sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 8, 2020 11:54:48 GMT -5
The funny part is, your diagram shows exactly what the majority of players would do - have the Middle blendable in any position of the selector. While you said that Bridge + Middle would probably not be used, you do have that option in this diagram. Essentially, this is an LP with two pups, and a third pup has been added to the pair with its own Volume control. If the control is not completely turned down, then the Mid will always be heard at some volume level. If both of the other two are turned most/all of the way down, then you get Mid alone, regardless of switch position. Now for the less-than-good news.... You might be accused of taking one shortcut that you shouldn't take - the right-most terminal of each pot should be shown as going to ground. Without that connection, this scheme becomes an "all-on or all-off" setup. This is one of those things where assuming that others "already know that" will cause troubles down the road. It's my gut feeling that if you use 250K pots, then the overall tone has a decent chance of getting rather dull. Even for the single coil pups, I'd recommend going to 500K for each of the three pickups. Should keep things a little more "crisp". And finally, nice diagram. HTH Thanks! I should've mentioned, I do have 500k pots for all the pots. I'll try to make a better connection of the 3rd lugs being soldered wired to their respective pots. I'm surprised the original picture doesn't have the pots grounded together (even a wire going across all 3) sumgai
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sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 8, 2020 12:01:10 GMT -5
sdb55 - JohnH warned you earlier in this thread about an issue with pot wiring (and I am surprised no one else who reviewed your diagram mentioned it): To correct this, red wires go to the CW lug of the pot, yellow wires go from the "wiper" (the middle lug of the pots) to the switch. This also bears on the answer to cem 's question. We have to focus the overall load on the circuit. Any pot that is connected in any given switch position(s) affects the overall load. As an example, in the classic 5-position Strat wiring, the tone controls are wired to the N and M pickups, and the B pickup doesn't have a tone control. At position 2, M + B, there is only the M tone pot in the circuit, while at position 4 (N + M), both tone pots are connected in parallel and both load the circuit. If you measure the resistance at those positions, you will see the increased resistance at position 4 compared with the other positions. Of course, you can't hear the difference because, with standard Strat wiring, there is no way to take those pots out of the circuit. But one classic Strat rewiring option is to move the middle tone control over to the bridge pickup (done, usually, not because of the different loading, but simply because people wanted a bridge tone control). If that is done, then there is no position at which there is more than one tone pot in cicuit at a time. While I have never done so, if you were to do an A-B comparison between these two wirings, I believe you would hear a difference between the two wirings at position 4. Good eye on the pot wiring, I'll change it Not sure how much of this other stuff is written for me? I'm using a 3 way LP style switch wth no tone control.
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sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 8, 2020 13:53:16 GMT -5
Updated diagram to include correct pickup wiring and ground connections
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Post by sumgai on Jun 8, 2020 16:19:54 GMT -5
'55, That gives you a few more options than you originally asked for, and it stands a decent chance of sounding good in all of those possibilities. JohnH will be the first in line to tell you blending is a "good thing". In your particular setup, as shown above, no-load pots would be almost mandatory. If you turn any one control down all the way, you kill off absolutely all of the signal.... IOW, your guitar goes dead. A no-load pot should cut that "last little bit of rotation" from the circuit, meaning that the wiper won't be grounded, and thus your signal should be present at the output jack. So don't we just not ground the terminal in the first place? Well, there's lots of discussion/argument about that little factoid. One thing that always comes to mind is that if this idea worked, then why didn't Gibson ever use it on any of their guitars? (But then again, why did Gibson ever try to foist a "robo-LP" on us? Who knows.) If I'm not mistaken, your Charvel accesses the controls from the rear, yes? Then you can easily, with a few moments of time and a soldering iron, try each way to see for yourself which method works/sounds best. HTH sumgai
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sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 8, 2020 16:57:45 GMT -5
I though just 1 no-load pot for the middle pickup was all I needed as mentioned in earlier posts. That's what this diagram is based off of.... confused.
"no load pot is basically a pot where at one end part of the track has been scraped off so that when it's off it's completely out of the circuit instead of loading down the circuit with its resistance
so what you'd like to do is definitely possible and probably makes more sense in that bridge humbucker and middle together (without neck) could very likely sound just the same as bridge humbucker alone if it's hot enough
so you'll wire it just like it is now just with the blend pot in between the middle pickup and the switch. no load would be ideal for this. there are tutorials on how to make a no load pot i think on this site"
All I want to do is be able to remove the middle pickup when I want, and still use the 3 way LP switch. What's different now?
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sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 8, 2020 18:03:36 GMT -5
If I'm not mistaken, your Charvel accesses the controls from the rear, yes? Then you can easily, with a few moments of time and a soldering iron, try each way to see for yourself which method works/sounds best. - Yes, and should have it back tonight or tomorrow
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Post by sumgai on Jun 8, 2020 20:05:13 GMT -5
'55, The difference is, one no-load pot for the Middle pup does take care of the issue for that one particular pickup, but..... whilst you're doing that, why not do it for the other two as well? Ya see, the problem with the way your controls are hooked up is this: when you turn one control all the way down, it kills all signal, not just for the pickup alone, but all of those currently selected. Now it should be obvious that this isn't what users like yourself want. To avoid that, Gibson takes the route of "backwards wiring" the pots - the wire from the pickup goes to the wiper, and the wire from the left-most terminal goes to the selector switch. This has a deleterious effect on one's tone, so savvy users modify their guitars to get rid of that undesirable effect. (Thou some do claim to prefer the backwards way, for some unfathomable reason.) Now, in your case, you have what we call "normal" wiring - the wiper goes to the switch, and the pickup comes in on the left-most terminal. This is good. But the downside is as already noted - the ability to kill all signal if one isn't paying attention to one's knobs. The obvious solution, though a bit more difficult to implement, is to use no-load pots. I say that in plural, because it doesn't make sense to do it for only one pickup, when all three are susceptible to the problem. However, as usual, the final decision is yours alone - we can only give advice based on our personal experiences. Questions? HTH EDIT: It comes to me that there is another way to avoid the "kill all" issue, and that would be to add a small resistor, say 10K Ohms, between the right-most terminal and ground. That should allow you to reduce the volume to effectively nothing (it's not contributing to the mix), yet still allow signal from the other pickups to be heard. 20K Ohms may be needed, it's a matter of how hot the pickups are, so some experimentation might be needed. HTAH sumgai
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sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 9, 2020 11:30:12 GMT -5
I think I'll start with one no-load on the middle pickup as originally suggested and see how that goes. This guitar is mostly played on the bridge pickup, but there is some need for the singe coils for my clean channel.
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sdb55
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Post by sdb55 on Jun 16, 2020 13:41:58 GMT -5
I got the guitar back last night, will try some wiring configs today.
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