Custom Warmoth build

[Patrick from Davis]

Again, I disagree with Cagey.  I like how modern Les Pauls are wired, and find it works extremely well for what I do.  The mishaps that that scheme can cause are minimal in my opinion, and the benefits far out weigh the standard single volume scheme.  To call it useless is just stupid.  As far as the wiring on your guitar goes, follow the wiring on the guitar that you like the best, or the one that most compliments what you play.  Two tones, like on a strat, has never done much for me, so I avoid that scheme.  But that is for my style of playing.  It is a custom instrument for you, so play around with some guitars and find what works the easiest for your playing style.  Go with that.
Patrick

 

[Strat Avenger]

Again, I disagree with Cagey.  I like how modern Les Pauls are wired, and find it works extremely well for what I do.  The mishaps that that scheme can cause are minimal in my opinion, and the benefits far out weigh the standard single volume scheme.  To call it useless is just stupid.  As far as the wiring on your guitar goes, follow the wiring on the guitar that you like the best, or the one that most compliments what you play.  Two tones, like on a strat, has never done much for me, so I avoid that scheme.  But that is for my style of playing.  It is a custom instrument for you, so play around with some guitars and find what works the easiest for your playing style.  Go with that.
Patrick

Well, it;s "useless" to ME.  But I agree, one should follow the guitar wiring that they like best. Evaluate your needs as a player, and go with that.

 

[Cobretti86]

wiring with 1 vol and 1 tone what will that tone control? the middle and neck or just one of them?  and using 500k pots should i use a .47 cap?

 

[line6man]

wiring with 1 vol and 1 tone what will that tone control? the middle and neck or just one of them?  and using 500k pots should i use a .47 cap?

Traditionally, single tone controls are used as masters.

I don't see the appeal in having a tone control that you can only use to ease off the harshness of a bridge pickup when you play the bridge with another pickup that has a tone control.

 

[Cagey]

wiring with 1 vol and 1 tone what will that tone control? the middle and neck or just one of them?  and using 500k pots should i use a .47 cap?

You put the volume and tone controls on the output. That way, you can do any kind of pickup switching gymnastics you want, and you always have volume and tone control.

And no, a .47 cap is much, much too large for a guitar. Even a .047 is pushing it. You can experiment around a bit, but usually a .022uf or .033uf cap works out the best.

 

[Cagey]

Here's a simplified wiring diagram for three pickups, 1 volume, 1 tone.

There are others at the Seymour Duncan site, if that doesn't do it for you. With this one, you'll end up with Bridge, Bridge/Middle, Middle, Middle/Neck, and Neck pickup selections.

Note that you can use any pickups in place of those single coils, or mix 'n' match types. All that matters is you get the pickup's output line to the switch, and the commons all grounded.

Use 500K audio taper pots, and a .022uf cap.

 

[reluctant-builder]

Cagey, I'm surprised you didn't include a caveat against the diagram's direction to solder the grounds to the back of the volume pot.

On the note of capacitors, where on earth (or, more accurately, New York City or the Interwebs) can I easily find a couple .033s? All I've got at my disposal, locally, seems to be Radio Shack, which seems to have every capacitor from .001 to 1-gazillion ... except .033 uf. They jump right from .022 to .047.  :-\

 

[line6man]

Radio Shack, which seems to have every capacitor from .001 to 1-gazillion

This has certainly NOT been my experience. RadioShack doesn't stock squat anymore! They are essentially cell phone and toy stores now.
If you're lucky, you can find a store with a whopping four stacks of drawers of components. Most stores in my area are down to two. The last time I was at a RadioShack, they had like three values of film caps in stock. :sad:

FWIW, if you can't find the value you need, combine other values to get the value in question.
Series capacitance is CTotal= 1/([1/C1]+[1/C2]+...[1/Cn])
Parallel capacitance is CTotal= C1+C2+...Cn

 

[reluctant-builder]

FWIW, if you can't find the value you need, combine other values to get the value in question.
Series capacitance is CTotal= 1/([1/C1]+[1/C2]+...[1/Cn])
Parallel capacitance is CTotal= C1+C2+...Cn

I brought up to a friend of mine the thought of chaining capacitors to wind up with the desired value and he looked at me like I was nuts.

Being that I'm a solder novice and have an electronics-knowledge lacuna, I think my friend's response might have been the right answer!

