2hb's, 1 Million Choices

[ToneMonkey]

I've just bought 2 HB's (Dimarzio PAF and a Dimarzio X2N) from Rob. Cheers Rob

They're both 4 core conductors and I want to wire them up with a tone pot and a volume pot for each one. What I want to do though is use push/pull pots and have LOADS of switching options so that I have something to play around with (rather than actually being able to play the guitar properly, I don't think that's ever going to happen unless I can actually find some time from somewhere to practice )

Anyway, heres the link to an old thread that I posted:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...topic=11111&hl=

Any suggestions, or even better....any wiring diagrams?

Cheers guys

[JohnH]

Youd have to check out the Jimmy Page version - which uses all push-pulls on the pots. Has anyone got a correctly drawn schematic of one? (meaning a circuit diagram so you can see how it works, rather than a wiring diagram with a picture of the switches). The one on the Gibson site seems poorly drawn (or scanned), with several missing wires!

Also, do you want to do all the options with the push-pull pots (rather than rotary, lever or toggles)? - which probably limit the switches to DPDT, I assume from your post that that is the case.

JohnH

[JohnH]

A further thought. If it were mine, I think I would not want the separate tone and volumes, because they can interfere with each other when combined, and I think these things are better done on the amp (just my opinion of course)

I have a 2 x h guitar, with 30 sounds and some unusal wiring that you may be interested in. It is a Shergold Masquerader, slighty modified by me. Heres my page on it, with the circuit. It could work for you if you didnt want the independent pots, but Id increase the value of the pots which are very low at 100k. Check out also, the link to the web site on this make, which has lots of awesome ways to wire 2 humbuckers.

http://people.smartchat.net.au/~l_jhewitt/...d/Shergold.html

[crafty]

A further thought. If it were mine, I think I would not want the separate tone and volumes, because they can interfere with each other when combined, and I think these things are better done on the amp (just my opinion of course)

So, have you ever played a Les Paul?

[JohnH]

[

So, have you ever played a Les Paul?

←

Have tried LP's, unfortunately not owned one. Great guitars, no-question. Just putting a personal view: Ive never found the simple passive tone controls on guitars very useful and would rather use switching to change tones.

[crafty]

Oh, so you're saying you just don't like TONE controls on the guitar. I thought you were trying to say you didn't like tone and volume controls for each pickup on the guitar because you thought the one set of controls for one pickup would interfere with the controls of the other pickup. It just didn't make sense to me.

All better now.

BTW, I do like a tone pot on the bridge pickup just to warm up the sound a little, ala Santana, without being as muddy as the neck pickup.

[JohnH]

Crafty

Im glad we're all cool, but I do have a question about interference between the separate pots for each pickup! I dont have such a guitar to test it on, so you may be able to explain whether it is an issue or not:

If you take as an example, the following basic LP wiring, straight off the Gibson site:

http://www.gibson.com/relations/schematics...ms/lespaul2.gif

I can see that if you select one or other pickups, the individual controls will work fine. But if you select both with the centre position of the pickup switch, it looks to me that:

with both on full volume, adjusting one tone pot will equally affect both pickups

if you turn one volume pot all the way down, you'll lose volume on the other pickup too

maybe this is not a problem in practice?

cheers

John

[crafty]

It's really not a problem. From what I understand, and this may be totally wrong, but each pickup's tone and volume controls act as voltage dividers for each pickup independently--turning one tone will not affect the tone of the other. Having said that, anytime you are mixing the signals from two pickups, changing the settings on one is definitely going to affect how the whole mix sounds.

[JohnH]

Thanks crafty -

Hey Tonemonkey, have you picked a scheme yet?, if not, heres a little further research, based on using 4 push-pull pots if that sthe way youd like it:

The Jimmy Page wiring is on the Gibson site, but dont look at the gif file, use the pdf (the gif file does not resolve all the lines in the drawing, confused me for a while):

http://www.gibson.com/relations/schematics.../pagewiring.pdf

Deaf Eddie has a couple of variations on the JP wiring, here:

http://www.deaf-eddie.net/pushpull/jp_setup.html

I quite like his version for the ES333, which gives you a hum-cancelling parallel wired option on the bridge pup, as well as phase inversion, single coils and both pups in series.

Another option would be as follows, using four DPDT switches, which could be on the push-pull pots.

SW1 - coil cut on both pups

SW2 - converts bridge pup from series to parallel - humcancelling

SW3 - overall phase change of the bridge pup (also selects the other bridge coil if SW1 is on)

SW4 - puts the coils of the neck pup out-of phase with each other (funky thin strumming sound, an aquired taste, but I like it alot)

That last one is not hum cancelling, but if you mix it with a single coil on the other pup, it is hum-cancelling (ive got tis on mine), and you get a nice bright single coil type sound with no hum.

If the above is of interest to anyone, I will post a diagram.

John

[ToneMonkey]

Cheers guys,

I've not ad a chance to look at this properly yet, I've been ill for the since lastFriday and this is my first trip out the house. Unfortunately the first trip out actually means going to work

I'm absolutely snowed under at the minute so it might take me a day or two to get to you.

Anyway, the help is always apreciated.

Kaj

[ToneMonkey]

Right then I'm back, still drowning under a see of paper and I've just lost about £1000 sorting out something that went tits up when I was away

Anyway....

.... I was intending on using 1 tone pot and 1 volume pot per pup so that I can mix them into each other to produce different sounds. Loads of neck pup with a bit of bridge/loads of bridge with a bit of neck/half and half etc. I figure that with set up a switch isn't needed. I don't play live so I don't need to easily switch between sounds.

Another reason why I want to go this route is because I've already drilled the holes for the pots

I suppose I wouldn't mind adding a microswitch for each pup to switch between single and double coils if needed.

Basically, I haven't had any real experience with guitars with phase swiching etc and I wanted to have as many options as possible so that I can just experiement a bit.

Well, I'm crap at electronics so all help/ideas/opinions are appreciated, so please keep them comming.

Kaj

[JohnH]

Good luck!

Everything that I have found out about guitar wiring is on a new web site that I have nearly finished. take a look:

http://au.geocities.com/guitarcircuits/

The circuit I described above with 4 pots is at the end of the page for two twin-coil pickup combinations

Id be very interested in any comments from anyone.

regards

John