From: tjs@eecs.umich.edu (tim stanley)
Subject: Re: Rewiring / Adding switches.
Organization: University of Michigan
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 21:29:37 GMT


   From: Michael.Bremford@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Mike Bremford)
   Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 04:23:23 GMT
   Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.

   Basically my plan is to have push in/out pots to replace the current tone
   knobs, the action of pushing them in would switch the phase around. That bits
   easy. The next bit I want to do is add a single switch to the guitar, which when
   I have two pickups selected (neck-middle or bridge-middle) the switch in one
   position would have them in series, and in the other position in parallel.
   Has anyone tried anything like this??? Is it hard? I have the book 'Electronic
   projects for musicians', but it doesn't say much about putting in series...

Here is a description of some very recent re-wiring I just did on a
black Squire Strat (Korean-made).  It is similar to your own plans so
I thought I would share this with you.  It is a long post, but I want
to brag about it, and share some good info with other tinkerers out
there.  And I want to thank alt.guitar contributors J. D. Kimple
(KIMPLE@vax.muskingum.edu) and Mark Hammer (META@UNB.CA) for their
input.  Also, that Guitar Handbook that folks are always recommending
here has some good rewiring stuff as well as a simple preamp (it *is*
a good book).

Pickguard:
----------

I bought a white pearloid pickguard from WD Pickguards, Deer Park, New
Yok.  Since it was custom, I asked that there be no bridge pickup
route, and no slide-switch route.  Its real good looking on a black
guitar.  The Squire pickguard is custom (done by hand), you send them
a tracing --- so it required some fine extra routing by me to get it
to fit into place properly.  So beware of that problem for custom
pickguards.  I think that their stock ones are machine routed.  BTW -
routing this material sucks, there is surely-toxic smoke and a
definite threat of combustion (I am not kidding).

Bridge Pickup:
--------------

I took a 14 year old black Dimarzio Super-Distortion Humbucker ('twas
just sitting around all these years, its sonic potential wasting away)
and routed the guitar and pickguard so it would fit in at the usual
Strat-bridge pickup angle.  This was necessary for two reasons:

	1.  The pole-piece spacing on this old pickup is not naturally
	aligned to the Fender string spacing - the angled mounting works
	out just right (sort of).  The high E string is over
	the end pole piece of the upper coil; the low E string is
	over the end pole piece of the lower coil.  The other
	strings are in-between the high E and the low E.
	Which makes the guitar a lot easier to play...

	2.  Let's face it, an angled humbucker in the bridge
	position is cool.
	
By the way, the routing for this bridge pickup revealed that this
Squire has a plywood body :-(.  That should add fuel to those
Mexican/Japanese/Korean Squire discussions...  Go ahead, strip
some paint off yours - is it plywood?   ;-)

Middle Pickup:
--------------

I took a 15+ year old black Dimarzio Super-Distortion *Single* coil
('twas *also* just sitting around all these years) and put it in
the middle position.

Neck Pickup:
------------

I bought a black Bill Lawrence L-250 Humbucker (I think it was) from
Stewart MacDonalds.  This pickup has the single blade pole-piece and
was *not* the high output version (which is called the L-500 I think),
rather, the sane -leave-some-highs-in- version.  It fits into a
standard Fender single coil space.  About $40.00.  The blade design
may be good choice for the neck position since string-bending dropout
is most noticeable there.

At this point, I hope the thoughtful reader can see how well I
justified spending a lot of money so that I could put a few old
pickups to use that would have otherwise (and have been for over a
decade) been sitting around being _wasted_.  This is an important
element of this sort of project...

Switches:
---------

There are several back issues of Guitar Player magazine that have
re-wiring ideas; these are:

GP 3/81
   8/84
   8/85
   3/86
   5/86
  11/86
   2/87
   8/87 (Dan Armstrong Super-Strat)
   1/89 (Ultimate Strat Switch)

These are available at some library, somewhere on this planet.  Some
of them are darn basic.  The last two are interesting and non-obvious.
I built the 8/87 project after J.D. Kimple (KIMPLE@vax.muskingum.edu)
reminded me of it (otherwise, I would have build a variation of the
1/89 project).  It uses three switches (and loses the standard Strat 5
position switch) and gets every combination of series and parallel
between the three pickups.  I.e., any combination in series.  Any
combination in parallel.  Any single pickup.  And one position is a
hybrid of series and parallel (I think the neck and middle are in
parallel, which in turn is in series with the bridge).  It is logical
to understand how to use the switches, but of course it is not as easy
as the 5 position switch.  The 3 switches are mounted where the
5-position slot would have normally been.

