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My First Project


METALSUSTAIN

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hi

well , i have 2 guitar now (both bought) but my new one has a floyd rose so i want to upgrade my first guitar incase when i gig it breaks

i have a strat copy and im thinking of rewiring it (if it goes well ill add new pickups later on)

im thinking of getting about 13 ish pickup combinations via the brian may switching schematic

which ive found here :

brian_may_pickup_wiring_standard.gif

^ this is the standard wiring of the red special.

however on the website there is a modification to give 21 pickup combinations , allowing you to humbucker the bridge and middle pickups , shown here

brian_may_pickup_wiring_modified_2.gif

there and it also has a foot note that you can add an extra switch to add a humbucking mode between mid and neck , however im not sure about this one

so i have a few questions :

1. where can you get completely blank strat pickguards (in the uk) ?

2. whats the cheapest supplier of DPDT minature switches (in the uk) ?

3. is the extra switch to allow the mid-neck humbucking combination ?

4 . if they are all on , all put in parallel , wouldnt that act as a triplebucker ?

thanks

METALSUSTAIN

p.s this will be instead of the sustainer for the moment

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IMHO having lots of pickup combinations is a waste of time. Its like having 100 television channels, you keep flicking thru but cant settle on one.

I have a LP style Axe that I can coil cut each humbucker but usually I prefer the fuller sound of the bucker as the coil cut does not sound like, or is as good as a single coil.

When I built my latest 335 style semi-hollow I thought about coil cuts and quickly flagged the idea.

My motto is the KISS principle. Keep it simple stupid.

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To answer your last question, no, only the two pickups next to each other will "humbuck". All humbucking amounts to is that you have two single coil PU's next to each other that are out of phase. Single coil PU's are usually quite noisy, so this cancels the noise.

I have modified guitars to give a whole lot of pickup configurations and many times I can't tell the difference between many of them. This configuration does seem like it will provide a lot of noticable sounds so if you like that ...go for it. I will however note that unless you are primarily a studio player (mostly do recording, home or otherwise) you might find that you only really use a few of the combinations anyway. But...I say have fun with it. At least you will become proficient in wiring modifications.

As for parts, I live in the US so I can't help with local shops. However, this site has links to many on line vendors, all of which are reputable and reasonably priced.

Peace...Rog

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IMHO having lots of pickup combinations is a waste of time. Its like having 100 television channels, you keep flicking thru but cant settle on one.

...

i agree to some extent.

i think the best approach is to have a mule to find which sounds you really want.

then design the switching for your guitar(s) with a minimum set of must-have sounds.

...All humbucking amounts to is that you have two single coil PU's next to each other that are out of phase....

Rog, i think you have the right idea, but that came out a bit wrong.

SCs don't have to be next to each other to hum-cancel.

they can be made with the same magnetic polarity and winding direction, then connected out-of-phase. (thin jangly sound)

or they can be of opposite magnetic polarity and winding direction, then connected in-phase. (full normal sound)

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just out of intrest

would active pickups be good with this setup ?

Typically active pickups like EMG's don't allow for any coil tapping and such. You can get active tone controls and such that are pretty powerful and used by bass players a lot, but that is another story...

KISS is a really good idea but it is possible to have a middle ground...

i think the best approach is to have a mule to find which sounds you really want.

This is the best advice. My sustainer strat is a mule but does have a bit of a balance between tese types of ideas and the KISS principle. For instance, there is a phase switch for each pickup and an independant volume control for the mid pickup. I can get any combination then except mid pickup alone on this single coil equipped three pickup stat and plenty of variations in between. In "performance" though...pickups are slected by a three way gibson style selector on the lower horn (out of the way) so that the other switches simply "program" the sounds that this threeway will select.

These types of guitars are fun to devise and to play, but when it comes down to it a single pickup guitar and a volume control...along with a very varied technique and picking dynamics...will yeild far greater tonal variety than any amount of pickup manipulations...check out EVH for instance. Typically when I play I will select one sound for a tune and play with that...I like having a lot of sounds on the guitar, but truely, one great sound is all one really needs... pete

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I had a strat with 22 different pickup combinations and the problem with it i found was that you take for ever to select the sound you want. I had a 5-way, an on/on/on, and 2 on/on toggle switches on it. In the end I found the sounds I liked, and use them on my other guitars. The main one I put on all my strat style guitars is the ability to add the neck pickup to what ever is selected on the 5-way. This means you can get neck and bridge and all 3 pickups selected at the same time. Neck and bridge sounds really good. Another one I liked was the ability to reverse the phase on the neck pickup so that you can get bridge and neck (with neck out of phase). This is sort of like neck and middle, or middle and bridge, but a sort of in between them tonally. I like it.

Neck out of phase and middle sounds aweful! Don't use it!

If I were you, I'd have a look at www.axesrus.com - They have a big page of scratchplates of all different configurations. I've not been on the page in a while so not sure if they have blank ones, but they certainly sell pickguard sheets so you could cut your own plate from scratch. They have free postage and the stuff is usually with you the next day. I've never had any problems with them at all.

Pete

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