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Hss Wiring With A Twist


mistertaylor

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Hi Guys,

I'm currently working on rebuilding my first guitar (just a cheapo Legend strato-o-copy, but with a certain sentimental value) and I've been working through some ideas for wiring.

Inspired by the schematics on www.gmarts.org I've come up with the following wiring diagram (apologies its hand-drawn), but would like some expert opinions!

5385724176_675d096c68.jpg

Wiring Diagram by weapologisefortheinconvenience, on Flickr

If I understand it correctly (and I'm new at this) the volume, 2 x tones and 5-way switch would function as per a standard strat. The addition of the coil tap switch would enable selection of either single coils within the humbucker (labelled inner and outer) and the humbucker itself. The idea being that when the 5-way switch is set to the middle+bridge position, the coil tap will select the single coils in the humbucker (one will be out-of-phase and one will be in-phase).

The second toggle will give the ability to switch-in an extra tone capaciter of large or small value (or be off).

Hope this makes sense, and thanks for any suggestions/ideas!

ps you can follow my progress at The Return of the Legend

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The idea being that when the 5-way switch is set to the middle+bridge position, the coil tap will select the single coils in the humbucker (one will be out-of-phase and one will be in-phase).

Neither will be out of phase, one will be hum cancelling, one won't.

The second toggle will give the ability to switch-in an extra tone capaciter of large or small value (or be off).

What is the purpose of the 270k and 1M resistors? they load your circuit and bleed high end even when your tone switch is 'off', your tone switch is like the Gretsch's one except for these... in the neck+mid pos. you have the equivalent of 5 pots loading your signal down, not ideal...

And I'm not sure if I'd call .043 (.01 and .033 in paralleled) and 0.033 'large and small values', there's only around 20% difference..

Do you often roll your tone controls to zero? very few people do, yet that's what your tone switch is doing, the Gretsch tone switch is referred to by many people as 'the mud switch'...

This may suit you better:

http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=modules&action=display&thread=3883

:D

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Hi borge, thanks for the reply!

You prompted me to do a little more reading, and it seems that I'd got the whole phase thing mixed up... my thinking was that since the middle pickup is reversed, it would be in-phase with one coil and out of phase with the other. Clearly this isn't the case - as you say one will be hum-cancelling and the other won't. I'd still like to be able to switch between all three options on the humbucker, but could you suggest a usable way to do this?

The link you provided is a much better solution to the tone switch, and one that I'll definitely adopt.

Cheers,

James

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I'd still like to be able to switch between all three options on the humbucker, but could you suggest a usable way to do this?

Which three options?

with a humbucker (or any two coils) there's:

standard HB

South coil only

North coil only

both coils in parallel

both coils in parallel out of phase

both coils in series ooP

As it is you have the first three.

ooP tones are generally low output, thin and nasal, not something many people have a use for. I've only found much use for it if there's individual volumes so you're able to mix a varying amount of the ooP tone to thin it out.

This may suit better: master volume, master tone (with 'woman tone' switch if desired) mid volume, mid phase switch, bridge coil switch.

you'd get:

bridge HB

Br south coil

Br north coil

br HB + mid

Br south coil + mid

Br north coil + mid

mid

mid + neck

neck

br HB + mid ooP

Br south coil + mid ooP

Br north coil + mid ooP

mid

mid ooP + neck

of course, the mid can be varied independently whenever it's selected.

BTW bridge ooP + mid is identical to mid ooP + bridge ect that's why i suggest phase switching the mid not bridge, you get the same br + mid ooP tones but also get Neck + mid ooP as well.

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