Mad Switching Ideas wanted!!!

[7 Dying Trees]

My wayward "come home to daddy" UV has now been christened gimp and is staying. But to stay it needs to stand out from the other one, and thus it has been decreed that it is time to find out exactly what one can do with a breadboard, some wires, two push/pull pots and a VLX91 5 way switch.

So basically, I have 2 push pull pots that in combination with the 5way switch should be able to give me 15 or 20 options for pickup configurations.

Now, I would like to keep the existing combination there if both push pull pots are disengaged, but when one or either is up/down then it's time to go mad!

As well as that,any suggestions for pickup configurations that sound cool are welcome, in fact needed! I can pretty much go through most combinations, but a lot of them are going to sound samey, which is of not much use.

Another thing few things are:
1)what pickup configurations does the JPM use? I'd like that config as well.
2)Out of phase pickup wiring, what does it sound like? Is it usable, or just a novelty wiring?
3)Placing pickups in series, I've never done this before and don't know what it sounds like.

Also, I'd like to hear from anyone who's decided to do something like this before, maybe for hints on which components are better suited to my mission, and any hints and tips. Also if anyone knows of any monster switches that have more than 4 independant plates, then that's be appreciated too (although it's maybe a bit overkill )

Mad wiring diagrams to give me inspiration would also be much appreciated!

Cheers for any help in advance!

James

oh, if I do get it all working I suppose I'll have to post an wiring diagram as well

[jem7vwh]

Well, I've done this before

I wired my RG's Evolutions for normal operation, out-of-phase, and coil tapped using a 3 way mini-toggle. I don't hear too much difference between regular and out-of-phase. I hear a bunch of difference between regular and coil-tapped. Mostly because when the coil tap is engaged, it behaves like a single-coil (60 cycle hum, feedback etc).

I would suggest wiring the switch for your typical 5-way wiring like a strat. Then I'd use the push pull pots for coil taps.

So, without the knobs, your options would be:

Neck
Neck + Mid
Neck + Mid + Bridge
Mid + Bridge
Bridge
then when you use the pots you add these possibilities:

Neck coil tapped
Neck (coil tapped) + Mid
Neck (coil tapped) + Mid + Bridge
Neck (coil tapped) + Mid + Bridge (coil tapped)
Neck + Mid + Bridge (coil tapped)
Mid + Bridge (coil tapped)
Bridge (coil tapped)

This gives you 13 different options. The coil tap settings would add a lot of Strat-like possibilities, especially the "notch" tones.

[ripl3y]

Are you after a gazillion switching options or a few useable and good sounding ones?

Just finished a guitar and considering a wiring setup myself.
It's only 2 buckers with a 5-way, but have coil tap and high pass filter so some interesting setups to figure out...I'll post what I've done when it's done

Steve

[bammbamm]

One other option is if you do one pull pot for tapping, perhaps the tone knob could be used for an emergency off?
Running the lead from the volume pot out to the switch and then to the jack to be used for those Les Paul tremolo fx. I never thought the phase thing added that much to the tone, in fact it subtracted enough that I didn't want that mod on my guitars at all. I have done tapping, phase reversal and coil tap was the most useful to me. I would only do it this way: Make the volume pot a master coil tap so both humbuckers are split when its engaged, then you can have the stratty woman tone in the neck position and lots of noise when you switch to the bridge pickup.

Dimarzio makes a multi pole switch that is pretty versitile the model is EP 1110 I believe, I used it when i did the Yngwie pickup config on my strat and wanted to split stacked single coils in the 2 and 4 positions.

the other mod I did that i liked but I broke the switch was a DPDT 3 way toggle that was on-off-on that produced a VERY fast tremolo effect because it was on 66% of the time and off 33%.
I dunno how appealing that would be to you.

Lastly perhaps putting in some addl capacitors to act as different frequency filters, on the pull pots? so perhaps a midrange roll off tone option?

These are just some rambling ideas, if you want more info, lemme know and I'll draw somethin up, otherwise just ignore me... I'm mostly incoherent...

bAmM

[ripl3y]

Originally Posted by bammbamm

Make the volume pot a master coil tap so both humbuckers are split when its engaged, then you can have the stratty woman tone in the neck position and lots of noise when you switch to the bridge pickup.

Being the wiring novice that I am, is it possible to split a bridge pup to 1 coil and have the neck pup full at the same time....also vice/versa, and to add, split to the outer coils and inner coils of each bucker in the same config?

ta
Steve

[Two hands31]

Now you've done it.

3-way toggle switch for neck and bridge HBs
on/off switch for middle pickup
2 x switches (or push-pull pots) for coil-splitting
on/off switch for neck and bridge HBs

This setup gives you 17 options:

1) Bridge HB alone
2) Bridge SC alone
3) Middle Alone
4) Neck HB alone
5) Neck SC alone
6) Bridge HB + Middle
7) Bridge SC + Middle
8) Neck HB + Middle
9) Neck SC + Middle
10) Neck HB + Bridge HB
11) Neck SC + Bridge SC
12) Neck SC + Bridge HB
13) Neck HB + Bridge SC
14) Neck HB + Middle + Bridge HB
15) Neck SC + Middle + Bridge SC
16) Neck HB + Middle + Bridge SC
17) Neck SC + Middle + Bridge HB

Did I miss any? I would seriously do this to mine if I had an HSH guitar and some time. Note when using middle alone or anything without middle pickup the corresponding on/off switch operates as a kill switch.

[7 Dying Trees]

I did think about dip switches, but then I don't want to drill holes in my current scratchplate...

I wrote down some configs before I posted last week to have a think.

The ones I want are (although some are superfulous, marked by *):
H(b)
H(split)(b)
H(b)+S
H(split)(b)+S
S
H(n)
H(n)+S
H(split)(n)+S
H(n)+H(b)
H(split)(n)+H(split)(b)
H(split)(n)
H(split)(n)+H(b)*
H(n)+H(split)(b)*


this is for the relatively straightforward ones, I have also been thinking about putting pickups in series and out of phase, specifically the two buckers out of phase, as well as their split counterparts out of phase, as this could be quite cool

Basically, mathematically, having two push pull pots should in theory give you 4 options, and that multiplied by a 5 way switch should yield 20. Unfortunately I think that I'll be limited to 15 this way as I believe that currently I am going to have to use one pushpull to access the "modified" banks, and the other to switch between them.

The only problem so far is how to get all the wiring onto the switch, especially if I start playing about with phase...

I was thinking about using an external PCB to do the wiring, but at the moment I think my main limitation is the switch having "buit a mere" 4 independant plates LOL!



Steve:
It is possible to do this quite easily as long as the pickups have 4conductor cable wiring. One set will be for the full bucker(two wires), while one will be wired just for single coil. Simply get your self a push pull pot, and you should be able to wire up the "live" wires to toggle. The negative wires should be connected as per normal along with the ground

If you have one volume and one tone you can put in two push pull pots to allow them to be able to be switched from H->S independantly

Has anyone ever wired up a PCB/Breadboard to increase their switching options?

And what are the pickup config settings on the JPM???