The switch controlling the neck pickup is a DPDT on-on.
The switch controlling the middle pickup is a DPDT on-on.
The switch controlling the bridge pickup is a DPTripleT on-on-on.
All are available from Stew-Mac; I got mine locally at less than
half their price.  Unfortunately, the DPTT is a bit unusual, and Stew-Mac
may be your easiest choice (~ $12.00 each) especially if you want all
your switches to match (you do).

There is also an interesting setup in a 1/89 issue of guitar player
that makes it look like your guitar is still stock, but allows 13
different combinations of series parallel and various phasing using a
rotary switch in one of the volume control positions.  Plus, you can
think of your own alternative combinations.  Not as flexible as the
8/87 scheme plus what I did, however.

Knobs:
------

For potentiometers, I bought 3 500K ohm audio taper pots with a
built-in push/pull DPDT switch from Steward MacDonald (Athens OH, USA).
When the switch is in, that pickup is in-phase; when the switch
is out, that pickup is out of phase.  One such phase switch is
connected to each pickup.

Because, I have humbuckers in the bridge and neck positions, and a
single coil in the middle, Mark Hammer (META@UNB.CA) suggested that
the humbuckers might over-power the single coil in some switch
combinations so I wired each humbucker to an individual volume
control, and then wired the usual volume control as a master volume
control.  In theory, this would allow me to turn the humbuckers down
to a level matching that of the single coil.  I added a .001 uf (I
recall?) bypass capacitor on each volume control.  I used a .05 uf cap
in series with the string ground wire for shock protection.

As such, there is no tone control on board.  For me, that is OK.  I
always open them up wide anyway.  I never change tone while I am in
the middle of a song.  The amount of volume control really gives a lot
of flexibility in textures from the pickups.  You can back off on
either humbucker a bit to take the edge off.  I have more tone
controls on my amp and on effects than I need.  Of course, the
rewiring article describes a way to keep your original knob function -
so there is no reason you have to go without tone controls or whatever
you want.

If you are using all single coil pickups, consider using the 250K pots
instead, you may not want to go up to 500K.  Stew-Mac has these with
DPDT push/pull switches also.  BTW - does anyone have any other
vendors for this type of part, or for linear taper instead?

About phasing and the stock 5-position switch:

Remember that phase switches only matter when two or more pickups are
involved, and we say that "one pickup is out of phase with respect to
another pickup".  A single pickup selected alone is not regarded as in
or out of phase.  That said, if you were to add phase switches as
described above to a Strat with a stock 5-position switch, there would
be only 2 positions (positions 2 and 4 of the 5 available) where the
phase switches do anything for you.  That is 40% of the time.
Unimpressive, indeed, for the trouble.

However, consider the switching scheme described above from the 8/87
Guitar Player.  Of 12 available switch positions, 9 will be affected
by phasing.  That is 75% of the time.  And you have the ability to
phase in multiple ways.  And the phasing affects parallel *and* series
combinations (series isn't available on your normal Strat).  This sort
of switching scheme justifies the phase switches.  IMHO I suspect that
most folks would be disappointed adding phase switches alone to a
stock 5-position switch.

Shielding:
----------

I used shielding paint on the entire inside of the guitar cavity and
the back of the pickguard.  A small can from Stew-Mac will shield a
half dozen guitars at least, multiple coats.  If you *EVER* open your
guitar up, you really ought to just shield the darn thing.  If you are
unhappy with your single coils because of noise, shield the cavity
before spending your hard earned $$$ on new pickups, especially if you
fundamentally like the sound of your pickups.  If you do this mod (or
one similar), there are a lot of wires and even if you do a good neat
job, you want that cavity shielded.  BTW - IMHO - there are too many
little short wires to even consider using shielded cable on each one.
The better solution is to do what the manufacturer failed to do - and
that is to shield the cavity properly.

I even sheilded the inside of the single coil's pickup cover.  I am
not so convinced that this alone made a difference, however.  I am
certain that shielding the cavity made a difference because I did it
when I was still using the original single-coil pickups and wiring.

So, in summary, I strongly recommend shielding.  To the point of
making it my own personal mission to inflict my opinion about it upon
anyone who asks me something even remotely related to the issue.  Got
the picture?!

Results:
--------

Excellent.  Awesome.  If you build it, you will come.  That is to say
you will not be disappointed.  All combinations of series parallel and
phasing are available without a proliferation of switches.  Sweet
versatilibility.

Here are some things I learned:

0) As you certainly can see, I deal with Stew-Mac for several things.
This is the second time I have dealt with Stew-Mac.  No problems,
blistering fast catalogue and product delivery.  What can I say?
Methinks they know how to run their business.

