Help with complicated wiring.

[zeeshqebab]

Im doing a DIY project on my guitar. it has 3 pickups.

Im an electrician and have some experience soldering guitar electronics. But i have some issues wrapping my head around this idea.

What i want to do is to have two seperate switches that control a series and a parallel circuit.
The two blend together with a balance pot and have stacked tone pot for each circuit.
Master Volume / Killswitch pot

Series:
- Neck + Mid
- Mid + Bridge
- Neck + Bridge
- All in series

Parallel:
- Neck
- Mid
- Bridge
- Neck + Mid

- Mid + Bridge

- Neck + Bridge
- All in Parallel


Do you guys have any tips for how to do this? Is there any part of this idea thats impossible?

Excited to read your replies!

[zeeshqebab]

I found a 10 way switch that could be an alternative. 
But it would be fun to blend series and the parallel circuit

[Deleted]

I seem to read these at the wrong time. 6:40am

Im not sure what you are wanting fully so I'll step out for now.
I think Brian May series parallel switching system was done with light switches .. but you wanting blending too
And don't forget about Space, lot of it but not that much in a guitar

[newey]

zeeshqebab-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Jul 12, 2021 20:25:04 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

Im doing a DIY project on my guitar. it has 3 pickups.

Does it also have a 5-way switch for pickup switching? You said you wanted "two separate switches" to control series/parallel. Are those including a 5-way switch (or other lever switch) or in addition to it?

All of what you want is potentially possible except I'm not so sure about blending the series output and the parallel. Maybe there's a way to set that up that I'm not visualizing at the moment, but I'm not seeing it. Even if it's possible, I question whether a master volume control would be workable after the blender, and I question whether you would be adding so much resistance to the circuit that the resulting tone would be pretty muddy-sounding. Let's let others weigh in on that.

As for the pickup selections you want, if you used a 5-way Superswitch (or an equivalent), it is possible to have a switch to go between series/parallel modes on the Superswitch- but then on the parallel side of things, you want all 7 parallel options, which is going to mean more switching than just a 5-way switch.

Putting aside the blender idea for the moment, the easiest way I could envision getting (most of) what you want would be as follows:

One 5-way superswitch, to give the 5 standard Strat settings (B, B + M, M, M + N, N)

One series-parallel switch to put the 5-way switch in series mode (giving you B, B x M, M, M x N, N)

One "neck on" switch which would turn the neck pickup on, in parallel, with whatever is selected by the 5-way switch, thus giving you the other parallel combos you want (i.e., N + B and all 3 in parallel). Not sure if this would "play well" with the series/parallel switch, there might be issues if you were in series mode and turned the neck pickup "on" in parallel, but we'd have to take a look at that, might not be an issue. Perhaps the switch could be made to work only when in the parallel mode.

V and T controls to suit.

This would give you every thing you want except all 3 pickups in series and without the blender.

[Deleted]

N, N(Blend)M, M, M(Blend)B, B, B(Blend)N
and when you say Blend you want a Dual Volume type system!
how would you want N+M+B set up

also want NxM, NxB, MxB and NxMxB

[zeeshqebab]

This was my initial idea.
The circuits are drawn seperately for easier viewing. But imagine that the series and parallel circuits are using the same pickups. - Its not detailed enough. But i hope you guys get the picture.

This is what ill be using for 7 way switching in parallel: 

But if a blend knob would be an issue couldnt i have a stacked volume for each circuit?

Does anyone know if having both the series and parallel circuits running in tandem is possible?

[zeeshqebab]

Jul 13, 2021 5:49:19 GMT -5 newey said:

Putting aside the blender idea for the moment, the easiest way I could envision getting (most of) what you want would be as follows:

One 5-way superswitch, to give the 5 standard Strat settings (B, B + M, M, M + N, N)

One series-parallel switch to put the 5-way switch in series mode (giving you B, B x M, M, M x N, N)

One "neck on" switch which would turn the neck pickup on, in parallel, with whatever is selected by the 5-way switch, thus giving you the other parallel combos you want (i.e., N + B and all 3 in parallel). Not sure if this would "play well" with the series/parallel switch, there might be issues if you were in series mode and turned the neck pickup "on" in parallel, but we'd have to take a look at that, might not be an issue. Perhaps the switch could be made to work only when in the parallel mode.

V and T controls to suit.

This would give you every thing you want except all 3 pickups in series and without the blender.

This could be a good alternative if what im planning isnt possible.

