Page_Master Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 hi there i am new here. from the responses i have already read in this forum, it is very responsive and considerate. i am also a member at the guitarbuild.com forum, however i do not find them in the least bit informative and helpful. by the looks of things, i would rate this forum better than guitarbuild.com already. on to my topic. i would like to install a killswitch and an LED w/ my pick up, 1 EMG 81 in the bridge position with 1 vol and 1 tone. so where abouts do i add the killswitch and an LED in the wiring you reckon? now an LED might seem strange in the electronics of a guitar, but when you think about it, i mean all home appliance and electricals have em, why not install one in your guitar! it came to mind when i was playing my PlayStation 2, i liked it how the LED where so bright in dark, then i thought, hey that would look cool on a guitar - the you could even see it in the dark. see my guitar is on, see my guitar is off, a bit like my PlayStation 2. i should have mentioned first that i want the LED to be connected with the pickup, so when the killswitch is on the LED turns on and accordingly, when the killswitch is off the LED goes off. on the guitar body, the pots will not be visible, it will only be a killswitch and an LED on the guitar face. the pots will be inside the electronic cavity, connect to a perspex bracket. so i wanted to be a little original, although the idea was thought of by my friend, the LED was my idea. thanx for reading. Page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DividedByJames Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 I had a Jackson Scott Ian JJ that had a kill switch in it and you could push it in (it's spring loaded) and do some crazy percussive stuff with it. But I think for your purposes you will need a 2-way toggle, not a push in type. The kill switch was between the last item (knobs or switch) and before the output jack. As for wiring, I think a typical switch will have 3 lugs, and you attach the outgoing switch to one of the sides, and the wire from the pickups to the center. For the led, you baically will need to attach the LED to that same lug. I'm guessing that you would just separate the power source from the LED, but I don't know if this will drain your battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DividedByJames Posted October 2, 2003 Report Share Posted October 2, 2003 Oops...I just read you have EMGs. Not sure if that will work then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted October 3, 2003 Report Share Posted October 3, 2003 Seems to me all you need to do is wire a simple on/off switch on either the ground to output jack or the positive side to output jack. Put your LED beside it on the same line and your done. Course then you could leave the cable pluged in and the switch would kil the circuit and the LED would let you know if it is on or off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Page_Master Posted October 3, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2003 hi there thanx for the help dudes. i was thinking that it would work like that. what i wasn't sure about was, do i connect it to the positive, or negative wires. i wanted to save trial and error. and Brian, i am the dude that told you about that missing link in Gallery 2. thanx for the reply. Page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted October 3, 2003 Report Share Posted October 3, 2003 Well thanks for the link notice bro! It really shouldn't matter which wire you do the circuit on since it ends up being one big loop when everythings on anyway. Just make sure you do it to the same wire inline and don't cross over to the other, which would do you absolutly no good but the LED would light and turn off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StratDudeDan Posted October 5, 2003 Report Share Posted October 5, 2003 i would stick the switch in the jack line, whichever side you want. that way, you don't throw anything in between the tone/pickup connections and nothing to throw off the battery, though that would be the second place i would suggest, right off the hot wire of the battery, just pop a little switch in there and an LED right after it. i don't know if that would work, but, well, maybe...in theory it would, but in theory, communism works, too, so you can't always trust theory. -dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted October 8, 2003 Report Share Posted October 8, 2003 I think Randy Rhoads used to have one - either that or he had it on the floor. The tribute CD has lots of cool stuttering sounds that he did with it. If you're still stuck for how to wire it, let me know - it's one of the few times I can put my EE degree to good use. I would think that you would want to wire it so that it acts as if the volume was all the way down instead of just breaking the circuit and leaving it like the cord isn't plugged in. Anyway, I would go with the push-button (momentary - spring loaded) so you could do some of that cool Randy stuff unless it was meant for actually shutting it down for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalnutt Posted October 9, 2003 Report Share Posted October 9, 2003 i have the schematics for th millenium bypass basically you wire up a dpdt switch with the bypass connected to it. when the guitar is shut off the bypass will be on and a light wil come on whenthe guitar is swithced on the light will go out as the bypass is not bein used. if ya want it let me know and ill email it to you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyldbil Posted October 10, 2003 Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 I want to jump in on this topic with a question and plea for advice. I want to install a stutter switch like the one guy describes in the Jackson Scott Ian model into one of my Hamers. There is already a toggle switch hole in the body where I reduced the pickup config from 3-coil "motherbucker" to just a 'bucker. I would like to drop a switch into that hole to use for a stutter. Can anyone tell me, Mr. Electronically Uneducated, what kind of switch to buy? I can solder and follow wiring diagrams, but have no idea what certain components are called- like the kind of switch I need. No LED needed here- just a stutter switch. Thanks guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nor Posted October 14, 2003 Report Share Posted October 14, 2003 Guys like RR and Dave Meniketti (Y&T) didn't use a special 'stutter switch'. They just used the toggle-switch on thier LP's with the vol on the other p/u rolled off. I went through soooo many on my SG... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnuk Posted October 16, 2003 Report Share Posted October 16, 2003 I was watching the videos on this month's Guitarist magazine just now. One of the guys playing had a 'stutter switch' installed but instead of one the normal toggle switches, he used a momentary push to brake button. I thought it was a really cool idea because they're made to be toggled on and off very quickly and lots of times. It worked really well and you can get hundreds of different style of push to brake switches, unlike the handful of different ones you can get as minature toggles. I couldn't tell if his did or not, because of the light shining on his guitar, but you can get a lot of them with LED's already fitted inside them; these will almost certainly be on when the switch is closed, not open... saying that you may be able to find some that are the other way round. If you install a toggle switch on active pickups, install it where it will brake the signal leaving the pickups and going to the output jack. If you install it where it will only brake the power to the pickups it won't work. I did this on the advice of a luthier I called and found out quite quickly that active humbuckers, EMG's in my case, seem to have a switch on delay. When I flick the switch, they don't instantly come on, they have a noticable gap. That means that any real quick toggling is out of the question since they'll never have enough time to come on. Added to that, if your amp is turned up high enough, they'll never go fully off. Buy an expensive toggle switch whichever way you decide to go otherwise you'll just get lots of pops and bangs when you toggle it on and off. Good luck anyways! John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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