Most Versatile Hh Config

[cocaine]

Hi everyone, newbie needing help here (go figure). by the way, great forum, big thank you to whoever hosts this.

anyway, i found this cool wiring scheme on guitarelectronics.com, and from what little ive learned about coil splitting and running in parallel/series, it seems very verstile (and complicated ) : http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHH3T1103

however, there are some questions i have about this. first, will pickup balance be a big problem? from what i can see, the loudest sound would be from all four coils running in series (4x output of one coil), with the least output being all 4 coils in parallel (1/4x one coil), which gives me one sound that is 16 times louder than another. or does my 8th grade knowledge of basic electronics not apply here?

the second question is for those who have experience with this kind of switching. how usable are the parallel sounds? are they kind of quacky (maybe theyre like the strat 2&4 positions, just closer together...) or just a lower output hb sound? if running in parallel wont give me quack, what position do you think would give me that sound?

lastly, how much difference can you hear between either split coil in a humbucker? they are positioned right next to each other, and would probably be wound exactly the same, so does it matter which specific coil i use in split mode or is the difference small?

if i decide to go with this, ill need alot of help with the actual wiring also, so im pretty lucky i found this forum. thanks everyone

[Sambo]

My problem with all of these '21 sound' things is exactly how many of them you use. To be honest when i had something similar (but on a strat) i found it annoying as it just took twice as long to get to the shound i wanted. If i were you, i'd figure out what sounds i want from a guitar and wire it up so that you have all... say 5 sounds on an easy to use 5 way lever rather than 500 switches.

Just my opinion

Oooh. I'm a big advocate of the petrucci style system worth checkin it out works very well.

S

[cocaine]

hey sambo thanks for your reply

i was also wondering how many of these sounds i would actually use, but even if i end up using only half a dozen of these, it would be a nice way of finding out what all these different things sound like.

i totally agree with you about the petrucci-its an incredible guitar overall. i was actually looking at the steve morse model also--all the ebmm guitars are great. but i think the pet is definitely geared toward the dream theater/lte sounds, and more or less only those.

[Sambo]

Funny you say that, there's a jazz guitarist i know who uses one

The way i did it is looked at all my guitars (PRS, strats etc) and looked which pickup selections i used. Then figured out which would be the best way to simply get them all on the same guitar. I ended up with bridge humbucker, neck humbucker and middle position on a strat, so the petrucci setup was brilliant for me. If you are using something like a superswitch (4 pole, 5 position strat lever style thing) the possibilities really are endless.

If you have a old guitar you don't mind experimenting on, then yes these 21 sound jobbies are all well and good. but on a nice one, you might find you rip it out as quickly as you put it in (i certainly did on my strat).

But another point, for straightforward versitility, the best system i've found is on a tanglewood tomcat (cheap axe!). Basically you have a 3 way for pickup selection, then a mode switch that selects inner coil, humbucker or outer coil on both humbuckers. works quite well.

S

[cocaine]

a jazz guitarist who uses the pet or the morse? if its the pet, im sorry, i guess i was kinda prejudiced in associating the guitar with the player (to tell you the truth i have never owned the petrucci). i actually was also considering a superswitch+dpdt wiring that would give me 10 humbucking tones. anyway, im looking to experiment with this more than anything. ill look into the superswitch and the tanglewood tomcat some more--but i think hands on experimentation will be the best for figuring this out.

thanks sambo

Edited July 8, 2006 by cocaine

[mu_sound]

Since I'm curently building a Jazz guitar with double humbuckers and a piezo, I am quite interested in this Petrucci style guitar. However, I just looked at the ernie ball site, and all I can find on the switching configuration is the following:

Controls 500kohm volume and tone - .022µF tone capacitor

Switch 3-way toggle pickup selector, with custom center position configuration

Pickups 2 Custom DiMarzio Humbucking - specially designed for Petrucci

what does custom center position mean???

wait wait...following their schematic link gets you to more details. However, it looks like theres at least one more toggle switch that wasnt meantioned and a wierd EQ for the piezos that looks like trim pots in the back of the guitar?

http://www.ernieball.com/mmonline/techinfo/

So it looks like the switching is very simple, bridge H, neck H, and inner coils in parallel. Silly question. I am using Seymour Duncan SH-2 pickups, do I have to invert the phase of one of the two inner coils for the middle position to be hum cancelling? That would just call for changing the wires areound right? I've seen a diagram on the Seymour Duncan website that if you want the PRS style switching to be hum cancelling you had to reverse the actual magnet polarity by flipping the bar magnet over 180 deg. That seemed like more destruction than I actually wanted to do on a brand new pickup. Hopefully I wont have to go that route with this approach.

