Assistance with a crazy build

[StogiePatriot]

Good day everyone - first timer and I'm hoping someone can confirm the accuracy of a nutty build or help me figure out what's wrong.

I'm building a lovely lil strat that I'm aiming for maximum flexibility.  I'm using SD pups and some other products from there, along with other odds and ends.  The goal is to have a 5 way super switch that cycles the pickups somewhat normally, and to have three P/P pots, which insert the bridge, neck and a black ice circuit on each of the three.

I've been attempting to finalize the schematic but I'm not versed in this world.  Any thoughts, suggestions, etc?  I've looked high and low for an analog to the build but I can't really get close enough to go with something I found.

Cheers and many many thanks!

 

[StogiePatriot]

Oops, forgot the rig....  :headbang:

 

[Jumble Jumble]

It's not really that crazy.

Two things:

1. I can't really understand what the block is next to the humbuckers.

2. Why do you need a bridge insert and a neck insert control? You won't get any extra combinations there.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Also can you tell me what you're trying to do with each pickup in each position of the 5-way. Looks like you're splitting the middle pickup in position 2, and running it in parallel in position 4?

 

[StogiePatriot]

Thanks for the reply, Jumble Jumble - the blocks next to the pickups are the SD Triple Shot pickup rings that allow coil splitting and parallel/serial options. 

The goal on the inserts was that if I am in position 1 and want all three pickups in play, I can pull the bridge P/P and have all three.  Same with  the rest for the neck inserts (to use all three pups fully in slot 3)...

On the five way setup, I wanted to use the north coil of the lil Pearly Gates (middle) in position 2 and the south in position 4 - that's the idea anyway....

Appreciate the look!

 

[Dan025]

the diagram is correct if that's what you are asking.

i wouldnt solder all the grounds to the pots if you can avoid it. it's annoying, requires a ton of heat to do right and can damage the pot. either make some kind of grounding strip and solder a single wire to the pot or get a grounding ring of some kind that goes around the pot bushing.

about suggestions, well maybe get some Schottky diodes for the passive clipping instead. they are cheaper and then you can experiment with arrangement. you could try oneway clipping with a single diode to ground. standard two-way clipping with parallel diodes in opposite directions or asymetrical clipping by usign 3 diodes, 2 in series and the same direction, 1 in parallel to that pair in the opposite direction. my other suggestion would be to simplify it. versitile is just another word for "not stage friendly" i really dont think i'd ever use those triple shot rings. it just seems impractical to use. i think there is a reason gibson and fender used large robust toggles or blade switches. also 55 pickup combos is fun for like 15 minutes then you get bored and leave the weird switches in the same position all the time or that's my experience anyway. but to each there own. have fun with it.

the way i'd do a hhh strat would be 1 vol 1 tone, or if i did 2 tones they would function differently like treble/bass cut rather than just correspond to different toggle location like they do on a fender. a traditional strat 5-way and i'd use the pole that normally switches the tones around to split the neck and bridge pup in the mixed positions for a brighter sound to get the traditional strat "quack."(the contact that correlates with positions 2/3/4 can be used like a common thus acting like a on/off/on switch or more correctly an off/on/off/on/off switch, you could alternatively split the middle pickup, even do the n/s splitting like you show) the neck and bridge pups would be somewhat hot and the middle would be a strat sized one and more vintage voiced so i could still get a somewhat stratty quack without the need to split it. it would be close to what you have but maybe not as hot in the neck and bridge. but you'll need hot for that passive clipping to work.

 

[Updown]

I'm building a lovely lil strat that I'm aiming for maximum flexibility. 
I'm using SD pups and some other products from there, along with other odds and ends. 

Ummm ..... what about something like this.
http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUSSS5L1204/WDU-SSS5L12-04.html
You have most covered by the SD T/Shots.
That would just combine them together or all in.  arty07:

:doh: but you wanna split the coils ....

1. I can't really understand what the block is next to the humbuckers.

@Jumble .... like this

 

[StogiePatriot]

the diagram is correct if that's what you are asking.

i wouldnt solder all the grounds to the pots if you can avoid it. it's annoying, requires a ton of heat to do right and can damage the pot. either make some kind of grounding strip and solder a single wire to the pot or get a grounding ring of some kind that goes around the pot bushing.

about suggestions, well maybe get some Schottky diodes for the passive clipping instead. they are cheaper and then you can experiment with arrangement. you could try oneway clipping with a single diode to ground. standard two-way clipping with parallel diodes in opposite directions or asymetrical clipping by usign 3 diodes, 2 in series and the same direction, 1 in parallel to that pair in the opposite direction. my other suggestion would be to simplify it. versitile is just another word for "not stage friendly" i really dont think i'd ever use those triple shot rings. it just seems impractical to use. i think there is a reason gibson and fender used large robust toggles or blade switches. also 55 pickup combos is fun for like 15 minutes then you get bored and leave the weird switches in the same position all the time or that's my experience anyway. but to each there own. have fun with it.

