Help with a few strat wiring mods all in one.

[matmirabella]

Hi all.

                I have an Am Pro strat from 2017 - black with MN. I have some ideas for wiring in new PUs with a few switches. I wondered if anyone could help by letting me know if this is doable, whether anyone has done anything similar, and perhaps recommending someone in the Melbourne Australia area who is in the business of wiring things up, since I don’t think I can do it myself.

• Pickups: I am planning to get the D Allen echoes set – or something similar - with a bridge PU that has low/high output setting - switchable via an on-on switch in the lower tone knob. I think you can still order these online.
• Lower tone knob: No-load - controls tone of Bridge and middle.
• Upper tone knob: No-load - controls tone of neck - also has an on-on switch that switches from in phase to out of phase for whenever there are two PUs on together.
• Master volume control: Treble bleed circuit - also has an on-on switch - from parallel to series for PUs when they are on together; and
• recessed toggle - like in the Gilmour strat - which is a neck-on switch - i.e. the 7 sound mod.

the things that seem tricky are:

• no-load tone pots that also have on-on switches; and
• finding a way to do the phasing in one switch and the series in another switch that works when any two PUs are on (even B+N).

The plan is to add fender locking tuners and a black (shielded) pickguard with white PUs and controls - it will look like a Gilmour black strat, but with a few more possibilities. I do not want to touch the routing of the body but am open to holes for mini toggles in the guard as the guard will be new also.

Any thoughts, ideas, comments - are most welcome.

[newey]

matmirabella-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Before we can help with a diagram of any sort, we will need to know more about these pickups, personally I'm unfamiliar with the brand. Are these single coils with a "center tap" wire? (that's what your description made it sound like). And knowing the color codes would be helpful as well.

As for your wish list, these are several problems. First, if you want no-load pots with push/pull (or push/push) switches, you will have to make them yourself, as no such thing is commercially available AFAIK. This can probably be done, but it means disassembling the pots and scraping the end of the resistance track. It's a fairly straightforward surgery with a regular pot, but disassembly and reassembly may prove trickier with the switch attached. Don't know, never tried it myself.

Second, as to the phase switch, P/P pots have double-pole, double throw ("DPDT") switches. It takes 2 poles to swap the phasee of one pickup, so if your goal is to be able to swap phase on multiple pickups with one switch, you'd need a 4-pole switch. These are available, but as toggles, not as P/P pots.

Out-of-phase works best with wider separation between the coils, so N + B will be your most useful OOP setting. If you choose to put the neck OOP with the other two, you would have N + B OOP as well as N + M OOP, but not B + M OOP. Choose to put the bridge OOP, and you lose the N + M OOP but gain the B + M OOP. But either way, you get the N + B OOP which will be the more useful combo. If you insist on having all three OOP possibilities, then you'd need more switching (and a lot more complexity), and you only gain one additional combo, and a not-very-useful one at that.

The series/parallel switching presents similar issues- you'd need both poles of a P/P pot/switch to put any two pickups in series, or to put one pickup in series with whatever is selected via the 5-way switch. So, again, more switching needed and more toggles instead of P/P pots.

[JohnH]

hi matmirabella, welcome to GN2.

Btw, I'm just up the road in Sydney!

Your design intent does hit a couple of road blocks as newey pointed out. The nearest I've worked out is this one:

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/5380/strat-sp

It does have a universal phase switch that uses a normal push-pull pot and does do all pairs. It does this by only selecting two pickups at a time. So it doesnt do all three at once. It also has a series switch that works on any pair. But it doesn't do no-load on the switched pots. Maybe it's of some interest though.

If you've had phase switches before, then you'll know what they are like. But if not, then I'd suggest that they are a fairly secondary type of option and maybe all three phased pairs are not needed. The best is probably with neck and bridge, which is also hum cancelling in a standard pickup set.

Another thing to bear in mind is that a scheme similar to what you describe necessarily has some complexity to it. So whoever is going to wire it up will need to embrace it and be prepared to troubleshoot any issues with the build.

[matmirabella]

        Hi... and thanks newey and John.
    
FYI: Those D Allen pickups are here:
www.dallenpickups.com/Echoes_pickups_p/ap-echo.htm
I think these are single coils with a center tap. One switch is needed to change the level of output. They recommend it on a pot.

Re the no-loads - I thought as much that there may not be any available with switches in them, but I thought I would check on the off chance someone is making them these days.

Re the phasing, I think I really only want to switch the phase on one PU with one switch. But maybe have two of these. E.g. one switch changes the phase of the middle, another toggle switch changes the phase of the neck. You only need two of these to get all possible combinations of in and out of phase with three PUs.

Same re the series. Two switches... so that would be two switches for phasing and two switches for series - that's four toggles all up. Plus a neck-on and the output selection for bridge - makes six switches or toggles. Three of these could go into the three pots, and maybe room for three mini toggles in the guard sitting between the tone and vol knobx.

