Hey Guys,
So I've had an idea for a while for a project to modify my Jackson SL7Q Soloist. The main idea would be to switch pickups via a custom Arduino powered foot pedal that can either be triggered manually by my foot or switched via a MIDI message every time I change preset on my POD HD Pro X via it's footswitch (or any other MIDI out capable effects processor). No more fiddling with the pickup selector or having to change both the pickup selector and using the foot switch to change effects processor preset simultaneously to get the tone I want. In addition, this pedal would have an on/off mute function.
My guitar has 2 humbuckers with a 5 way pickup selector, volume knob and tone knob. The reality is I only ever use 2 pick up selector positions: full neck humbucker and full bridge humbucker, I never use a mix of the pickups or the pickups as single coils. I also only use the tone knob on full treble and I only use the volume knob on full volume or off to just mute it. As part of this, I would remove all the electronics (pickup selector, volume knob and tone knob) with the obvious exception of the pickups. I'd still need a jack for the cable, but I'd replace the stock mono 1/4" with a 1/4" TRS jack (1 conductor each for ground, neck pickup, bridge pickup).
I'm not terribly worried about anything that goes into the pedal itself, I've done several non guitar Arduino projects successfully and I'm reasonably handy with electronics, soldering and writing software. This will by my first guitar mod project though, so I figured I should double check some assumptions I'm making before I mutilate my guitar in a way I'll regret due to ignorance, so here goes:
1) A tone knob is just a low pass filter based on a potentiometer and a capacitor? If it's on full treble, it's just a bypass? So I could completely remove it from the circuit and get the same tone as a tone knob stuck on full treble?
2) The volume knob is just a potentiometer and with it set at full volume it has 0 resistance? And hence, again I can just remove the volume knob from the circuit>
3) Are all input jacks basically the same size wise? Would something like https://guitarpedalparts.com/collections/1-4-jacks/products/1-4-switchcraft-stereo-trs-jack?variant=31256480710791 work? I attached a picture of my current stock jack.
4) I'm thinking of using 1 of these signal relays (https://guitarpedalparts.com/products/5v-dpdt-latching-relay?_pos=1&_sid=0cb05e3f2&_ss=r) to switch between the pickups and 1 to simply mute the guitar by opening and closing the circuit on the ground conductor from the 1/4" stereo TRS cable. Anything stand out as wrong with this approach?
5) Any other potential problems or anything else that might alter the tone of my guitar that I should be thinking about?
Thanks,
Omri