How's this for a wiring setup?

[kadeks]

I'm not sure if this would be awesome or stupid, but here goes:

On an Ibanez RG 350EX (HSH) use a 5 way switch, 3 volume pots (all push/pulls for coil tapping, with the single coil in the middle being a 4-conductor wiring Dimarzio Pro Track) and 3 tone pots, one for each volume pot. The humbuckers are Evo 2 and evolution neck, btw ~_^

Sounds like a good idea to me on paper, but thinking about it some more some problems arise:

1. Will single coil sized humbuckers sound good split?
2. How will the pickups cancel the hum when they are split with each other? Not very knowledgeable with the technical terms and stuff but If I have this right the single coil in the mid would have to be using its "south" coil, and the bridge and neck would have to be using their "north" coils so that the single coil humbucker cancels with both humbuckers when they are split.

Less confusing description: The neck humbucker uses the coil closer to the neck. The middle (single coil) humbucker uses the coil closer to the bridge. The bridge humbucker uses the coil closer to the neck. Will this be hum-canceling and nice-sounding or out-of-phase and ugly-sounding?

3. Will the pots all fit or will I have to do some routing of the wood? One of the main reasons I like the RG350EX is because the pickguard is customizable with control holes for mods that won't require any woodworking.

4. Is it easy to drill holes into a pickguard cleanly?

5. I have some spare long shaft 500k ohm push/pull pots left over from another mod. Will they fit in an RG350EX or will I have to buy some short shafted pots?

6. Is it worth it?

Thanks for reading =D.

[Vim Fuego]

Here are my answers:
1) I guess single coil sized humbuckers are supposed to have the same sound as a single coil without the hum. I suppose this is true for the stacked type, but not for the ones with two thin coils side by side like the pro-track. So.. if it's stacked I wouldn't bother, if it's side by side, maybe. I think it's best to fit a temporary switch dangling from leads that poke out from under the scratchplate perhaps taped to the edge of the guitar, that way you can try different wiring options without having to remove the scratchplate, this is what I have done previously.
2) Correct. From your description I don't know which is the correct coil for the pro-track. If you try the temporary switches fit you can try either coil to get the best sound and hum cancellation I don't think it will be out of phase though either way as the singnals from each coil must be the same phase (it's the hum that's out of phase between coils)
3) I'm sorry I don't know how deep the control cavity is on a RG, But I doubt you'd fit six controls in! I'm sure someone can help!
4) From my experience , yes, if you drill holes of successively bigger sizes plus you can always get a replacement plate!
5) See 3)!
6) I recommend you try it out with temporary switches as in 1). Perhaps one volume and 3 tone controls would be easier to get your hed round when playing?
Jim

[kadeks]

Ah, thanks. I'm beginning to think that it's too much hassle for little payout. I usually play LP style guitars and I like the pot setup, but with 3 pups it would be too much.

[kadeks]

Actually, would it be possible to have the same setup but with one tone for all of the pickups? I usually keep the tone rolled up anyway. And if anyone knows if long shafts will fit in an rg it might save me some trouble ^_~

[Vim Fuego]

Interestingly like you I almost always have the tone up all the way on all my guitars including my Epiphone 335 copy.
Yes, of course you could have just the one volume and one tone.
Also don't forget that the RG taps the coils of the humbuckers in position 2 and 4 of the 5 way automatically. I presumed you wanted to disable this feature and do it manually from a push/pull pot. This will give the extra options of bridge or neck in single coil mode in position 1 and 5 with the coil tap activated and full humbucker with single coil in positions 2 and 4 with the coil tap deactivated.
I've done all sort of options over the years, but for about the past ten years all my guitars have been stock, I guess they all do what I want with the minimum of fuss!
Jim