1) The single coil DiMarzio Super Distortion in the middle position
sounds rather similar to the humbucker DiMarzio Super Distortion in
the bridge, to my taste (I know, hard to believe, maybe I've got Pete
Townshend's hearing).  I would prefer a distinctly single-coil sound
in the middle position so I am going to swap that bad boy out and put
one of the original Squire single coils in that position.  In fact, I
may put together an identical set of electronics with the remaining 2
original single coils and move this single coil Super Distortion in
the bridge position (where it really belongs IMHO).  Personally, I do
not want more than one nasty crunchy muddy distorted loud offensive
pickup in my setup.  But I definitely want one.

2) Further, that single coil is not overpowered by either of the other
pickups, it is a strong pickup.  Now, of course, a vintage/stock
single coil will be considerably weaker and Mark Hammer's advice
regarding multiple volume controls may come to matter more.  I think
that the extra humbucker volume controls allow certain subtleties -
your mileage may vary.

3) I really am very pleased with the Bill Lawrence L-250 in the neck
position.  A nice sounding sane output clear pickup with no noise.
In fact, it is currently my favorite pickup of all time.

4) The DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker sounds like you would
expect - and it belongs and thrives in the bridge position.
That thing makes fuzzboxes obsolete!  ;-)

5) When putting all three pickups in series (remember, 1 loud
humbucker, 1 sane humbucker, and a macho single coil), the output can
get seriously big muddy - this is a large signal.  !BUT!  there are
some way-interesting textures available by putting one of the three
pickups out of phase.  Real funky, notch-filter, sounding things.  I
find that a _pair_ of pickups in series with one out of phase to be
not-too-interesting.  But three pickups in series with one of them out
of phase is real funky (in my case, particularly when the bridge is
out of phase).  Keep that in mind if you are going to put phase
switches on a two pickup guitar.  When they are in parallel, they are
what you would expect - versatile, useful, predictable, in-phase and
out-phase.

6) This mod is not that hard, but it is not a good first soldering
project.  There are a lot of wires, and the work space can get tight
on these combined pot/switch parts.  I used some smaller than usual
wire, the big clunky hobby gauge that Radio Shack sells is larger than
you need and is too large to use neatly here.

7) Finally, among the dozens of combinations presented by this sort of
switch and phasing scheme are large sets of combinations that sound
remarkably similar.  Sure, there are some cool entirely new sounds, as
well as _all_ of the old familiar sounds.  But, keep in mind that
there are a couple of ugly sounds, and some real common mundane
similar who-cares sounds (that you can barely differentiate) . . . and
they are all at your fingertips...

Someday Plan:
-------------

Here is a really versatile guitar wiring, and if I had time and $$$, I
would build this instead of writing long posts about it:

0) Get one of those Warmouth semi-hollow Telecaster bodies, paint it
white, get a tortise-shell pickguard and a compound radius rosewood
fingerboard neck (to help visualize...)

1)  Use the switching scheme I just described above.

2)  Use the phase switch/volume scheme I just described above.

3)  Get a sane neck position stacked blade pole-piece humbucker that
	brings all 4 wires out.
    Get a vintage/sane single coil for the middle position.
    Get an *insane* bridge position traditional side-by-side humbucker
	that brings all 4 wires out.

4) Get 2 additional DPDT switches (on-on type), or 2 additional
DPTripleT switches (on-on-on) type.  Mount them on the Telecaster on
its left ear (as you face the guitar) at its equivalent Les Paul
select switch position.

Use these switches to configure each of the humbuckers as described
by either column below, one switch configuring one humbucker:

		DPDT			DPTripleT
		----			---------
Position 1	Humbucker		Humbucker
Position 2	(doesn't exist)		Both coils in parallel
Position 3	Single Coil		Single Coil

These configuration switches would, of course, be connected to the
humbuckers prior to the 3 switches already described.  For the cost
and clutter of only 2 switches, you get virtually every combination of
Gibson and Fender (etc.) pickup possibilities ever made, all on one
guitar.  E.g, the familiar Strat Single-Single-Single; or
Single-Single-Humbucker; or Humbucker-Single-Humbucker.  I regard
these as configuration switches that you set before you start a song,
and it is unlikely that you would switch them in the middle of the
song (though you could).  It is the variety of textures that I am
looking for.

And now, I should spend so much time playing with my guitar as I do
re-wiring and telecommunicating about re-wiring it, eh?!  Oh, and I
still haven't told you about my old Gibson SG that happens to be
factory routed for 3 humbucker pickups...  ;-)

Regards and good luck,

Tim Stanley