Stewmac E Megaswitch

[Xanthus]

Hey boys and girls! I'm getting ready to place a second batch order from StewMac, and I'm looking at their E Megaswitch. I'm going to be using Dimarzio PAF Pro's in both bridge and neck. My reason for picking the E switch is because of automatic coil tapping. I'm wondering, though, because positions 2 and 4 are single, if there'll be a NOTICABLE increase in hum when switching into these positions, or even just flicking from neck to bridge hum (pos 1 and 5). I didn't know if flicking the switch fast would make a stuttering effect because of the difference in levels of white noise. I suppose half of the answer comes from the pickups used, right? Has anyone split the coils in a PAF Pro? Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance, all.

[axxion]

I'd assume that they would sound like switching from position 1 and 2 on a strat. 'White noise flutter' from position 1-5 would sound like a strat too. Any single coil (as far as I know) has that 60-cycle hum, except for fender noisless or mini humbuckers.

Not very noticible, IMO.

[GregP]

You won't notice it during the flick from 1 to 5. But if you use positions 2 or 4, you WILL have exactly the same problems as any other single-coil. I haven't split a PAF, but my Jazz/JB combo is set up to have coil-tap options. I don't really use them as single-coils that much. It's a "different" sound compared to the full humbuckers, but I don't find it nearly as characterful as true single-coils.

For my personal preferences only, the "P" megaswitch is the one to go for. The parallel coils modes are hum-cancelling and reasonable facsimiles of a strat "in-between" sound. And the outside in series is another useful tone in and of itself.

Greg

[Xanthus]

I think I need to get to GC more.

I've never played a guitar with series/parallel wiring, and I try not to play Strats at all, despite how nice they sound. I've kinda painted myself into a Hum-only box. If you could, what is the benefit of series and parallel, what do they sound like? I was looking into the E switch because I do like the Strat chime, however much I abhor Fender's products I figured a PAF pro isn't a super powerful pickup and might work nicely with coil splitting.

I think I've read that when you split a hum, you cut the power of it in half. I might be totally off base, but having a split power of 150 according to the Dimarzio website, it'd be right up there with a hot Strat pickup, no? If you say that I'd benefit better from a series/parallel setup, Greg, then I'll go that route.

[GregP]

Hey Xanthus,

The P-Megaswitch emulates the standard PRS pickup selection options, so you can always Google a bit to find out what people say about them.

When you split a humbucker and use just one of the coils, you will sort of "halve" the output... as well as restore some higher frequencies. That's going to get you sort of into Strat territory; however, there are other differences in construction (bar magnet vs. separate magnet polepieces, different wire guage and # of wraps) that make a split coil not quite the same. Some manufacturers have made humbuckers that will split into a "true" single-coil, but your PAF isn't one of them.

Series vs. Parallel is easy to understand once you sit back and think about what the words mean. Two coils/pickups wired in "series" are ganged one after another. Coils/pickups that are "parallel" each generate their own output, which gets "blended" before output. Humbuckers in "full humbucker" mode are two coils wired in series, which is why the resistance (inductance? I'm not quite knowledgable enough to pull off the right terminology and I don't want to look it up. ) is higher and consequently the output is higher. By contrast, when two pickups are wired parallel, the resistance/inductance of one coil isn't added into the next... meaning that the actual resistance/inductance (whichever is correct... both?) isn't doubled.

End result in terms of the P-switch: The "series" option is in a class all its own-- strats don't have the outside coils in series without wiring modifications. It'll be a bit fuller than any strat sound, but also different than a single humbucker because of the locations of the 2 coils. The 2 parallel options won't be THAT different from one-another-- using the inside coils and you'll get a sound *sort of* like the in-between "hollow" sound that so many strat lovers enjoy. The advantage over the E-switch is that all positions are humbucking. This "disadvantage" (and IMO not really that bad) is that you don't get a true single-coil strat sound in any of the positions.

----

Or the short version: don't worry about the names "parallel" or "series". Just know that you'll get your full humbuckers, plus the ability to emulate lower-powered strat "in-between" sounds, while retaining humbucking performance in all positions. Add the unique "outside coil series" option, and I really think it's a better option than the E-switch, but that's just my personal opinion.

Greg

[Xanthus]

Thanks a bunch, Greg! That saved me a lot of time trying to wrap my head around. I think that humbucker performance is definitely the best point, and the option to have more "funky" sounds than just a strat or hum sound is pretty cool. Considering it more, I don't know how often I'll actually USE a single-coil sound if I wanted to tap the pickups, but I definitely know that I'll use the series/parallel more.

Time to go pick up a PRS and see what kind of tones I'm looking at!

[guitar101]

You won't notice it during the flick from 1 to 5. But if you use positions 2 or 4, you WILL have exactly the same problems as any other single-coil. I haven't split a PAF, but my Jazz/JB combo is set up to have coil-tap options. I don't really use them as single-coils that much. It's a "different" sound compared to the full humbuckers, but I don't find it nearly as characterful as true single-coils.

For my personal preferences only, the "P" megaswitch is the one to go for. The parallel coils modes are hum-cancelling and reasonable facsimiles of a strat "in-between" sound. And the outside in series is another useful tone in and of itself.

Greg

Can't answer your question but I hope the switch is better than the parts I ordeed from Stewmac. The regular 5 way switch I orderd from them lasted about a week and the push pull pot about a month before they failed.