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Post by nickname009 on May 16, 2017 16:58:40 GMT -5
I am convinced I want to try this on a guitar, I've seen kotzen's tele using a 2 position rotary switch for series/parallel
I want something like that! Either
1. A 2 position rotary switch to switch between neck and bridge
or
2. something like a 3 position rotary switch so i'd get neck, bridge, and middle would be something like neck + bridge in parallel?
I rarely use the middle position in series nor do i use any other positions really.
SO my questions are:
Where can I buy such a switch? and what type am i looking for? I'm looking all over mouser but there are a thousand variations and I have no clue what I need for either scenario.
Can anybody provide a skit? I'm not the best figuring this wiring stuff out, but I can definitely follow a diagram.
Thanks for any advice, comments and feedback in advance!
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Post by sumgai on May 16, 2017 19:33:33 GMT -5
nicky,
Hi, and welcome to The NutzHouse!
What kind of guitar? You mention a Telecaster, but nonetheless...
Please don't take this unkindly, but virtually all mass-made guitars have their pickups wired in parallel, not series. This is true for two or three (or four!) pickup guitars, whether any or all of the pups are single coil, humbuckers, or some mix there of. Essentially, this is done to keep from making the sound so muddy - four coils in series is guaranteed to kill all the highs.
That said, what you want can easily be done - series or parallel, single coil or humbucker. The actuating mechanism is really a personal choice. Once you've got that part settled, we can lead you to the promised land, to be sure.
Very longtime member ashcatlt has been using rotary switches for a number of years, I'm sure he'll chime in soon, and dole out some good advice.
p.s. With a so-called Telecaster Baja switch, you can have both - series and parallel! Or with a rotary, makes no difference.
sumgai
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Post by nickname009 on May 16, 2017 22:06:50 GMT -5
hello sumgai thanks for your repy, very much appreciated! and apologies for not being more specific my tele is a warmoth tele that i put together way back when, currently it's got just a dimarzio area '67 neck pickup in the neck, one volume and a killswitch. I'm looking to add a bridge pickup to it, and therefore also add a rotary switch, this guitar has gone under the knife a few times with different wiring configurations but now i'm finally set on a simple H/S sort of setup. I may have mixed up all this and series/parallel stuff. Ideally I'd want a 3 position rotary switch, neck, bridge and middle, middle being the closest to a tele sound possible (neck pickup + outer coil of the bridge pickup (and still hum-cancelling)i'm presuming? As for the switch itself, i went through the mouser site and talked to the live chat support, they recommended this: ca.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Grayhill/56A30-01-1-03N/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvNbjZ2WlReYhndqMY8foDIN7lmHNRL5l8%3dI'd like to know if i'm now any closer to what i'd like to achieve? Thanks again!
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Post by sumgai on May 16, 2017 23:33:38 GMT -5
nicky,
The Grayhill switch they recommended is pretty high quality, but it's also pretty high priced. Let me suggest that you Bingle for "rotary switches for guitar", and see what happens. I can see them for less than 4 bucks, and for more than $20, so there's a great range. Right now, this $5.00 one from eBay would do the job for you:
4P3T Rotary Switch (looks like this:)
Take your time, look around, I think you can find a better deal. So long as it has a minimum of two poles, and only 3 throws or positions, it will do the job.
HTH
sumgai
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Post by newey on May 17, 2017 5:34:47 GMT -5
In terms of looking for a rotary switch, measure closely to be sure it will fit into a Tele's narrow cavity. The one above from Ebay looks at first blush to be too wide.
Sent from my SM-G928V using proboards
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Post by blademaster2 on May 17, 2017 10:06:53 GMT -5
I have two guitars with rotary switches.
One is a Framus Nashville guitar, with a 6-position rotary switch that does the following:
1. Bridge and Neck humbuckers 2. Neck humbucker 3. Inner coils of both pickups 4. Bridge humbucker 5. Outer neck coil and Inner bridge coil 6. Both humbuckers out of phase
Not all of the combinations sound pleasing to me, and there are only the six settings available.
I like a rotary as an approach to setting up a single pickup's "personality" before it is mixed with another pickup, but I have not been so keen on my Framus having the rotary switch being the only switch available on the instrument when used to select pickups, since it is harder to feel where its setting is without looking at it.
[Apologies if this now goes outside of your original thread:]
As a result when I built my own custom SSS guitar (that looks like a HH) I designed it with the following on the "bridge pickup" pair:
1. Bridge, both coils, series in phase 2. Bridge, both coils, parallel in phase 3. Bridge pair, out of phase 4. Bridge inner coil 5. Bridge outer coil 6. Bridge outer coil reverse phase
As an experimental guitar I have found it to be very useful in changing the personality of the 'bridge' pickups, and it (along with the switching approach that acts separately from this rotary switch) offers far more variety in tone compared to any other passive guitar circuitry I have tried (including Strats). The rotary switch part itself was not expensive at all at the time, but it did take some thinking to get all of the combinations I wanted from it.
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Post by ashcatlt on May 17, 2017 12:12:14 GMT -5
I have a few guitars with rotaries that do different things. I use these switches which I think are the same as sumgai posted, but are cheaper when ordered direct from mouser. I think they're all solid-shaft, so you need appropriate knobs, though I've had reasonable luck just reaming out a standard strat knob and relying on friction to hold. For a two pickup guitar, I highly recommend using a 4 position switch so you can get the series connection. You might not always use it, but when it's right, it's kind of the only way to get there.