I will be doing some routing in the guitar to fit all the components if im having issues with space
But with the superswitch i wouldnt be able to blend the circuits together. And i would like to be able to, but to be fair, this is for fun, so im not gonna be stubborn about how exactly i want my guitar wired haha

[zeeshqebab]

Jul 13, 2021 9:46:41 GMT -5 @angellahash said:

N, N(Blend)M, M, M(Blend)B, B, B(Blend)N
and when you say Blend you want a Dual Volume type system!
how would you want N+M+B set up

also want NxM, NxB, MxB and NxMxB

Im a bit new to guitar electronics. So im having some issues understanding the technical speak haha. 

I was thinking of having a blend knob between the series and parallel circuit. But a stacked volume pot is also an alternative (I think i would run out of space pretty quick if i had two seperate vol knobs)

[zeeshqebab]

This is what the guitar looks like currently.

It has a 5 way switch.

[Yogi B]

Jul 14, 2021 8:38:07 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

Does anyone know if having both the series and parallel circuits running in tandem is possible?

Kind of. You can run both circuits at the same time, however you cannot simultaneously connect the same pickups to both circuits. Or rather you cannot do so whilst keeping the two circuits separate and functioning correctly, at least not without active (powered) circuitry and maybe a handful of transformers.

For example PeterRabbit's 5-pickup Tele has both a series & parallel circuit, but each pickup needs to have a switch which selects whether it is part of the series circuit or part of the parallel circuit.

[Deleted]

Jul 14, 2021 8:38:07 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

This was my initial idea.
The circuits are drawn seperately for easier viewing. But imagine that the series and parallel circuits are using the same pickups. - Its not detailed enough. But i hope you guys get the picture.

This is what ill be using for 7 way switching in parallel: 

But if a blend knob would be an issue couldnt i have a stacked volume for each circuit?

Does anyone know if having both the series and parallel circuits running in tandem is possible?

Im electrician in uk. But that drawing is a bit dam crazy ..
Blending between series and parallel while using the same pickups in both!!

[zeeshqebab]

Jul 14, 2021 15:07:28 GMT -5 @angellahash said:

Im electrician in uk. But that drawing is a bit dam crazy ..
Blending between series and parallel while using the same pickups in both!

Yeah its a bit crazy, its hard to draw it clearly. 
I dont have that much experience with connecting DC stuff.

But for example in a TN-network (Im from norway i dont know the term for it in english) You can in theory have one N wire connected to everything without issue (If you ignore the resistance of the cable).

but this is a bit different. So i was wondering about how i could do it.

[zeeshqebab]

Jul 14, 2021 11:17:28 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

however you cannot simultaneously connect the same pickups to both circuits.

In that case i think ill have a series and a parallel circuit separately without the blend. Just a switch to change between them.

So:
7 way switching in parallel     www.thomannmusic.no/freeway_switch_5b5_01_black_tip.htm  (10 way switch)
4 way in series                     www.thomannmusic.no/fender_tele_4way_special_switch.htm    (4 way switch)
Series/Parallel switch            www.thomannmusic.no/goeldo_el013_minischalter.htm              (On - On - On) Im going to try having one Series - Both - Parallel, if it dosnt work ill just disconnect the "both channel"
Kill/volume                          www.thomannmusic.no/shadow_sh12425_kill_pot.htm               (Kill / Volume) - Edit: www.thomannmusic.no/shadow_sh124250_kill_pot.htm

Tone knob                           Im unsure about tone pots and caps. Any recomendations? Im thinking maybe i can have a tone cap switch, one more mellow and one thats brighter? Im a bit unsure about the qualities different caps have.
                                          0.022 uf and one 0.047uf maybe?

[zeeshqebab]

Additional stuff if anyone is interested.

Bridge www.thomannmusic.no/schaller_1477_3d6_steg_black.htm

Tuners www.thomannmusic.no/planet_waves_pwat6r2.htm

Pickups im considering:

Neck / Mid www.thomannmusic.no/bare_knuckle_boot_camp_brute_force_t_set.htm

Bridge www.thomannmusic.no/bare_knuckle_boot_camp_brute_force_hum._bbl.htm

[Deleted]

Treat as a 3 phase system direct from star transform.
The natural and ground/cpc/earth as the same to the star point.
And L1, L2 and L3 (funny thing is a transformer has same icon as a pickup) and this isnt DC it's AC (i would call it white noise from the pickup, so think of it as AC but screwed up)

--------------
you do know all the Electronics/Electrical Maths is DC maths and you times by 0.707 or 1.414 to find the AC
--------------
Adding bits than Flooding the Forum page

Pickup is like a AC battery, its not a smooth AC its just easier to call it that.

=========
Set how we want the Pickups to come in to play (P1+P2)xP3 etc P1 P2
then how they are to Mix with each other (Blending/Switching)
==
Tones + Volume + Output

[Yogi B]

Jul 14, 2021 18:54:14 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

I dont have that much experience with connecting DC stuff.

