Wiring novice, advice needed!

[whiskyboy1977]

Hi,

Please be gentle with me as I don't have the best understanding of wiring pick ups.  I'm just completing a start build that has three dimarzio rail/mini humbuckers, Chopper in the neck, Cruiser in the middle and Tone Zone in the bridge.  I originally planned to just do standard strat wiring on these, but it seems a little silly as these are 4 wire pick ups could offer a few more sounds rather than the standard 5.  So my question is could I somehow wire these either via push pull, multipole 5 way or mini switches to offer the standard 5 positions, but also allow the following:

Neck Chopper + Bridge Tone Zone out of phase
Neck Chopper + Bridge Tone Zone
Bridge Tone Zone in single-coil

I've wired up many pick ups, but tend to just follow the instructions without any actual understanding of how it works!

 

[Day-mun]

The four-pole 5-way "super-switch" is going to give you the most flexibility with what each of the five selector positions do. -You're not at the mercy of the traditional switch's weird 2 & 4 positions that are actually 1 & 3 or 5 & 3 sharing common; each position has it's own leaf on the wafer. Add push/pulls or other additional switches, and the sky's the limit... just depends on how "stock" you want the instrument to appear (-and how much wire you can cram into the cavity).

-Cavity space can sometimes seem like an after-thought, but it should be considered. That super-switch is physically wider than the original two-pole selector, and in instances where I've installed 'em on a Tele, I had to widen the control cavity just a shave to get everything in there. On a Strat, I seem to recall it only fitting in there one way, and having to rotate it one-eighty so it didn't rub on the wall of the route.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

I just had a similar experience.
Buddy of mine has  strat he bought in High School, it's H/S/H
A random Dimarzio in the neck, SD quarter pounder in the mid, and a SD JB in the bridge....

Talk about a spaghetti friggin mess inside... three push pulls and a 5 way doesn't leave a lot of cavity space.
the 5 way functions normal, Vol pot  is the Neck HB tap, tone #1 is the bridge coil tap, and tone#2 puts the neck HB in no matter where the selector is.

I'll wire up just about anything, and most of the time just the standard twist the red & white together, green and earth to ground and black to pot.....

this is why I am a huge fan of the keep it simple theory, single HB and a vol pot....

 

[Day-mun]

Just this passed weekend, I avoided using a super-switch in a buddy's top-routed Tele HH convert; found a cool way to use the standard 5-way/2-pole selector to get: Neck HB/Neck split/one Neck coil in series with one Bridge coil/Bridge split/Bridge HB. -How friggin' cool is that?!  :headbang:

 

[whiskyboy1977]

Thanks for the replies, so would the super switch be the best way forward to obtain all the tones i would be after?  Or would it work with push/pulls?  I don't mind about craming the wiring in, I managed to get an old Fernandes Sustainer along with the battery, volume pot, tone pot and three way selector into a start cavity on another build.

 

[stratamania]

One way you could go about this would be to use a Superswitch and an S1 Switch for example.

Here is an interesting one, not quite what you mentioned but could be adapted or used as is.

https://sites.google.com/site/phostenixwiringdiagrams/hhh-guitars#HHHStratSeriesParallelTBXBlend

 

[Day-mun]

I'm thinking super-switch only if you are hoping to get neck/bridge (or all-3-on) combos, otherwise if you only want pairings of neighboring pickups (i.e.: neck/mid or mid/bridge), then just stick with the traditional Strat 5-way and do your fancy stuff with push/pulls, then what each pickup is doing while selected by the 5-way is up for grabs. One pickup could be wired to be HB or phased, while another's push/pull splits it's respective pickup. Duncan and DiMarzio surely have links on their sites with push/pull (on/on) mini-switch wiring support, if they don't show ya whatcha need to see, then their respective unofficial forums will be there to provide the schematics you want.

-Do come back and show us what monster(s) you've constructed!  :headbang1:

 

[whiskyboy1977]

Thanks again, really useful stuff.  I've ordered a super switch today as I really want the neck/bridge option too.  I have a push pull so I imagine I could come up with a pretty versatile beast, I just need to not go overboard!