On my PRS I tend to use just the Neck position and the position two positions adjacent so i guess that means the inside coils in parallel and the inside coils in series.

[Sambo]

The petrucci model isn't really designed as a jazz guitar... more of a metal-prog rock one:P

The main pickup switch below the pickups switches bridge HB - inner coils in parallel - neck HB.

The other switch is an optional thing: Piezo - Both - magnetic pickups. And the EQ is for the piezo.

I honestly have no idea about the SD pickups. Don't use them. Email them and ask, i hear they're quite helpful.

S

[Pr3Va1L]

I read somewhere that you'd have to reverse the pickup (or the magnet... but the whole pickup works) AND the wires for that to be hum cancelling...

[crafty]

The most versatile combo has only two switches: one for pickup selection, and one for series/parallel wiring. No coil-splits or taps, just simplicity. Sounds like a 'bucker when you need a 'bucker and a single-coil when you need a single coil.

Switcheroo setups are a pain in the studio and even more so live.

[Mickguard]

anyway, i found this cool wiring scheme on guitarelectronics.com, and from what little ive learned about coil splitting and running in parallel/series, it seems very verstile (and complicated ) : http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHH3T1103

I'm tempted by this one too, mostly because I think mini-switches look really cool mounted on a guitar (no kidding, I'm that shallow ).

Because otherwise, I'm just not fussy enough to go hunting for 'the tone'...ordinarily, the difference between neck and bridge (and neck + bridge) is enough for me. And I'm also not looking for one guitar to do everything. I'm quite willing to switch off to another guitar. Or, actually, just use the one guitar to define my sound, at least for the time I'm playing it. If that makes any sense.

From my (limited) experience with coil splitting, there's a big drop in volume --the split pickup doesn't really sound like a single-coil...no where near the bit of a tele bridge pickup or a P90 that is. So you end up with just a weak, watery sound. Which may be what you want, who knows?

Instead, I'm planning to replace the switch with a blend pot -- I think that might end up being the most versatile, being up to dial in the blend of pickups

This is assuming I can get the pickups balanced properly --I'd like to keep the knob array to just one master volume and the blend pot, no tone. So hopefully I'll be able to balance their levels just from the distance to the strings.

[WezV]

My experience with coil splitting is that on 95% of humbuckers it is just not worth it. However i have had a few that sounded ok, the PRS pickups on the current GOTM for example. On that guitar i have a normal 3-way switch with master volume and tone but the volume is a push/pull coil split switch. The sytem works very well, but more importantly doesnt scare anyone away because of too many controls. It could easily be improved by having another push/pull switch on the tone control so each pickup had its own coil split switch but i dont really think its neccisary.

Parallel/series switches can be much more versatile but again it depends on the pickup.

I always try to get a system that looks just like a normal guitar but has hidden options. The next one will be a H/S/S+peizo set up with 5 way switch and strat style layout and one extra switch. The extra switch will choose mag/both/acoustic sounds and the 5-way will work just like a normal strat. One pot will be mag volume with a push/pull coil split, one will be mag tone and the third will be acoustic volume with a push/push tone preset selector.

I cant work out how many sounds that will give me but its more than most people ever need and more importantly they will all be easily accessible with a few simple controls.

[Sambo]

I think this is true. You have to do ur research on pickups for different switching. For example. Try splitting a SD invader. Yeah... well....

Good combo's i have found:

Most PRS' with the exception of the tremonti bridge (neck is only single conductor).

SD JB/Jazz, Distortions and alnico 2 pro's (humbucker ones)

Dimarzio steve's spec/air norton, Tonezone/air norton, Any satch pickups, D-sonic (odd, but good )

I have found that most of the blade S type humbuckers don't work too well.

