Opinions?

[JCizzle]

All good suggestions, thank you, everyone.

 

[Dan025]

There is also the option of a Gibson style midrange cut control. Would that be useful on a Strat?

Is that like a specific EQ knob? This build isn't a traditional "strat," per se...

If you put a capacitor in series with an inductor, in series with a variable resistor, and then put all that parallel to the signal, you get a sort of bandstop that lowers impedance for the midrange frequencies. The capacitor blocks out the low frequencies, while the inductor blocks out the high frequencies, so what's left in the middle is diverted to ground. The limits of the bandwidth can be tweaked by changing the value of the capacitor and inductor.

Again, I don't know that such things are truly useful in practical applications, but it's worth trying, as something to fill the third hole and keep up appearances.

i did some playing with variations on it. basically the "varitone" approach didin't work for me because it's too hard for me to hear the differences in cut frequency it's just useless options for me, i found just one setting with a pot did the trick, also i had the cut frequency pretty high and it more or less sounded like a traditional tone but not muddy, more pleasant since it keeps the upper treble, so it didn't really compliment the traditional tone but was an alternative to it so i took out the tone and wired the notch filter sorta like the traditional strat setup with two knobs operating different pickups. the bass cut like on a g&l is probably more useful.

keep in mind that i have some hearing loss mostly up around 5khz so the tone circuit stuff might not be the best for me to judge.

there is also the Schottky diode "overdrive" knob. but i think that would work better as a switch, stewmac has a product that is essentially this called the "black ice" or something.

or what about two volumes like a gibson? with a super switch you could work this out using 3 pickups where the first volume is always in use and the second is only used if 2 pups are being used at once. if you did this and used a stacked pot for the tone so you can have similar to the full gibson set of controls.

 

[JCizzle]

There is also the option of a Gibson style midrange cut control. Would that be useful on a Strat?

Is that like a specific EQ knob? This build isn't a traditional "strat," per se...

If you put a capacitor in series with an inductor, in series with a variable resistor, and then put all that parallel to the signal, you get a sort of bandstop that lowers impedance for the midrange frequencies. The capacitor blocks out the low frequencies, while the inductor blocks out the high frequencies, so what's left in the middle is diverted to ground. The limits of the bandwidth can be tweaked by changing the value of the capacitor and inductor.

Again, I don't know that such things are truly useful in practical applications, but it's worth trying, as something to fill the third hole and keep up appearances.

i did some playing with variations on it. basically the "varitone" approach didin't work for me because it's too hard for me to hear the differences in cut frequency it's just useless options for me, i found just one setting with a pot did the trick, also i had the cut frequency pretty high and it more or less sounded like a traditional tone but not muddy, more pleasant since it keeps the upper treble, so it didn't really compliment the traditional tone but was an alternative to it so i took out the tone and wired the notch filter sorta like the traditional strat setup with two knobs operating different pickups. the bass cut like on a g&l is probably more useful.

keep in mind that i have some hearing loss mostly up around 5khz so the tone circuit stuff might not be the best for me to judge.

there is also the Schottky diode "overdrive" knob. but i think that would work better as a switch, stewmac has a product that is essentially this called the "black ice" or something.

or what about two volumes like a gibson? with a super switch you could work this out using 3 pickups where the first volume is always in use and the second is only used if 2 pups are being used at once. if you did this and used a stacked pot for the tone so you can have similar to the full gibson set of controls.

Now this has my attention. I wasn't sure if that was even possible. How would I go about wiring something like that? I wonder what would be better, a volume just for the bridge and one for the middle and neck, or the other way around...

 

[line6man]

there is also the Schottky diode "overdrive" knob. but i think that would work better as a switch, stewmac has a product that is essentially this called the "black ice" or something.

The Schottky diode trick is supposedly utterly useless to most people, as it yields an awful broken sound. But others like it for different things. I suppose it's worth a try, though.

Whatever you do DON'T waste your money on StewMac's Black Ice. They charge $25 or $30 for something you can make yourself for about fifty cents. You can run two diodes in inverse parallel, in place of a capacitor on a tone pot. Schottky diodes are preferable, as they have a low forward voltage drop and fast switching speed, but other diodes may be used.

