danox574
Newbie
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- 10
Background: Do not play much guitar, I built a Gecko 6, but laying out electronics for a stratocaster section of a multi-neck guitar project. That's a bit TMI, I am just studying the stratocaster wiring at this time. I am doing this without a stratocaster on hand and only knowledge of some bass wiring and good understanding of schematics in other areas of electronics.
I am studying the standard modern stratocaster 3pu wiring diagrams, as in the stock configuration with the 5 way switch and two tone controls.
Each time I read about how these work, I hear them described as a 'Middle pickup tone control' and a 'Neck pickup tone control'. The bridge is without tone control, and I know that it is also wired in in some guitars, but for the purposes of this discussion - let's go with the traditional no tone control for bridge wiring, with a sample wiring diagram borrowed from StewMac here: http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-2001/2001.gif
However, I can't figure out why these would be consider pickup specific tone controls based on that diagram. On the left side of the 5 way switch, any pickups selected are connected in parallel to the common pin. In other words - they are mixed together before they get to the tone controls.
On the right side of the 5 way switch (isolated from the left side until the wire is run from common to common as shown in the diagram), one or more tone controls are put in parallel with the mixed pickup output depending on the position. In position 1 (bridge), no tone controls are connected to the output line. In position 2, and 3 the bottom tone control (Fender calls it T2) is bridged in an active. In position 4, both T1 and T2 are active, and in position 5, only T1 is active.
So, I understand that these tone controls are 'active' when certain pickups are selected, but in no way that I can see are these tone controls function only for the output from a certain pickup as the pickups output lines are bridged together on the other side of the switch before they get to the tone controls.
Since these tone pots simply decide how much of the signal is bridged to ground through a .047uF cap (in the sample schematic I provided above), they actually do the same thing as each other (in fact, they share a single cap). Having two tone controls, switched in and out as the pickups are added and removed, sounds like a nice tone preset system for each position of the 5 way switch that includes T1, T1&T2, or T2 in the circuit.
However - if any selected pickups are mixed before they even get to the other side of the 5 way switch - how can this achieve anything that a single pot and cap cannot? It looks like the resistance from the two tone controls is just in series when T1&T2 are both in the circuit (position 4), so maybe the total resistance is 500K at max instead of the typical 250K pot itself. Other than that - I can't see a functional difference over a single tone control.
Yet, the number of people I see claiming that these tone pots affect each pickup individually has caused me to come here and try to find out what I am missing. Claiming that a single tone control reduces the overall palette of sounds. Or is it that folks just 'feel' that T1 and T2 are bound to certain pickups signals because they switch in and out when the pickups are switched in and out?
I am studying the standard modern stratocaster 3pu wiring diagrams, as in the stock configuration with the 5 way switch and two tone controls.
Each time I read about how these work, I hear them described as a 'Middle pickup tone control' and a 'Neck pickup tone control'. The bridge is without tone control, and I know that it is also wired in in some guitars, but for the purposes of this discussion - let's go with the traditional no tone control for bridge wiring, with a sample wiring diagram borrowed from StewMac here: http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-2001/2001.gif
However, I can't figure out why these would be consider pickup specific tone controls based on that diagram. On the left side of the 5 way switch, any pickups selected are connected in parallel to the common pin. In other words - they are mixed together before they get to the tone controls.
On the right side of the 5 way switch (isolated from the left side until the wire is run from common to common as shown in the diagram), one or more tone controls are put in parallel with the mixed pickup output depending on the position. In position 1 (bridge), no tone controls are connected to the output line. In position 2, and 3 the bottom tone control (Fender calls it T2) is bridged in an active. In position 4, both T1 and T2 are active, and in position 5, only T1 is active.
So, I understand that these tone controls are 'active' when certain pickups are selected, but in no way that I can see are these tone controls function only for the output from a certain pickup as the pickups output lines are bridged together on the other side of the switch before they get to the tone controls.
Since these tone pots simply decide how much of the signal is bridged to ground through a .047uF cap (in the sample schematic I provided above), they actually do the same thing as each other (in fact, they share a single cap). Having two tone controls, switched in and out as the pickups are added and removed, sounds like a nice tone preset system for each position of the 5 way switch that includes T1, T1&T2, or T2 in the circuit.
However - if any selected pickups are mixed before they even get to the other side of the 5 way switch - how can this achieve anything that a single pot and cap cannot? It looks like the resistance from the two tone controls is just in series when T1&T2 are both in the circuit (position 4), so maybe the total resistance is 500K at max instead of the typical 250K pot itself. Other than that - I can't see a functional difference over a single tone control.
Yet, the number of people I see claiming that these tone pots affect each pickup individually has caused me to come here and try to find out what I am missing. Claiming that a single tone control reduces the overall palette of sounds. Or is it that folks just 'feel' that T1 and T2 are bound to certain pickups signals because they switch in and out when the pickups are switched in and out?