Only problem with this is it is opinion based. And its kind of an expensive game to try out!

Some of the manufacturers webbies give some good info. and email works too

S

[boomerlu]

I actually have been messing around with a 4 pole 6 way switch in order to experiment with sounds.

I'm basically finding that the coil split off my humbuckers are useless. It gives me the really percussive tone of single coils, but it's WAAY too harsh, and the output is so much lower. But then again I have Duncan Detonators (cheap version of the Invader).

Remember two facts about coil splitting:

1) A PAF type humbucker has 5000 windings whereas a normal single coil has about 8700 windings.

2) Humbuckers have a bar magnet placed underneath, whereas a single coil has magnetic pole pieces. The polarization direction and hence magnetic fields are totally different.

Now, I'm finding that the parallel positions are very nice. The tone is closer to single coil tone with similar output to humbuckers. Nice and quacky. So, I'm going to rewire my guitar...yet again...to 3 way switch with a push/pull for parallel/series.

As far as output goes: I wouldn't worry about that too much as long as you have a relatively normal output. You can always add more gain with a preamp circuit ;-)

Edit: Oh yeah, if you just go with HSH or HSS, you could have REAL single coil tones ;-)

Edited July 9, 2006 by boomerlu

[Pr3Va1L]

Well, one of my guitars is pretty weird(Spector...). H/S/S: an On/Off switch for each pickups, a master volume, a coil split for the bridge humbucker, and a volume for the 2 single coils and one for the humbucker.

You can pretty much do anything with it.

Sounds I like (with the not so good sounding pickups that are in there...):

-Neck SC (the mid pickup alone sounds almost the exact same)

-Bridge HB

-Neck SC+Bridge HB

-Neck SC+Split Bridge HB (with the bridge's tone rolled off a little... Sounds like a nylon guitar when played the right way!!!)

-Bridge Parallel (acoustic-like tone...)

Right now I'm thinking of changing the pickups... Maybe putting a twin rails in the middle...

Maybe you could try a Bridge HB+ Neck SC config? At least you would have a real single coil in the neck, and the split(or parallel) bridge mixed with the single should sound pretty convincing!!

[cocaine]

thanks for all the ideas

btw, mickguard, i agree with you about the looks thing. thats why i like the look of the steve morse ebmm-cause it has a bunch of sexy switches and pickups

the only reason i dont go hss (which i agree is pretty damn versatile without a thousand switches) is because the neck humbucker is essential for most of my lead sounds.

ill probably be going with my original idea, if only to see which tones work and which ones dont.

[boomerlu]

Along the same lines:

Anybody have a schematic for 2 humbuckers, 3 way switch, 1 volume, 1 push/pull pot so that the push pull pot is a parallel/series switch for both humbuckers? I know the theory of how to achieve this, but I can't find a schematic on the internet, and I also realize that with only 1 push/pull you might run into some problems. So, anybody more clever than I am and come up with a way to do it?

Thanks

[mikhailgtrski]

1 push/pull pot so that the push pull pot is a parallel/series switch for both humbuckers?

[boomerlu]

1 push/pull pot so that the push pull pot is a parallel/series switch for both humbuckers?

(off the top of my head) A push-pull will work for coil splitting two humbuckers, but parallel/series requires (2) DPDT switches... or (1) 4PDT switch, which you probably won't find in a push-pull.

[scott from _actual time_]

i've wired my H/H Ibanezes in this switching scheme (neck pickup at the top):

i get the full-on humbuckers in positions 1 and 5, the neck in parallel for a more Strat-type sound, the inner coils for the notched Petrucci-style clean tone, and the two outer coils for a bouncy Tele-style clean tone. all accessible with one 5-way switch. and yes, i do use all 5 positions, especially for clean and medium-gain tones.

i also have a push/pull pot that splits the two full-on series humbuckers to give the outer coil of each one, but leaves the other 5-way switch positions the same. i use the otuer coils because the tonal difference is more pronounced than the inner coils--sharper at the bridge and rounder at the neck.

Edited July 13, 2006 by scott from _actual time_

[cocaine]

wow scott thats a much simpler setup than what i was thinkin, awesome. can you post a wiring diagram for that please (for a noob who has no clue about wiring)?