Pot wiring

[hellcatcustoms]

Ok I'm new. I know cars and bikes and how their electrical works but this guitar voodoo is new and I'm struggling to figure out the Why things work one way but not in others.

I have a LP, wired it to have a master volume, treble cut and separate bass cut. Worked great.

Decided to change it to have 2 volumes before the 3 way and feed them to a master treble and master bass cut.

When I wired this up in had the pup hot going to the wiper and the signal out going to the 3 way, then back from the 3 way to the treb and bass pots. This for some reason made it so the volume for the neck was way way quiet vs the bridge. Then if you turned the neck down the bridge would come through. In the middle or bridge position of the 3 way the bridge worked good but in the neck position I had almost no volume from that humbucker.

I swaped the pup hot and signal to the 3way so the hot was at the outer pole and the signal was on the wiper and suddenly it all worked like I wanted....

So why? Why is sending the hot side through the wiper ok in some arrangements but kills others?

[sumgai]

helly,

Hi, and welcome to The NutzHouse!

I suspect that you had a bad solder joint somewhere along the line. If it worked to have the pup going to the wiper for the Bridge pickup, then it should've worked for the Neck too. Ordinarily this is the way 2pup/2vol/2tone jobbies work, as it prevents the volume from going completely dead when one or the other pot is turned down all the way. We call this "backwards" or "reverse" wiring, as it plays havoc with the tonal characteristics of the pickup when the volume is turned down even just a little bit.  (It has to do with loading and all that jizz-jazz.) 

Wiring the pickup's hot lead to the end of the pot, and the wiper going to the switch, that's what we call normal wiring,  This affects the tone much less, and it won't kill the output completely when a pot is turned all the way down.  See this thread for more info:

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/1885/modern-50s-wiring

Also, backwards wiring really <sar>does wonders</sar> for your tone when you mount any tone controls after the volume pots. I can appreciated wanting to retain a stock appearance, whether it's for stealth reasons, or you just don't want to drill holes and mess things up, but as a way overcoming this particular gotcha, you might consider using stacked dual pots for cutting bass and treble for each pickup, and then putting the volume controls after them. Just a thought.

HTH

sumgai

[hellcatcustoms]

Hey thanks for the info! I like having the master ptb set up after the volume cause I can change the highs and lows depending on what I'm playing through without messing with the amps....sometimes I do open mics and they don't want you mucking about with their equipment so adjusting it through the guitar is good for me....

I have a Gretsch that I took the single poll pickups off, added gretsch humbucker in their place and did the master volume and master ptb cut....I put one of the original pickups between the to HBs and that pickup is on a blender pot.....

I did the LP experiments so that I can modify the gretsch more. I'd like to add another 3way switch so I can use only one of the 3 pickups or a mix of the 3....I want the middle pickup to have its own volume....and each pickup to have it's own tone control.

Once I draw it all up, would you mind having a look?

[ashcatlt]

Aug 12, 2016 10:50:25 GMT -5 hellcatcustoms said:

Once I draw it all up, would you mind having a look?

That's kinda why we're here.

[newey]

Sorry, hellcat, I had to move your thread from the "tone Controls" section as it is really more of a wiring question than a discussion of tone controls.

Once I draw it all up, would you mind having a look?

Not at all, that's what we're here for.

I'd like to add another 3way switch

Don't buy the switch just yet, as what you want to do may dictate the use of a certain type of 3-way switch, other than the standard single-pole Gibson- or Gretsch-style toggle.

Also be aware that adding more pots to the chain will, at some point, dull the tone. I'm particularly thinking of the middle pup here, which will apparently have its own tone pot, a volume pot, and then be connected to a master Vol and a master "Ptb" pot. That's a lot of pots . . .

[hellcatcustoms]

The thought behind it was that I like using the middle blended in with the others here and there but some times I just want to use just the middle pup so it has that old gretsch sound.

I guess it could be simplified and could take the tone control off the middle pickup or just run the signal through the other pbt pots.....I was just hoping that I could set my tone and volume separate for the middle pup and use its volume to blend it in with the others, then throw a few switches and just raise the volume on the middle......probably way over thinking the whole mess to be honest.

[cynical1]

I've spent some time recently investigating the PTB circuit in a thread carefully disguised as Questions on the different phase wiring options.

Here's the gotcha on the PTB circuit: It has to go BEFORE the volume pot. JohnH explains it better than I can inside of the thread, but the long and short of it is that the more pots you toss into the equation before the PTB circuit, the more unpredictable and potentially less desirable your output may be due to all the various resistances at play.

I'm still butchering wood on the project this PTB circuit will be used in, so I can't speak to how it performs yet. The concept made me curious enough split the bass into two outputs just so I could use it one one of three pickups.

Happy Trails

Cynical One