the way i'd do a hhh strat would be 1 vol 1 tone, or if i did 2 tones they would function differently like treble/bass cut rather than just correspond to different toggle location like they do on a fender. a traditional strat 5-way and i'd use the pole that normally switches the tones around to split the neck and bridge pup in the mixed positions for a brighter sound to get the traditional strat "quack."(the contact that correlates with positions 2/3/4 can be used like a common thus acting like a on/off/on switch or more correctly an off/on/off/on/off switch, you could alternatively split the middle pickup, even do the n/s splitting like you show) the neck and bridge pups would be somewhat hot and the middle would be a strat sized one and more vintage voiced so i could still get a somewhat stratty quack without the need to split it. it would be close to what you have but maybe not as hot in the neck and bridge. but you'll need hot for that passive clipping to work.

Dan0, appreciate the look and thank goodness I've gotten the conceptual design workable.

I'll definitely look into the diodes as well as the other suggestions that you made - this rig is likely a home bound baby and its audience would be myself, the wife and ProTools so its external good looks will be balanced by the experimental nature of the guitar and goofy setup electronically.  The grounding suggestion is a darn good idea; I'd gotten locked into the idea that a giant solder puddle would be on the back of the volume pot, but it would be soooo much easier to go your route grounding wise.

The pups inside it aren't active hot but they are no vintage pups either, so the options are pretty broad for dorking around option wise.  I've considered using connectors on the super switch vs soldering for that very reason - for my sanity and the safety of those around me, I'm gonna try this idea first and queue up ideas to do next.

Thanks again!

 

[StogiePatriot]

I'm building a lovely lil strat that I'm aiming for maximum flexibility. 
I'm using SD pups and some other products from there, along with other odds and ends. 

Ummm ..... what about something like this.
http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUSSS5L1204/WDU-SSS5L12-04.html
You have most covered by the SD T/Shots.
That would just combine them together or all in.  arty07:

:doh: but you wanna split the coils ....

Uptown, thanks for the reply!  I actually used that diagram along with the 3 humbucker diagram on the SD Url http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=3stks4_1v_2t_s5ws

The snit with the me (admitted; geek, dork & general freak) was the addition of the pup inserts and that just spannered the whole thing.  :help:  But with assistance hither and yon I'm hopefully there and can stop thinking about this for a while (unlikely but it's a hopeful thought...)  At least until the two boxes show up and I start acting like my wife re: outfits before a night out....

Cheers and thanks again!

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I just want to point this out:

If you want to get the standard 5 combinations, plus these two:

neck + bridge
neck + mid + bridge

Then you don't need a switch for neck and one for bridge. You just need one switch (or pull pot) which will add in either neck or bridge (it's up to you). Let's say you had it add in the neck. You put the pickup selector in "bridge only" mode and pull that switch. Now you have bridge and neck. Or you put the selector in "bridge + mid" and pull the switch - now you have all three turned on.

Am I missing something or is that all you're after?

Also I'm not sure I understand why you want to split the middle pickup to different coils in positions 2 and 4; could you explain that?

 

[StogiePatriot]

Am I missing something or is that all you're after?

Also I'm not sure I understand why you want to split the middle pickup to different coils in positions 2 and 4; could you explain that?

You're spot on Jumble; It's the geek in me for the most part that went the way I did, not for a specific performance purpose...

The two p/p would allow combinations of all three pickups in each of the switch positions; I had three P/Ps and I wanted to make use of them in a rudimentary way until I grew in my electronics knowledge and had other ideas.  Same with the Black Ice and the middle N/S coil tap config; I thought it would be cool but I don't have any hard and fast reason why it must be there...
Does that help explain the chaos?  :doh: :rock-on:

Thanks Jumble - cool build blog site btw!

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Ok, you're experimenting. That's cool. I did a 17-combination strat a few years ago. You have to do this stuff to find out what you really like.

These days I know a bit more about what I want, and I hide complexity in the wiring with simple controls - as you will have seen if you visited my blog (thanks!). I decide on a few sounds I want from the guitar, then make the "user interface" of the guitar as simple as possible to achieve that.

But, you're doing the experiment thing, and that's awesome. And if it's not a live guitar you don't need it to be simple. If you already have triple shots there's not a great deal you cando with those extra push pull pots, but... instead of having several ways to achieve the same thing, have you considered that you don't have any way to combine two hum-cancelling coils from two different pickups, in series?  :evil4:

 

[StogiePatriot]

???  Darn it man......  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Stuff can get a bit difficult with a super switch. However, I got a double layer switch from Eyb Guitars in Germany (google it) - double the number of poles from your regular super switch. Could come in handy...

