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Post by JohnH on Apr 29, 2006 20:13:56 GMT -5
OK, further to this thread, guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1146349706Which talks about one pickup and one volume control, it occurs to me that this actually has more potential than may first appear. So I am hearby setting a challenge, with no closing date and no prizes. You have to design your best guitar circuit with no more than one pickup (your choice) and one control (any type you like). This is for your own good. Especially for sum of you. I've got three or four ideas - I'll post one in due course! cheers John
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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 30, 2006 0:45:21 GMT -5
Here are a couple of ideas for single humbuckers. There's no volume pot, just a mini-toggle switch. The cap in both creates a sort of "notch" in the pickup's frequency response. I have used this for many years with Duncan Hot Rail pickups, and liked the results. I can't vouch for their effectiveness with other pickups, or with your particular setup. With a loud clean amp, it sounds very "smoky". With some distortion, you can get a sort of "Money For Nothing" sound. See what you think.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 30, 2006 1:22:14 GMT -5
great Mike! I was hoping this might draw ot some good simple ideas, and theres two to start with!
John
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Post by CheshireCat on Apr 30, 2006 1:34:24 GMT -5
Here are a couple of ideas for single humbuckers. There's no volume pot, just a mini-toggle switch. The cap in both creates a sort of "notch" in the pickup's frequency response. I have used this for many years with Duncan Hot Rail pickups, and liked the results. I can't vouch for their effectiveness with other pickups, or with your particular setup. With a loud clean amp, it sounds very "smoky". With some distortion, you can get a sort of "Money For Nothing" sound. See what you think. For us ol'timers, could you do a hand-drawn version of that? I'm really not following what you're doing, tho it sounds interesting.
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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 30, 2006 1:51:46 GMT -5
[glow=green,2,300]HUH?[/glow]
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Post by CheshireCat on Apr 30, 2006 2:25:01 GMT -5
[glow=green,2,300]HUH?[/glow] I don't understand the diagrams. Your hand-drawn stuff is much easier to read. I find this generally true of most schematics, which I discussed in the UUSS thread.
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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 30, 2006 7:25:33 GMT -5
It's a drawing of a switch. If I draw it by hand, it'll basically look just like that.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 30, 2006 7:46:21 GMT -5
Here is another version of a humbucker, with one volume control. It uses the special dual-gang,detented 'blender' pot from Stew-mac. This has tracks that are very low resistance over one half, then rising up to 500k on the second half, the two tracks being opposed in direction. As wired here, it is intended to diminish the output from one coil first, fading from a humbucker at 10, to a single coil at 5 at the centre detent, then fading down the other coil to zero. So its a volume control, plus a blender from Hb to Sc. Some treble bleed caps are in there to keep the tone snappy. John
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Post by CheshireCat on Apr 30, 2006 12:29:18 GMT -5
It's a drawing of a switch. If I draw it by hand, it'll basically look just like that. No, I understood the basic concept. Some things were just unclear.
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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 30, 2006 20:50:19 GMT -5
Okay. What things, in particular, are unclear?
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Post by JohnH on May 1, 2006 5:03:44 GMT -5
Mikes drawing looks clear enough to me.
BTW - any ideas that can be described in words, but which don't yet have worked-up solutions or diagrams, are also encouraged. The idea is the ideas, which could lead to elements which could be useful in other designs.
John
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Post by Mike Richardson on May 1, 2006 5:41:18 GMT -5
By the way, John--that volume/coil tap idea is great. Have you tried it yet? If it works, you could be on to something.
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Post by JohnH on May 1, 2006 7:01:15 GMT -5
Mike - thanks. I havn't tried it, I only thought of it yesterday. There's a 50% chance that I got it back to front, since I don't know whether the front or back wafer has its low resistance section to the left or right. Might need front and rear connections reversed, but I think the principle can't be too far off.
John
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Post by CheshireCat on May 2, 2006 4:03:45 GMT -5
Mikes drawing looks clear enough to me. Nevermind. Lost cause.
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Post by jhng on May 2, 2006 4:37:05 GMT -5
It might also be possible to do Mike's "HB; HB with Cap; Single" system with a pot so that you could fade from one to t'other. Which would be nice.
Also you could have a blend pot to do HB -> SC -> HB out of phase.
Hastings
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Post by Runewalker on May 5, 2006 13:16:13 GMT -5
A pundit, a seer, a guru a visionary, once said: "I sometimes think it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission....- --JH Re: strat lovers strat wiring diagram? « Reply #2 on 4/25/06 at 1:18am » Following that lead I asked myself, how do you define a pickup? Since a Humbucker is really two pickups, called one because they both are joined by one bottom plate ...... You see where this is going.... So I drew up some combo possibilities (not electronics design since I defer to the brains here for that) for a single pickup plate holding 4 coils. Once you cross that threshold you could obviously do more coils ---- probably 8-10 in a bathtub routed strat with 21 frets. Even my choked down version will require either the bathtub or routing. The thing that is a little different that I want to experiment with is changing the angle of the bridge and mid pups. Here this is don on pups 1 and 2, but I will try it eventually on a strat 3 coil. So the 1 & 2 combos may or may not quack. Obviously not all combos are represented, and not all combos would be humcanelling. The different colors on the coils connote opposite polarities, so many combos are humcancelling. Also tone is controlled by pickup array selection and at the amp, as this has no tone control. Albeit you could add caps for some arrays if you found them needing modulation for your ears. Wiring wise I put up some sample arrays for 5 and 6 position switches. I have only found inexpensive versions of these two rotaries with 4 poles. If there are rotaries that would fit a guitar cavity that have more poles and positions then more options would be available. There are a couple of designations on humcancelling where I am not sure of their status. So just a little experiment in pushing the rules, which were not defined as restricting the number of coils per pup.
