Help with electrickery for a newbie

[Lee Parkes]

Hi all -I'm new to this forum - used to follow another forum which has folded and only recently got back into building again...

I am building a EBMM  Luke 3 inspired guitar and am trying to replicate the electronics  - apparently the Luke 3 has passive pickups with an active preamp with a variable dB boost...I cant simply use their components as they are not available for sale. Can anyone help me with sourcing some  electronics that would achieve this  - (HH config with coil splitting as well if poss)- preferably off the peg.....

thanks in advance

Lee

[curtisa]

EMG PA-2 booster preamp perhaps?

HH config with coil tap is pretty common. I'm sure there must be dozens of wiring examples out there on a Google search.

[Lee Parkes]

I've looked online and struggled to find any ut thanks anyway 

 

[ADFinlayson]

I did this a while back thanks to help from @mistermikev which is close to what you're looking for (apart from position 4). Using a fender 5-way super blade switch, I think Oak Grigsby do one too. Note position 4 - I was clearly trying to write neck and treble in the same word  it's Bridge single + neck single 

pic below taken from the music man website. I was using PRS pickups which only have 3 wires - live, ground and coil split. So I am unable to have 2 options for inner and outer coil settings like the MM positions 2-4. I think you would need 4 conductor pickups to make that happen. It's only my opinion, but I think you will get better variance of tone between positions 2 and 4 if you do the PRS bridge hum + neck single than the Music Man outer coils vs inner coils, it will give you a slightly higher output quack which is cool for bluegrassy stuff whereas the MM 2 and 4 will sound pretty similar. However an active EQ will give you a whole world of other possibilities anyway,
 

I did a passive bass with active EQ earlier this year, the active EQ just goes in the circuit between the output of the switch and the jack, and it is a lot more straight forward than I thought it would be. Just make sure you use a stereo jack and connect the battery earth to it so your EQ is only draining power while the jack lead is in.

Looking forward to seeing your build thread!

 

[curtisa]

3 hours ago, Lee Parkes said:

I've looked online and struggled to find any ut thanks anyway 

Google is your friend:

Your preamp would go inline between the middle lug of the volume pot and the tip connection on the output jack. As @ADFinlayson mentions, the output jack would need to be replaced with a stereo version to allow automatic disconnection of the battery when the lead is unplugged.

[Lee Parkes]

thats very kind -thank you

Lee