Thinking about it now though, it seems like a monstor of an idea that will be too weird looking. I came across the free way switch, which is a 5-way with two levels... making 10 in all. One lot of 5 is the standard strat options of B, B+M (paralel), M, M+N (paralel) annd N, but the other lot of five gives you:
1: B and M in series (alternatively all three in series - i htink you can choose which)
2: All three in paralel
3: B and N in series
4: B and N in paralel
5: M and N in series

The only options missing from this are:
B+M in series, paralel with N
M+N in series, paralel with B
B+N in series, paralel with M
(A free way with three lots of 5 would be able to do it... there is no such thing AFAIK)

There are no phasing options here either, but if there are thhree pots as there would be on a strat, then at least two switches (either on-on or pushpulls) could change the phase of at least two of the PUs, giving all possible combinations, but with no change to the look of the guitar and no mini toggles in holds in the guard.

I think this would be a good option - it would simplify things. The wiring looks heaps easier too than many switches would be.

Any ideas on whether B+M in series is more or less useful than all three in series? That's the choice one has to make when installing the free way.

I do agree that out of phase options are not much good if the PUs are closer together and/or they counter the noise cancelling effect in pos 2 and 4 due to the RW/RP of the middle.

Mat.

[newey]

Jun 29, 2020 2:02:26 GMT -5 matmirabella said:

I do agree that out of phase options are not much good if the PUs are closer together and/or they counter the noise cancelling effect in pos 2 and 4 due to the RW/RP of the middle.

With a RWRP middle pickup, putting the middle OOP with either the neck or bridge will not be hum-cancelling. Putting the neck OOP (and with a neck-on switch) will make the N + B combo hum-cancelling, whereas N + B in phase will not be hum-cancelling.

The added benefit to a middle pickup phase switch is therefore limited- more cancellation, weaker sound, and not hum-cancelling. But we aim to please around here. Two phase switches can certainly be done if that's what you want to do.

Any ideas on whether B+M in series is more or less useful than all three in series?

This is a matter of opinion, of course, but give me B x M over B x M x N any day. All three pickups in series can sound dark, and the combo will not be fully hum-cancelling. With a RWRP middle pickup, B x M will be hum-cancelling and gives you the sound of a "wide-spaced HB", similar to having a bridge HB with some distance between the coils.

[thetragichero]

i have B x N on a switch in my #1 strat with its own tone pot (the other tone pot is a master tone while in parallel mode) and it can cover just about whatever you'd like for a humbucker in a strat but seems to sound more *open* which unless you're playing high gain metal (where you'd probably use an active pickup like the emg offerings) is a good thing in my book
but i think a lot of us build at least one guitar with a million and one options so that we can hear how many of them are useless (and how finicky 18000 switches are when your just looking for a decent sound)
simplicity is

[matmirabella]

Re the loss of noise cancelling with some of the combination... I have wondered whether anyone has tried one of those surh or ilish backplate loops that are meant to cancel most of the hum - any experiences? are they worth it?

I think that to use one of those you need to have all PUs wound the same way and mag poles the same way. So RW/RP is not workable, unless the backplate has another switch that lets you turn it on and off.

Maybe the way to go with two phase switches is that one changes the B and the other changes the N - leave the M alone... Though I don'tt think it ends up mattering much which of the two.

The free way sounds good, but in some ways having one switch for each things you want to do is ultimately more flexible.

Any ideas on whether BxM (in series) with N in paralel is a good combo. I hear people talking about this. an example is the kinman K7 or K9 wiring which uses a neck on blender pot.

I was also thinking of avoiding any active circuits - keeping it all passive. Not wedded to anything yet though.            

[newey]

Jun 30, 2020 6:47:11 GMT -5 matmirabella said:

Maybe the way to go with two phase switches is that one changes the B and the other changes the N - leave the M alone... Though I don'tt think it ends up mattering much which of the two.

You're right, it doesn't matter much. Because these pickups are coil tappable, it might make a difference in sound if the bridge is tapped and put OOP with the neck versus putting the neck OOP. If the N and B coils were identical (or not tapped), then it wouldn't matter much which one was put OOP. Putting the phase switch on the middle gives you both N + M OOP and B + M OOP, for what it's worth, while if you put the bridge OOP, you add only B + M OOP.

[matmirabella]

...Because these pickups are coil tappable, it might make a difference in sound if the bridge is tapped and put OOP with the neck versus putting the neck OOP.
I have thought about this, and I actually don't think it matters, because the only thing that is important about OOP is that it is OOP, not which PIU is changed to get it to be so, even if the PUs invovled are different. I might be wrong.

...Putting the phase switch on the middle gives you both N + M OOP and B + M OOP, for what it's worth, while if you put the bridge OOP, you add only B + M OOP.
That is why I am considering two OOP switches...