Planning for 2-humbucker Strat

Bruce Campbell said:
I do already use Freeway switches, and while I see the potential pitfalls, I've been comfortable with it in practice - just not getting useful enough sounds in the series positions to pull off stuff that "needs" buckers. It's great for the neck/bridge and all 3 in parallel sounds, but I don't need 2 of the traditional Strat pickups setup. Finding that if I'm out there with 1 guitar in any ensemble situation, a bucker sound is much more reliable. For trios and recording situations, the single coils are a safer bet.
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Bruce, I am concerned that you are getting all "hopped up" on these freeway switches. Maybe an intervention is in order?
 
Spud said:
Bruce, I am concerned that you are getting all "hopped up" on these freeway switches. Maybe an intervention is in order?
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I haven't found any downsides to them yet, but I have also now considered Seymour Duncan P-Rails, which might work better with a different switching scheme. I do think the Freeways have made certain types of nonstandard switching easier and more full-featured than other solutions I've used, which include a Megaswitch and Oak Grigsby 4-way.
 
Bruce Campbell said:
I haven't found any downsides to them yet, but I have also now considered Seymour Duncan P-Rails, which might work better with a different switching scheme. I do think the Freeways have made certain types of nonstandard switching easier and more full-featured than other solutions I've used, which include a Megaswitch and Oak Grigsby 4-way.
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I have a neck P-rail ( in parts bin) P-90 sounded great to me kinda P-90 hi-Fi ish. The humbucker and single options were not for me YMMV.
 
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Bruce Campbell said:
Martin is also doing a lot to introduce more sustainable materials - I haven't played many of those guitars but intend to more in the future.
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The Martin I owned with the Richlite board, a "sustainable", was an SWOMGT...Smart wood, OM size, Gloss top. It had cherry back and sides, spruce top. I swear, I loved that guitar, always a "companion". I woke up one day in a funk and sold it and have been kicking myself over that ever since.
 
Spud said:
I have a neck P-rail (not in parts bin) P-90 sounded great to me kinda P-90 hi-Fi ish. The humbucker and single options were not for me YMMV.
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Based on sound demos I listened to, I liked all neck tones, both rails in parallel, and bridge P90+rail in series. I don't have a P90 guitar so it could be cool to see how it complements everything else. I guess I really like Strat neck, humbucker neck, single coil neck+bridge, and bridge humbucker sounds. Wouldn't mind having a few others, but those are the ones I've figured are most important at the moment.
 
Bruce Campbell said:
Based on sound demos I listened to, I liked all neck tones, both rails in parallel, and bridge P90+rail in series. I don't have a P90 guitar so it could be cool to see how it complements everything else. I guess I really like Strat neck, humbucker neck, single coil neck+bridge, and bridge humbucker sounds. Wouldn't mind having a few others, but those are the ones I've figured are most important at the moment.
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i have the p rails in my tele as bridge (paired with a sc neck). p90 split sounds good, but the series humbucker mode is not that awesome. all in all a good pickup, but if humbucking mode is your prio i would go for other humbuckers.
 
I’m still unclear what tones you are aiming for with this build. A pair of lower output PAF style humbucker would be cool if they won’t be too bright in a Strat. I’d forget the P rails as the versatility is not really there IMO. It would be better to choose a vintage tone that you really want.
 
Yeah, I don't think the P-Rails will nail any one thing I'd desire. The thing I want most is solid humbucker PAF type tones, with possible useful coil split. Seymour Duncan support is suggesting the Saturday Night Specials based on what I explained, and I was leaning towards that initially so it's probably a good thing to try. However, at this point this build is becoming more like an edit of my first one - so if I get it cleaned up a bit after changing pickups, I'll share it at that point.
 
The Duncan SNS set is on order, along with a Freeway 3-way switch to get normal 3-way toggle and also split neck, split neck & bridge in parallel, and split bridge tones. I can always change the wiring later on the Freeway and also add some other switches to get series/parallel and phase options if desired. I'm also going to try a .015uf tone cap because I haven't found any of my previous tone knob ranges to be as useful as they probably could be, along with 550k CTS mini pots.
 
Took out the Fralins and put them up for sale on Reverb; now I need to clean this axe up in a few ways mostly cosmetically but also put in some fallaway up past the 12th fret so I can finally get proper action without buzz. Then Friday/Saturday hopefully new electronics, and maybe this 4/20 the SNS will get to live up to their name. 🤘
 
So, I installed the SNS set tonight. Haven't played them with all my different amp/pedal settings, but in general it's a very nice, warm PAF tone with better clarity than traditional buckers, IMO more life than the Duncan Jazz, for example. The .015uf cap is pretty effective but .022uf probably would work fine as well. They are similar to the Pearly Gates in tone from what I've heard in demos but a little less notched and therefore a bit more versatile.

Split coil sounds good, but has very weak output. I'm doing research into the PRS style coil shunt, since that might be a more effective wiring for live usage. Also, in the spirit of Aaron's latest video, I went through my parts box to see if I'd come across anything I didn't realize I had, and I have 3 spare DPDT switches that will hopefully work in case I want to try other wiring options - namely, the attached wiring, but with coil split/shunt before hitting switch. Has anyone done that setup? Also might try parallel/series before Freeway switch, if possible.

I do wish Duncan included the color codes for the pickup wires - had to look those up online.
 

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It’s great to hear the plan coming together, isn’t it!
From your description, “but in general it's a very nice, warm PAF tone with better clarity than traditional buckers”, it seems we had similar results. I wonder if it’s in the cap? I wasn’t as happy with the .022.
I found the series/parallel volume drop not much of a problem at all. The position using one coil from each pickup the volume drop is a little more of a concern, but in the “studio” where I do 90% of my playing nowadays, not a concern at all. I’m thinking the drop in this case may be more about phase cancelling, I don’t know…
 
Did you install the SNS humbuckers in your strat in place of the Fralin split blades? Does the guitar have a Gi#son scale conversion neck?
 
After some research, the real problem seems to be getting both coil split and parallel humbucking options on each pickup (while retaining default series operation). I am willing to make a compromise and only have parallel/series switching for each pickup. I could always go back to the split mode. (EDIT: I meant this is a problem/incompatibility WHILE using the Freeway switch)

I have an Oak Grigsby 4-way switch for Tele, and if I run each pickup to it after a series/parallel DPDT, it could work, I think. Has anyone tried two humbuckers each wired in parallel but combined in series? If that's at all a useful sound, I could see this configuration being superior to the Freeway (which could still prove useful for another guitar). Any opinions/experience?
 
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