 

[Dan025]

There is also the option of a Gibson style midrange cut control. Would that be useful on a Strat?

Is that like a specific EQ knob? This build isn't a traditional "strat," per se...

If you put a capacitor in series with an inductor, in series with a variable resistor, and then put all that parallel to the signal, you get a sort of bandstop that lowers impedance for the midrange frequencies. The capacitor blocks out the low frequencies, while the inductor blocks out the high frequencies, so what's left in the middle is diverted to ground. The limits of the bandwidth can be tweaked by changing the value of the capacitor and inductor.

Again, I don't know that such things are truly useful in practical applications, but it's worth trying, as something to fill the third hole and keep up appearances.

i did some playing with variations on it. basically the "varitone" approach didin't work for me because it's too hard for me to hear the differences in cut frequency it's just useless options for me, i found just one setting with a pot did the trick, also i had the cut frequency pretty high and it more or less sounded like a traditional tone but not muddy, more pleasant since it keeps the upper treble, so it didn't really compliment the traditional tone but was an alternative to it so i took out the tone and wired the notch filter sorta like the traditional strat setup with two knobs operating different pickups. the bass cut like on a g&l is probably more useful.

keep in mind that i have some hearing loss mostly up around 5khz so the tone circuit stuff might not be the best for me to judge.

there is also the Schottky diode "overdrive" knob. but i think that would work better as a switch, stewmac has a product that is essentially this called the "black ice" or something.

or what about two volumes like a gibson? with a super switch you could work this out using 3 pickups where the first volume is always in use and the second is only used if 2 pups are being used at once. if you did this and used a stacked pot for the tone so you can have similar to the full gibson set of controls.

Now this has my attention. I wasn't sure if that was even possible. How would I go about wiring something like that? I wonder what would be better, a volume just for the bridge and one for the middle and neck, or the other way around...

well the super switch would swap the active volumes around for you, i'll have to dig up an old thread where i figured out a diagram for someone on here trying to reproduce one on some high end custom guitar. basically each volume gets input from seperate commons on the switch and a tone with it's own capacitor gets wired to each volume. (things get weird if you use a single capacitor like fender because when the tone gets rolled off the volumes start to work on both pups and you lose the blend ability) you could fit this with a concentric pot for the tones. the signal out from the volumes is bridged together and go to the output jack.

this wiring could be customized to any combo of parallel pickup combinations and maybe some series stuff if you get creative since there is plenty left on the switch to work with. the way i think i'd do it is the standard volume is the master so it is the one used on any single pickup position but you could change that if you wanted to hop between two sounds that would require different volumes.

i would swap the middle only for neck/bridge. so the positions would be

1. neck
2. neck/middle
3. neck/bridge
4. middle/bridge
5. bridge

the first volume knob would be used in all positions, the second would work in 2,3,4, on the rear more of the pickups but if you prefer it could be wired so that the second volume is used in the bridge only position. i'm not always a fan of the gibson approach because it is wonky and doesn't allow true blending for the whole range, the ideal position for blending is around "7" on both volumes or 5 if you use linear pots for some weird reason. but the somewhat unexpected nature of the wiring allows for some interesting things. if you roll the tone off on one pup and not the other with the volumes on 7 you get a bit of a different sound and then swelling one volume between 5 and 8 in this situation can at times give a "wah wah" effect as the bright signal overcomes the fat signal and vise-versa. if you prefer a single tone over a concentric tone i'd wire it to just the master volume and not the output to preserve the ability to mix a fat signal with a bright one.

oh and on second thought a variation of the wiring could work with a traditional strat switch if the second volume always works on the middle pickup rather than the rear more, the "master" volume would work on neck and bridge. just wire the middle pup to the extra pole usually used for the tone circuit and neck and bridge without the middle to the other one. wire the commons to separate volumes just like mentioned above. this would give traditional strat combos and the main volume wouldn't work in the #3 position so you'd have to remember that.

 

[JCizzle]

Wow, great info, thank you. Looks like I have some thinking to do... ccasion14:

 

[Dan025]

yeah just something to think about. it's something i think i will try but im not sure if i will like it. i may just come back to a slight variation on traditional fender.

 

[JCizzle]

Definitely, slight variations here and there to change up the tone.