those complex switches in there. The route is only 1 3/16” deep. In fact, if you tried to route it deep enough, it would go all the way through the body…Bummer, that would have been cool!

I now understand all the possible tones. Now the question is: how many of them can build in without routing. ;D

The guitar I am working on is a 1960 Musicmaster.



It’s routed for two pickups but not for the switches that are above the strings. Those came later on the Duo Sonic II. So my plan is to take out the original pick guard with all the current electronics and save them because I don’t want to modify the original parts. Although, I don’t think the pickup is stock. The cover has holes in it and there is a sticker on PU that does not look old. The wires do look like vintage style wire.


Anyway, I will buy a new pick guard and I don’t really care how many holes I have to drill in it, but really, because of the limitations of the routing, there is not a lot of space to work with. I am probably going to have to stick with a 3-way toggle in the treble horn, like a stock Duo Sonic and maybe add a push pull pot to switch the phase (or something). It might be possible to fit two 3-way on-on-on toggles in the treble horn. Then maybe I could wire it like the modded Duo Sonic II you talked about. There is also probably space for a mini toggle between the tone and the jack if it would be useful.
I would really like to find a way to get N, B, N+B, N*B, POOP, and HOOP if possible.
Could I use a push pull on the tone and one on the volume?
Then I could have:
3-way pickup selector
push pull to flip the phase
push pull to flip to series
And the whole thing would look stock ;D
Thanks for your patience!

[newey]

Could I use a push pull on the tone and one on the volume?
Then I could have:
3-way pickup selector
push pull to flip the phase
push pull to flip to series

That will work, I was going to suggest that. Another option is to use the Push/pulls to control the pickups in a "binary tree" arrangement, where the four possible postions of the P/P pots give you each pickup individually, both in series, and both in parallel. The three-way switch could then be replaced with a DPDT On-On-On switch to give both an OOP and a HOOP setting.

The second would give you added OOP options, but it is a bit more "switchy", since both P/P pots must be manipulated to get the pickup selections.

[ashcatlt]

That's a pretty nice present!

In the early days of my career I bought a '61 MusicMaster from my cousin for $15. Sold it a couple years later to a girl for $50. I thought I'd made a pretty tidy profit. Couple years ago I went and looked it up on ebay...