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Post by JohnH on May 5, 2006 15:39:55 GMT -5
Absolution is granted. That four coil puppy needs a name.
John
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Post by Runewalker on May 5, 2006 21:44:52 GMT -5
Absolution is granted. That four coil puppy needs a name.John ?
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Post by Mike Richardson on May 7, 2006 0:34:02 GMT -5
Here's a diagram for a sort of metal Esquire, using a Hot Rails. I call it a DeathSquire, but then I'm kinda stupid like that. It gives 5 variations on the Hot Rails sound. Starting with the selector in the bridge position: Normal HB, HB with Low-Cut, HB with Mid-Cut, Parallel, and Parallel with Low-Cut. I've yet to actually wire this up, so who knows how well it'll work.
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Post by JohnH on May 7, 2006 2:10:03 GMT -5
Good stuff Mike. I think for me, I would want a version that would substitute a single coil option for one of those combos, depending on how they sounded. Maybe the parallel hotrails sound is close to that?
John
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Post by CheshireCat on May 7, 2006 2:10:45 GMT -5
Absolution is granted. That four coil puppy needs a name. John That's got my vote . . . especially since "motherbucker" was already taken. So was "quadrophenia".
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Post by Mike Richardson on May 7, 2006 2:17:27 GMT -5
Good stuff Mike. I think for me, I would want a version that would substitute a single coil option for one of those combos, depending on how they sounded. Maybe the parallel hotrails sound is close to that? John Well, the Hot Rails has the "best" single-coil sound of any of the Duncan Rail-types I've tried. I put best in quotations because, while I've found it to be fairly useable, it's FAR from the ideal single-coil sound. The thin coil forms have a tendency towards the infamous "icepick in the forehead" sound. Of course, if I were to put one in a better guitar than my horrible old Mikenstein piece o' junk, it would probably sound better.
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Post by CheshireCat on May 7, 2006 3:28:05 GMT -5
Of course, if I were to put one in a better guitar than my horrible old Mikenstein piece o' junk, it would probably sound better. Mikenstein, eh? Sounds interesting . . . do tell.
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Post by UnklMickey on May 10, 2006 21:41:27 GMT -5
... Once you cross that threshold you could obviously do more coils ---- probably 8-10 in a bathtub routed strat with 21 frets.... dood! you are even more perverted than unk. ...So the 1 & 2 combos may or may not quack... 1 and 2 together will definitely quack. the problem is, the "sweet-spot" will be narrow. it may only quack on 2 strings. unk
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Post by Mike Richardson on May 11, 2006 1:31:11 GMT -5
I hope they're not real single-coils. You go anywhere near flourescent lighting and you'll get enough hum to blow the subs outta the PA.
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Post by Runewalker on May 13, 2006 12:45:43 GMT -5
Here's a new one for you John. Came up in a response to DeepBlu: guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=pup&action=post&thread=1147524774&page=1'Get one of those bathtub routed strats, rig some rails in your pickguard toneplastic so you can slide the pup between the bridge and neck positions at will, and then you have a mechanical opposed to electronic tone control. ...." So the set up would be a humbucker set in rails as above, with a rotary switch, maybe that 4 pole 2-11 pos jobber, and have a sequelae that moves from say full 2 coil series with inclining value caps for say pos 1-3, then - open full humbucker in local Series, then
- slotted coil alone,
- slotted coil alone with 2-3 levels of caps,
- Parallel local,
- Series local Oop,
- Parallel local OoP for at least one novelty setting.
Then control tone by position of the humbucker in the toneplastic plane. Rig some sort of lever to easily move it back and forth. All right! I place of the caps array you could instead introduce various resistors to control "volume". or a combination of caps and resistors, alone or together, depending on your favored settings and sounds. I would lean more towards resistors for set vol levels, with maybe a cap or two options in some positions. Eh? RW (stb Z)
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Post by Mike Richardson on May 13, 2006 14:52:30 GMT -5
There have been at least a couple of commercially available guitars that have had moving pickups. One was made by Cort or some cheapo brand like that.
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Post by Runewalker on May 13, 2006 15:56:29 GMT -5
There have been at least a couple of commercially available guitars that have had moving pickups. One was made by Cort or some cheapo brand like that. MR: i did not mean to suggest the idea was new or novel, merely that it is another way to meet JH's constraints in this challenge, and get some measure of tone attenuation. Seems like I read about some guy that tried to get EVH to invest in a similar 'invention' in the 80's. So the idea has been around a long time, and is usally abandoned. But it would work in this situation. I don't like those bathtub routs, but I have build or moded about 4 of them and they always surprise me at the quality of sound they render. borrow and steal where you can, I guess. RW
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Post by JohnH on May 13, 2006 16:57:52 GMT -5
RW - a good one to add to the collection, and a better use of the name 'Hotrails' than what it is normally used for.
Theres a perfectly fine 'Junior' version of that idea, with just a single pup and volume, plus the slider rails. With a single coil pup, it would be better for trying inclined versions of placement relative to the strings.
John
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Post by RandomHero on May 13, 2006 20:17:13 GMT -5
The rail-mounted moving pickup -definitely- needs to be knob-controlled, as far as position goes. Just because you could and it would be really classy. Even better; assemble plastic plates, like they way they surround stickshifts in automatic cars, to keep the rout and it's stuff non-visible.
...this is why I need a CNC machine. =(
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