 

[StogiePatriot]

Stuff can get a bit difficult with a super switch. However, I got a double layer switch from Eyb Guitars in Germany (google it) - double the number of poles from your regular super switch. Could come in handy...

:icon_scratch: I think I just pissed myself.....  :cool01:  (wardrobe change....)

W
O
W

I thought I was wrapping myself around the axle with the  4 pole...  Bwooohhahaha  :help:
I don't know whether to thank you or curse you.... I'll go with thanking for now... hehehe

 

[Dan025]

ok with the triple shots you actually get 4 combos as splitting can be north or south. if you count all the possible combos you come up with 93 positions with your diagram not the 55 i said earlier. normally 2 pickup insert switches would be redundant but because of the north/south splitting of the middle pickup it acutally adds a few combos. not that there would be an audible difference in many combos but from a standpoint of getting more combos with a reasonable switch layout i think it's rather impressive from someone that says schematics aren't there thing.

i still stand by a kiss approach even though my inner obsessive geek enjoys the puzzles you can make out of diagrams. i'm not gonna discourage you from following your plan but i will encourage you to try something a bit simpler because the biggest factor in series vs parallel sound given a pair of coils is the inductance and how it influences the resonant peak and upper roll off frequency. you can also change resonant peak and upper roll off with capacitors so really with good usable tone controls you can tune your sound just as much. it can come down to good pot and capacitor selection and you can wind up with a great array of sounds without overdoing it on switching. understanding that can help you see that you can get versatility without complexity. having 2-3 pickup is nice for picking up different point of the string with different harmonics and nodes but treating 3 humbuckers like 6 pickups with n/s splitting is a little over kill. the reality is that unless the coils are drastically different they are too close together to give a significant difference especially when paired with other pickups. at some point you gotta stop chasing the perfect sound of the most sounds and just accept that it's close enough and the audience can't tell the difference in most of it anyway. as an artist interacting with the instrument honed in on your own sound over the rest of the band you are aware of a lot more subtlety than anyone listening. at some point it's just best to get close to what you are after and be satisfied or you spend more time playing with switches than playing notes. 

 

[StogiePatriot]

ok with the triple shots you actually get 4 combos as splitting can be north or south. if you count all the possible combos you come up with 93 positions with your diagram not the 55 i said earlier. normally 2 pickup insert switches would be redundant but because of the north/south splitting of the middle pickup it acutally adds a few combos. not that there would be an audible difference in many combos but from a standpoint of getting more combos with a reasonable switch layout i think it's rather impressive from someone that says schematics aren't there thing.

Dan0, thanks - that is a comment I never believed I'd hear and I appreciate it.  My personality type is completely manic - when I decided to jump into wood carving, I swear I picked the toughest project that I thought I could possibly achieve and dove in head first buying gouges and cherry (idiot, me) to do the project.

i still stand by a kiss approach even though my inner obsessive geek enjoys the puzzles you can make out of diagrams. i'm not gonna discourage you from following your plan but i will encourage you to try something a bit simpler because the biggest factor in series vs parallel sound given a pair of coils is the inductance and how it influences the resonant peak and upper roll off frequency. you can also change resonant peak and upper roll off with capacitors so really with good usable tone controls you can tune your sound just as much. it can come down to good pot and capacitor selection and you can wind up with a great array of sounds without overdoing it on switching. understanding that can help you see that you can get versatility without complexity. having 2-3 pickup is nice for picking up different point of the string with different harmonics and nodes but treating 3 humbuckers like 6 pickups with n/s splitting is a little over kill. the reality is that unless the coils are drastically different they are too close together to give a significant difference especially when paired with other pickups. at some point you gotta stop chasing the perfect sound of the most sounds and just accept that it's close enough and the audience can't tell the difference in most of it anyway. as an artist interacting with the instrument honed in on your own sound over the rest of the band you are aware of a lot more subtlety than anyone listening. at some point it's just best to get close to what you are after and be satisfied or you spend more time playing with switches than playing notes.

I don't disagree in the context of a musician performer for the stage - my audience is my ole'lady and ProTools so the Lesh'omatic style scheme I've laid out was just the most insane approach I could conceive at the time (after Jumble blendered my brain with that 8 pole Megaswitch, I wet myself).  93 will do for now, but I guarantee you that if I graduate to the stage, this thing will be set flat and only the volume would change. 

The truths that the 98% of the audience doesn't understand the difference on all the tonal variations and accepts volume and something resembling music as 'excellent'.  You're spot on & I couldn't agree more that a flat, 7 vol, middle of the road neck sound is the way to go, flipping over to the bridge when needed.  That's it; anything else and the Pink Floyd experience days (where they just made noise for 6 hours while tripping) has returned in full force.    :icon_jokercolor: *I'm not entirely sure that I'd dislike that actually....