 

[whiskyboy1977]

After hunting online for a few hours I've found a wiring diagram showing what I'm after...or should i say two separate diagrams showing what I want.  The first is the exact set up I have (apart from the colours being different in Dimarzio pick ups), the second shows 2 humbuckers which would be my neck and bridge but unfortunately omits the tone which I would be using.  Are there any wiring gurus out there who could tell me if it would be possible to combine these two diagrams or am i on to a losing battle from the beginning?

 

[stratamania]

Adding a tone control to the second diagram is easy enough, you just wire the volume to tone and output jack the same as the first.

Combining the two switching positions could be problematic as each diagram already uses all four poles of the Superswitch. At first glance I don't see how you would do it, that's not to say its impossible but it might be more bother than is worthwhile.

 

[whiskyboy1977]

I have a new plan, sorry for constantly asking for advice on this!  I'm wondering if it's possible to wire the guitar up as per the second diagram, and then use a push/pull to add the middle pickup to any of the positions as would be needed?  I know this wouldn't allow me to just have the middle pickup on it's own, but to be honest it's the least used setting on my current strat so i don't see this as an issue.

 

[stratamania]

That would be fairly easy to do.

Take the ground of the middle pickup to ground same as the black wires from the others shown going to the back of the pot.

Take the hot wire of the Middle pickup to the switch, and then from the switch to the input of the volume control. That's the one in the diagram with the dotted line pointing to it.

That would give you the selections available and when the push pull is engaged combines the Middle pickup with it.

 

[whiskyboy1977]

Thanks for that, exactly what i wanted to know.  You are a gent sir!

 

[stratamania]

OK, thanks.

Ask if you need any more help. If I don't know there are others here who probably will.

 

[Day-mun]

Sorry, WB'77, I've been self-absorbed with my own threads and haven't stopped in on this one in a few, but I wanna second stratamania in saying that it is totally cool to ask for help as much and as often as you need to for your project(s) to turn out great! -That's what we're all here for, anyway, right? -Ask away!!

-where's the "like" button for the middle pickup on/off push pull? -Great idea!  :icon_thumright:

 

[whiskyboy1977]

No probs Day-mun, I think i understand what i need to do.  Superswitch should be with me by Friday so hopefully it'll be wired up over the weekend.

 

[whiskyboy1977]

I'm now thinking about using two push/pulls, one for adding the middle pickup and the other as a phase switch for the neck.  Would this allow me to have the following on the 5 way super switch:

Bridge
Bridge split
Bridge and neck
Neck split
Neck

Then with one push pull I could add the middle to any of the above, and with the other have bridge with neck out of phase on the middle position of the 5 way?  In my mind this would work, or is my mind a little bit off here?

 

[Day-mun]

The super-switch should give you the flexibility to do this, -I could noodle it out on paper if I had a bit of time, but just guessing that you'll have no trouble at all, perhaps an entire pole not even used, depending on whether you go for efficiency or spread-out and organized. Sometimes it's nice to leave a pole on them big switches vacant, so if you decide to change something, you've got a clean plate to dish up your new concoctions on.

You did get the four-pole switch, and not the Oak-Grigsby two-pole version, right?

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

That's pretty much the same as this spec, only this one has dimarzio's.
1st post, 9th pic, 1st schematic.
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/pickups-electronics-general-tech/107821-complete-dimarzio-pickup-routing-specs-wiring-diagrams.html

 

[whiskyboy1977]

Don't worry about a drawing Day-Man, I think I have it pretty much sorted in my head.  I did get the 4 pole version, and I think it's fairly easy to leave one pole free too.  I'll wire up one push pull for neck phase, the other for adding the middle pickup (both are faily straightforward in my mind).

Thanks Tony, that drawing is slightly off what i was after as i don't want the middle position to be neck and middle split, I want then full.  But I think it's pretty simple to do what I want with the third pole of the super switch, they're much scarier looking than they actually are, pretty straightforward once you get your head around it.

I'll be back on here if it ends up a buzzing disaster!