Guitar Wiring Wizard Requested

Discussion in 'Luthier's Guitar & Bass Technical Discussion' started by MetalGuitard, Feb 17, 2009.

  1. Feb 17, 2009 #1
    MetalGuitard

    MetalGuitard Member

    Messages:
    745
    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2008
    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio USA
    I'm looking for some suggestions.

    Here's what I have:
    Dimarzio Evolution humbucker ( bridge position )

    Dimarzio Air Norton [single coil-sized ] ( middle position )

    Dimarzio Tone Zone ( neck position )

    5-way, 4-pole blade superswitch ( Fender/CTS )

    3-way Gibby style toggle

    One vol pot

    One 500k push/pull 'tone' pot

    I know I want the bridge humbucker series in position 1 but other than that, I have no preference/experience with all the phase/split options using multiple pickups.

    I would like a nice strat neck and neck+middle sound but I'm not set on it.

    I prefer not to have any noisy single coil sound yet when I use only a coil-tap on the Evoution it gets a very nice sound and very little noise.

    I haven't found any diagrams anywhere on the web via google but I don't need a diagram per se but rather some combination's that have proven to be useful. I'm considering using the 5-way AND the 3-way both and ditching the tone pot however, I'd kinda like to hear what a coil-tap blend knob swould sound like since I saw a vid of a Gary Kramer guitar that had one and it seemed pretty cool. Not sure how that is acomplished though.

    Check my sig for the rest of my gear. I play anything from death metal to blues to porgressive and post-rock. Thanks for checkin out my post. I look forward to your replies.
     
    MetalGuitard, Feb 17, 2009
    MetalGuitard, Feb 17, 2009
    #1
  2. Feb 17, 2009 #2
    MetalGuitard

    MetalGuitard Member

    Messages:
    745
    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2008
    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio USA
    FWIW - I did finally find some superswitch wiring combos on allpartsjapan.com thanks to another round of googling...
     
    MetalGuitard, Feb 17, 2009
    MetalGuitard, Feb 17, 2009
    #2
  3. Feb 17, 2009 #3
    walterw

    walterw Gold Supporting Member

    Messages:
    33,758
    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2006
    "nice strat" sounds are going to be right out.

    you could wire up the superswitch to give you: bridge series, 1 bridge coil + 1 middle coil, middle pickup series, 1 mid coil plus 1 neck coil, neck series. 5 hum-canceling settings, and the 2 & 4 settings might be sorta stratty.

    you could also wire that push-pull to make two of the three pickups single coil no matter what else is going on.

    you could use the gibson toggle for something, i suppose.

    the trap to avoid here is "option creep". the idea of dozens of different sounds seems cool and creative, but what you usually end up with is a few settings that actually sound good, several you can't really tell apart, and a bunch that sound lousy. or worse, certain combinations get you the dreaded "surprise off switch".

    the argument an also be made that stuffing your signal through all that wiring and switching can degrade the tone a little.
     
    walterw, Feb 17, 2009
    walterw, Feb 17, 2009
    #3
  4. Feb 18, 2009 #4
    MetalGuitard

    MetalGuitard Member

    Messages:
    745
    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2008
    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio USA
    LOL, that's exactly what I'm afraid of. I generally re-string and detail my guitar any time I do any wiring stuff and I don't wanna keep re-stringing and re-wiring trying to get more than 3 usable sounds out of all this stuff. :worried

    I'd like to just use the superswitch only and get 5 distinct sounds out of it. I see diagrams around that have a superswitch, 4-5 toggles and 3 knobs and I cringe.:hide

    Thanks for your words of wisdom Walter.
     
    MetalGuitard, Feb 18, 2009
    MetalGuitard, Feb 18, 2009
    #4

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