 

[bagman67]

Lacuna.  Excellent word. 

 

[reluctant-builder]

Using what passes for math, in my mind, I figure that combining a .01 and .022 capacitor in series gives me a total value of .018 or so. While doing it in parallel gives me .032. Obviously, the series value is less and, surely, if I understood the difference between series and parallel, I'd probably understand why it's less.

I'm off to do some research...

 

[Cobretti86]

wiring with 1 vol and 1 tone what will that tone control? the middle and neck or just one of them?  and using 500k pots should i use a .47 cap?

You put the volume and tone controls on the output. That way, you can do any kind of pickup switching gymnastics you want, and you always have volume and tone control.

And no, a .47 cap is much, much too large for a guitar. Even a .047 is pushing it. You can experiment around a bit, but usually a .022uf or .033uf cap works out the best.

Yeah, I meant to type .047 lol, Thanks.

 

[Cagey]

Oh, yeah. Silly me. Don't solder to pot housings, use a ground lug.

.033uf is a standard size. Oddly enough, Radio Shack is not a good source for radio parts, standard or otherwise. They're more into batteries, cellphones, and ultra-low-end radio-controlled toys.

What you're looking for is a Mouser Electronics or Allied Electronics, etc.

 

[Cobretti86]

so i should go 500k one vol one tone and a .022 cap on it.
did u mean for the tone to control just the vintage rails in the middle, or neck/middle, or all 3 and then just use the 5-way swtich to change between the different selections. 

 

[line6man]

FWIW, if you can't find the value you need, combine other values to get the value in question.
Series capacitance is CTotal= 1/([1/C1]+[1/C2]+...[1/Cn])
Parallel capacitance is CTotal= C1+C2+...Cn

I brought up to a friend of mine the thought of chaining capacitors to wind up with the desired value and he looked at me like I was nuts.

Being that I'm a solder novice and have an electronics-knowledge lacuna, I think my friend's response might have been the right answer!

If you can't find a 0.033uF cap, try a 0.022uF cap parallel to a 0.01uF cap. Or, try two 0.068uF caps in series.

(*Some people might try to argue about the leakage current/resistance, ESR, ESL, etc, being changed by combining caps, but for this particular application, it doesn't matter. People do this all the time with tone caps.)

 

[Cagey]

so i should go 500k one vol one tone and a .022 cap on it.
did u mean for the tone to control just the vintage rails in the middle, or neck/middle, or all 3 and then just use the 5-way swtich to change between the different selections. 

The tone control, as wired in the diagram above, will function as what's called a "low-pass filter" for the whole guitar. Won't matter which pickup(s) you have selected, the tone control will always roll off higher frequencies. Also, the volume control will set the output level for the whole guitar. Never have to think about it; if the tone's too bright or dark, there's only one place to go. Same with the volume.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Welcome to unofficialwarmoth Cobretti.  I have the tone wired as a master tone in both my strats as I'm using the other tone pot as a variable coil split.  I like have the master tone so that I can color whatever pickup selection I make with the tone.

 

[reluctant-builder]

Welcome to unofficialwarmoth Cobretti.  I have the tone wired as a master tone in both my strats as I'm using the other tone pot as a variable coil split.  I like have the master tone so that I can color whatever pickup selection I make with the tone.

Could you explain a little more how the variable coil split works for you? Since the guitar has, presumably, three single coils, does your other tone just lower or raise the output of one / both / either / or pickup(s)?

 

[line6man]

Welcome to unofficialwarmoth Cobretti.  I have the tone wired as a master tone in both my strats as I'm using the other tone pot as a variable coil split.  I like have the master tone so that I can color whatever pickup selection I make with the tone.

Could you explain a little more how the variable coil split works for you? Since the guitar has, presumably, three single coils, does your other tone just lower or raise the output of one / both / either / or pickup(s)?

You cannot do coil splitting on traditional single coils, because they have only one coil, so I would assume that he means something like using the second pole of the selector switch to wire the series connection between the two coils of stacked or rail style humcancelling Strat pickups to a pot that varies a resistive load across one coil.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Mine don't have 3 singles - they are both singles in the neck and mid and a humbucker in the bridge.  The variable coil split is on the bridge and works as shown on this site: http://www.smitspickups.com/coiltapping.htm - scroll about 2/3rds of the way down the page.  One of mine has just a variable coil split - the other has a dual variable coil split on a push/pull pot.