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Post by reTrEaD on May 17, 2017 12:20:52 GMT -5
Ideally I'd want a 3 position rotary switch, neck, bridge and middle, middle being the closest to a tele sound possible (neck pickup + outer coil of the bridge pickup (and still hum-cancelling)i'm presuming? 1 - Above all else, take Newey's advice about measuring the width of the Tele control cavity and be sure you select a rotary switch that will fit. 2 - The DiMarzio Area 67 you mentioned is a 'stacked' or 'vertical' hum-cancelling pickup. It has four-wire connectivity. I would guess the default is having the lower coil in series with the upper (string-sensing) coil. To achieve hum-cancelling with one coil of the Bridge HB, you will need to determine the magnetic polarity of the Area 67, then use the coil from the Bridge HB that has the opposite magnetic polarity. This is assuming you want to have the Neck (sensing coil only) in-phase with the Bridge (single coil). 3 - Personally, I'm not fond of rotary switches. I'd rather use a blade. But if your heart is set on a rotary, a 4P3T would be preferred. Although I reckon the tasks you want to achieve could be satisfied with a 2P3T in a less 'clean' manner.
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Post by nickname009 on May 18, 2017 20:57:48 GMT -5
Thank you all for your help! And of course, whatever newey says, goes! Newey helped me out a lot a few years back with some wiring issues, thank you again for your help as always! I've messaged the guys at pickers parts to have them check if their switches will fit in a tele control cavity. I've also found a local guitar shop that has a PRS-esque rotary switch, which I'm assuming would rougly be the same size so I can bring in my tele and size'er up.
Will report back soon! Thanks again to all!
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Post by sumgai on May 19, 2017 0:31:50 GMT -5
As a result when I built my own custom SSS guitar (that looks like a HH) I designed it with the following on the "bridge pickup" pair: 1. Bridge, both coils, series in phase 2. Bridge, both coils, parallel in phase 3. Bridge pair, out of phase 4. Bridge inner coil 5. Bridge outer coil 6. Bridge outer coil reverse phase
I admit that I'm stretching a bit here, but going by Pos 6, you seem to be setting up the outer coil for OoP when combined with another pickup, yes? Is that also what's happening with Pos 3, an OoP condition for combining with another pup? If so, what is the state of the pair itself - parallel or series?
One shouldn't have to wonder for more than a moment to realize that even a 12 position rotary switch would be hard-pressed to cover all of the possibilities of how the two coils are connected, both within the pup, and when considered with another pickup. It might be easier to keep things simple, and just insert a separate switch to do the actual phase reversal job. Quickly flipping through a ton of positions can be an invitation for Mr. Murphy to come a'calling, eh?
JMO, of course.
sumgai
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Post by blademaster2 on May 23, 2017 11:23:16 GMT -5
My rotary switch only covered the bridge position(s). In that location I have two single coil pickups sitting within a humbucker cover, back to back (I undercut the body slightly to accommodate them).
You are correct, Sumgai, that the phase reversal on this switch is intended for blending it (in parallel) with the neck pickup, which is another single coil pickup potted within a humbucker cover. I actually also used inline connectors in the guitar cavity, so I could change which position is 'reversed' compared to the other but I would never change it now after all of these years. The whole approach (experimental, as I said, and bringing a few surprises along with it) was to alter the bridge 'pickup' as a single entity and then blend it in parallel with the neck pickup.
In the bridge tone circuit I used a 1000 mH inductor in a fairly unusual 'fatness' control
In addition to all of this I used isolation resistors in series with the pickups signals before they are combined, and then also added a tiny switch to bypass one of them (the bridge one) so that it would have maximum signal strength and also act as a master volume for the combined pickup triplet. This little switch allows me to get a different balance between the two sets of controls, and is especially different when the bridge pair is out of phase and sounds quite thin but then combines with the neck pickup to add its crisp attack to the more mellow neck signal.
The whole thing sounds more complex to operate than it is, but I am very pleased with the variety of 'personalities' I can get from the set up and I still find new sounds even after decades of using it. Fortunately, Mr. Murphy has stayed away from this one and I enjoy this guitar for its tonal range and flexibility - possibly more than any others of my collection of 15 instruments including a SSS Strat.
If anyone got this far before falling asleep and is curious, I could probably find a schematic of this guitar to post.
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Post by sumgai on May 23, 2017 11:36:35 GMT -5
If anyone got this far before falling asleep and is curious, I could probably find a schematic of this guitar to post. No sleepers here, just us curious cats......
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Post by blademaster2 on May 23, 2017 20:12:19 GMT -5
Okay, Sumgai, I will take that to mean "I am interested in seeing that schematic". It is attached as a GIF (I do not do this often, so I hope it is readable). Each pickup shown is a single coil. At least one is a DiMarzio FS-1, another is a DiMarzio PBS I think, but I have forgotten what the third one is. I see that none of them is available any longer from DiMarzio as this was quite a long time ago. I have used this guitar for many years and I still find new tones in it to this day. There are probably weird/unusual things in the design (done mostly in my highschool years, using SPICE and with no other existing guitar designs on which to base it).
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Post by nickname009 on Jun 8, 2017 18:41:57 GMT -5
This is long overdue but I've failed finding a rotary switch that would fit in a tele control cavity and have since gone with a push/push pot to switch between my pickups
thanks for everybody's help!
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Post by sumgai on Jun 8, 2017 21:20:57 GMT -5
nick,
Sorry, I must have been asleep that day, I missed your last post entirely!
Switching between one pup and the other, with no combos between them, that's easy... as you've found out. My perception is that the push/push pot is likely a Fender S-1, and that would be the best way to go, IMO. Simplicity is always a plus.
sumgai
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