Can Anyone Give Me Advice On A Filter Blowswitch?

[knifegeezer]

Hi,

I'm brand new to this site and know nothing about wiring. I can just about manage a dodgey burnt looking solder joint!

Is there anyone out there that can tell me wether it's possible to fit a knob or slider type control to replace a blowswitch?

I've just bought a Danelectro U56 reissue which has the normal 3 pickup strat configuration with a 5 way pickup selector. But also has an on/off blowswitch that turns on all 3 pickups (it sounds fat).

What I would like todo is to have a knob or slider control so I could blend the level from each pickup to my liking.

For instance, If I had the 5 way switch on the bridge pickup only and was then to turn the 'blowknob' to 5 it would make the bridge pickup go into overdrive and at the same time turn the middle and neck pickup to a medium volume/output.

Can someone please let me know if I'm living Disneyland or if this is really possible? And if it is possible what would be involved?

I would appreciate anything.

Cheers,

Roy

[lovekraft]

Can it be done? Yes, without question - how much money and time are you willing to invest in it? Since you basically want to crossfade between the selector switch and all three pickups in parallel with no switching, you'll have to isolate the individual pickup outputs going to the blower fade, or you'll get no results from the selector switch ( since all the inputs will be shorted together before the switch). That means that each pickup will have to have its own splitter to isolate the selector switch outputs from the blower outputs, and you'll have to have some kind of panpot setup to sweep between the blower output and the selector switch output. I'm sure that Danelectro simply uses a 3 pole switch, but that won't work if you want to crossfade, for the reason(s) stated earlier. It sounds like a great deal of work unless you plan on making it an integral part of your signature sound.

[knifegeezer]

Can it be done? Yes, without question - how much money and time are you willing to invest in it? Since you basically want to crossfade between the selector switch and all three pickups in parallel with no switching, you'll have to isolate the individual pickup outputs going to the blower fade, or you'll get no results from the selector switch ( since all the inputs will be shorted together before the switch). That means that each pickup will have to have its own splitter to isolate the selector switch outputs from the blower outputs, and you'll have to have some kind of panpot setup to sweep between the blower output and the selector switch output. I'm sure that Danelectro simply uses a 3 pole switch, but that won't work if you want to crossfade, for the reason(s) stated earlier. It sounds like a great deal of work unless you plan on making it an integral part of your signature sound.

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[donbenjy]

it does sound extemely complicated im wondering if soem kind of active circuit might be better? not sure how feasible this would be, but it certainly seems simpler to me (but maybe because im not that hot on electronics but am on computers), if you used an active circuit (battery powered) and put some kind of programmable chip in to control the options, wire each pickup to a different analogue input...

im only saying this ecause i find working with PCBs and chips alot more easy to comprehend than guitar circuitry that really confuses me at times, even with soem simple stuff