As @angellahash has already pointed out, (passive) guitar wiring is AC, not DC. Although, we often imagine it as DC to simplify the terminology — it's easier to say "the positive lead of a pickup" than "the lead of the pickup which develops a positive voltage relative to the other lead when a string moves towards the pickup".

Jul 14, 2021 20:53:22 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

Series/Parallel switch: (On - On - On) I'm going to try having one Series - Both - Parallel, if it doesn't work I'll just disconnect the "both channel"

If you want the option to switch all three coils in series or parallel, then a double pole switch won't be enough, you'll need a four pole switch.

For a simplified example (as well as further illustrating why "both" won't work) lets consider that in the series circuit you have P1 and P2 selected, and the same two pickups selected in parallel. Individually those two circuits look like this (simplified by removing any pickup selector(s) / controls / etc.):

Between the circuits two things have changed: firstly, the non-dotted end of P1 has been removed from the series link & instead connected to ground; and secondly, the dotted end of P2 has been removed from the series link & instead connected to the "hot" output.

If we somehow wanted to directly combine both series and parallel wirings simultaneously, that would look like the left-hand of the below diagrams, wherein both pickups are shorted and thus there'd be no output.

On the right-hand side is an example of how we might wire a series/parallel toggle switch for two pickups, demonstrating that we require a two pole switch (as there's two separate changes that need to occur). Thus in the case where up to three pickups could be selected simultaneously, we'd obviously need a series/parallel switch with more poles (more specifically, an additional two: one for the non-dotted end of P2; and one for the dotted end of P3).

---

Jul 14, 2021 20:53:22 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

Kill/volume — www.thomannmusic.no/shadow_sh12425_kill_pot.htm

I don't know if you've accidentally linked the wrong potentiometer, as that one has a total resistance of 25k ohms (intended for use with active pickups/wiring), you'll want a 250k or more likely (by conventional thinking) a 500k pot instead. Though Shadow do make a 500k version (for example, available from BanzaiMusic), Thomann appear to only sell the 25k & 250k.

[zeeshqebab]

Jul 14, 2021 23:09:26 GMT -5 @angellahash said:

Treat as a 3 phase system direct from star transform.
The natural and ground/cpc/earth as the same to the star point.
And L1, L2 and L3 (funny thing is a transformer has same icon as a pickup) and this isnt DC it's AC (i would call it white noise from the pickup, so think of it as AC but screwed up)

--------------
you do know all the Electronics/Electrical Maths is DC maths and you times by 0.707 or 1.414 to find the AC
--------------
Adding bits than Flooding the Forum page

Pickup is like a AC battery, its not a smooth AC its just easier to call it that.

=========
Set how we want the Pickups to come in to play (P1+P2)xP3 etc P1 P2
then how they are to Mix with each other (Blending/Switching)
==
Tones + Volume + Output

I get it now. Its like a TN system but the pickup is essentially the fuse (In the way its connected) and the jack would be the outlet with a bunch of doodads in between

Never really thought proper if guitars use AC or DC, but DC makes no sense, so i dont know where i got that from haha.

Thanks man!

[zeeshqebab]

Jul 15, 2021 1:25:14 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

Ah, see the pickup in parallel would be completely bypassed. Great explanation, much appreciated

Jul 15, 2021 1:25:14 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

Kill/volume — www.thomannmusic.no/shadow_sh12425_kill_pot.htm

It said the 250k pot was for single coils, so i assumed the 25k pot was for humbuckers and and single coils. Since nothing was specified on the 25k pot. Im still quite new to this haha

[newey]

Jul 15, 2021 7:27:27 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

It said the 250k pot was for single coils, so i assumed the 25k pot was for humbuckers and and single coils.

Any pot with a value lower than about 100KΩ will not be useful in a passive guitar circuit (and even that's probably too low for normal use). Active pickups use lower values, as YogiB said. Within the range between about 100K and 1MΩ, pot values are largely a matter of preference, but the traditional values used by most manufacturers are 250KΩ for single coil pickups and 500K for humbuckers.

You can think of it this way- there's a trade-off to be made. The lower pot values will cut treble more; 250K pots are usually used with single coils to tame some "brightness" with the pot at "10", while less-bright HBs usually get 500K pots to preserve some high-end with the pot at "10". The lower the pot value, the less brightness.

So, some will say "I want brightness, I'll go with higher value pots, like 1MΩ" But here's where the trade-off comes in: The higher the pot's value, the less incremental adjustment you get as you turn the pot down. If you were to use a pot with, say, a 3MΩ value, it would act more like an on/off switch as you turned the knob down. You would reach a point where it would be "all or nothing", with very little room for adjustment.

