Blend pot for coil splitting??

[Henrik]

Hello everybody!

Got kind of inspired from another post: I want to modify my Epiphone LP Standard.

I'd be really happy if anybody with experience could tell me if my plan is worth anything:

Master Volume
Master Tone
Blend pot Neck/Bridge humbuckers
Blend pot (fading out inner/outer "single coil" pairs of the 2 humbuckers depending on which way you're turning the knob)

I still want my 3-way selector.

IS THIS POSSIBLE?

 

[rockskate4x]

why would you need a three way toggle if you have a blend already? Do you want the toggle to work when the blend is in the neutral position? Do you find it easier to use the toggle on the go but want a blend for more tone variation?

I've thought through this before... the design I want for similar effect is one blend pot, one volume/tone concentric pot, and two mini three ways for coil tapping and what not. I'm not sure how much more the toggle will help.

I like your individual coil blend idea... I don't know if it's possible but I'd like to hear it if you make it work.

 

[Henrik]

Lets say i've found this perfect balance in the neutral position; then i'm slightly to loud. I want to turn down volume, but i don't want to loose my settings. Thats always hard in live situations with two volume knobs. And if one knob is a bit harder to roll up/down i think it's hard even if i just want to adjust them in parallel motion. So i simply want to use the humbucker blend as a volume pot for turning down either the bridge or neck humbucker - So i can use the other one as a Master Volume.

Like your idée too, but i think its gonna be hard to control the volume without accidentally touching the tone. My only concern with toggles is drilling holes. Otherwise i would probably do it your way. Concentric pots really intrests me, but i havn't found any knob that would look decent on a LP.

 

[rockskate4x]

Good call about the look.... It doesn't absolutely have to be concentric.... I could just have the tone pot in another location. With an LP config, that still leaves room for ur coil blend knob... or a gain knob or midboost or some fancy crap like that.

I was also thinking of not even having a tone pot if the pickups I use are warm enough.




They should make a concentric volume and blend that is also a pushpull coil tap. The assembly would be so tall that you would have to make a hole in the backplate!!!

 

[tfarny]

If you really want to do this....you can't have one blend pot to variably split both HBs, you'd need a separate blend pot for each one, because that piece has to come before the pickup selector. In other words, your circuit goes: Pup -> splitter blender -> volume blender -> three way switch -> master vol -> master tone -> jack. Way complicated.
You COULD, however, use a pot to split both pickups at the same time but you would be cutting just one coil and not blending between the two.
I think you could to both a blender pot and a selector switch at the same time, but I'm having problems visualizing it.

Honestly....just replace one tone pot with a variable coil-split pot, go master tone, and rewire your volume pots to be totally independent of each other (jazz bass style). Eliminates a lot of confusion from your setup, while keeping all the usability. Also keeps your setup hum-canceling when both pickups are on, whereas your complicated setup allows for lots of non-hum canceling scenarios.
There's no reason you'd want to have the choice of splitting either coil - they just won't sound all that different. Experiment with splitting one coil or the other, you'll see.

 

[Henrik]

Thanks for the advice tfarny!

Too bad it didn't work out, the hum issue worrys me a lot. However i do want the master volume / blend setup if possible. What about just exchanging the blend split for a volume pot to cancel out only one pair of coils?

In this case, would it be possible to add a pushpull volume pot to choose what pair of coils it would cancel out?

 

[tfarny]

Actually, now that I think about it, you would need a separate pot for each of the variable coil taps. I don't quite understand your new proposal. But anyhow a blender makes a three-way switch totally redundant, and you want to avoid redundant controls because they'll be confusing to switch mid-song. Re-wiring your volume pots from the gibson setup to the fender Jbass setup gives you a 'blend' situation when your switch is in the middle anyhow.

 

[rockskate4x]

I'm not sure if this was an idea already or not, cuz the last posts were kinda confusing... but here goes...

In addition to a normal blend pot and a master tone knob suppose I had two volume knobs, one for inner coils and one for outer, making it so that you can turn down one volume or the other and end up with a hum cancelling coil combination, assuming that the blend was in the middle. Is this possible? tfarny?

 

[tfarny]

You're asking, can you have separate volumes for each coil? Sure. But the hum cancelling will depend on what other coil is on in the system, and how loud it is. Look, this whole thing is kind of pointless because they won't sound much different anyhow. You're also talking about like 8 knobs on your guitar. 
Try splitting a coil on your current guitar, then split the other coil and compare the difference, you won't find much. I say put in a serial switch or make something go out of phase if you really want a different sound.

 

[rockskate4x]

They'll sound different if they're P-rails