I have a Strat-ish guitar where I used, as a compromise to preserve treble, a 1M volume pot paired with a 500K Tone pot; this sounds very bright with single coil pickups, but I typically play this guitar with the tone turned down a bit to tame it. Also keep in mind that it is the total resistance of the pots as a parallel system that matters. 2 250K pots gives 125K total Ohms, one 500K and one 250K gives 166.66KΩ. This is why adding extra pots tends to make things more "muddy" sounding.

[Yogi B]

Jul 15, 2021 7:27:27 GMT -5 zeeshqebab said:

I keep fking up the quote thing. Sorry

I'm guessing you're using using the "Preview" tab to edit posts? That has an annoying behaviour whereby if you have no text following a quote it's impossible to escape from the contents of the quote, a workaround is to switch to the "BBCode" tab, (re-)add a trailing newline after the closing [/quote] tag and then switch back to the other editor.

I've written a forum plugin specifically for annoyances like this, but this isn't something that I've gotten around to fixing yet. It should be possible to code something whereby if you're positioned at the end of a quote and hit return, a newline is inserted outside the quote. There is a small chance that this fix itself might, at times, be the wrong thing to do (e.g. when reformatting a quote), but hopefully that should be minimal. I'll look into it...

(I'll also go and edit your previous posts.)

Jul 15, 2021 8:35:05 GMT -5 newey said:

You can think of it this way- there's a trade-off to be made. The lower pot values will cut treble more; 250K pots are usually used with single coils to tame some "brightness" with the pot at "10", while less-bright HBs usually get 500K pots to preserve some high-end with the pot at "10". The lower the pot value, the less brightness.

Hopefully not to be too confusing, but note that in terms of the volume pot the "at 10" part is important. Almost immediately when turning down from 10, the ordering of brightness is reversed. I've described this elsewhere before, but I don't think I've posted the following graph:

The yellow traces are for a 1M volume pot, orange for 500k, and red for 250kohm. All three are otherwise identical all using the same idealized 10% logarithmic taper, a 500k tone pot, JohnH's model of a Seymour Duncan '59 humbucker, 500pF cable capacitance, and 1M input impedance.

• The top group of traces are with the volume control at 10, I've not shown it but at 9.9 the advantage of a higher value pot is already lost as the three traces are essentially equal.
• The next group of plots is at 8.45 (though on real world pots it would likely be closer to 7.5) and is the point where the 'rule' of higher value equates to a brighter tone, is at its most untrue.
• Turning down the pot further to about 4, we once again reach a point where the difference between the three values is minimal.
• The last group of traces is at 1, and is illustrative that below the previous point, all the way to zero, we're back to the standard rule of higher = brighter.

In other words, the rule that "lower value pots will cut more treble" is true only at 10 and from roughly 4 to 0, whereas in the range 9.9 to about 4 the reverse is actually true.

Note that still this rule doesn't apply to pots below 250k as that's pretty much the magic sweet spot. Furthermore, I have not accounted for the possible inclusion of a treble bleed in any way.

The higher the pot's value, the less incremental adjustment you get as you turn the pot down. If you were to use a pot with, say, a 3MΩ value, it would act more like an on/off switch as you turned the knob down. You would reach a point where it would be "all or nothing", with very little room for adjustment.

This mostly relevant only to a tone control. In the above plot of a volume control you can see that for the most part pots with an identical taper but differing value behave largely the same in terms of overall volume. Even so, in the above graph, you can still kinda see it creeping in at the 8.45 mark where the 1Meg pot is roughly 1dB lower than the the 250k pot. It is at this point where the change is most effective, for example a 5MΩ pot would be around 6dB lower at this point, but at 4 on the knob the difference will have decreased to about 2dB, and the difference would diminish to nothing at 1. (Though, again note that these are with an idealised taper, and that real world pots are likely to behave at least somewhat worse than this.)

Also keep in mind that it is the total resistance of the pots as a parallel system that matters. Two 250K pots gives 125K total Ohms, one 500K and one 250K gives 166.66KΩ. This is why adding extra pots tends to make things more "muddy" sounding.

For a combination of the above reasons this is why my go-to combination is 250k volume and 250k no-load tone.

(A no-load pot is one which has either been manufactured or later modified such that when turned to "10" lug 2 is electrically isolated from lug 1. In other words, when used as a variable resistor in the case of a typical tone control, at round 9.5 the pot will jump from close to it's rated value up to effectively infinite resistance.)

Therefore the above combination of 250k volume & 250k no-load tone gives: the equivalent parallel loading of two 500k pots, when both controls are at 10; the improved treble response of a 250k volume pot between 9.9 and 4; and the improved taper that a 250k tone pot gives.

[unreg]

Yogi B, ahh, now it makes so much sense why I have been turning the volume down just a tiny tad when playing lower notes. They sound better with out that 500k-pot brightness boost.

Thank you sir!