Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Tortex 71 on July 31, 2008, 03:06:59 AM
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Hey there y'all. Long-time lurker but first post so go easy on me, please?! :D
I'm getting to the end of building an ash-bodied, maple/rosewood-necked singlecut intended to rock a little harder than my Strat, as well as giving the stability and sustain of a hardtail. The body's been hanging up in the airing cupboard for the last couple of weeks while the lacquer hardens off - and needless to say all my clothes now have that unmistakeable whiff of nitrocellulose (beats Lynx anyday, and repels moths to boot! :lol:).
Aaaanyway, going to be giving it its final polish over the next couple of days, and then into assembly. Which brings me to the electrical fit-out.
Pickups are the Manson custom Bareknuckle 2 set - aka something along the lines of a slightly underwound Mississippi Queen at the neck, and something not dissimilar to a Nailbomb in the bridge, if I've got the message right (hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong)!
I want to get the widest range of tones out of this pair as possible, and I'm using a Fender four-pole switch, so the world's pretty much my oyster as far as pickup selection is concerned, and without needing push-pull pots, extra mini-switches or any other complications. Question is, which five options to choose?
At the minute, my plan is as follows:
Position 1: Bridge pickup, conventional humbucking
Position 2: Bridge pickup, screw coil only
Position 3: Bridge pickup, both coils in parallel (hum cancelling)
Position 4: Bridge (full) and neck
Position 5: Neck only
So I seem to have a range there, each pickup on its own, to full-on, to the coil split and parallel bridge. Question is, are there any other combinations worth exploring before I cut the wires down and solder it all properly?
Will the coil tap and parallel bridge options sound sufficiently different to warrant having both? What about neck + one coil of the bridge (either in series or parallel)? Worth having a listen to or outright sacrilege? I'll probably be too curious not to temp-connect pretty much all the possible variations and listen to 'em all prior to making a final decision, but in the meantime, any and all opinions welcome! 8)
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parallel coils on a humbucker is a really cool, tone defo keep that - I prefer this to coil splitting.
instead of the bridge (series humbucking) + neck, why not try bridge (parallel humbucking) + neck. the reason I say this is that I think it'll give you a sparklier tone and not as woofy as the setup you've proposed.
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Is it possible to get all those options on a superswitch?
I've used them several times but I'm afraid I need a wiring diagram, I can't get my head round how the switch actually works in order to figure out different wirings for myself.
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Thanks HTH, will definitely try the neck + parallel bridge option - was wondering myself whether neck + series bridge would be a little bit wild and wooly. Will prob temp wire the two options into a mini-switch so I can A/B them.
Philly, I think it's possible to get all those out of the single switch, although it's equally possible I've screwed up somewhere! 8) Took me a while to get my head round it too. If I get a minute later I'll draw the circuit for the five options above out properly and post it here (or I'll scan the back of the cigarette packet!. Then no doubt someone will spot if I've made any mistakes.
Then I'll get into working out how it would need to be altered for the neck + parallel bridge option. Oh - speaking of which, I've assumed that the correct way to parallelise a BKP humbucker is red & white to hot, black & green to ground. Yes/no?
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Oh - speaking of which, I've assumed that the correct way to parallelise a BKP humbucker is red & white to hot, black & green to ground. Yes/no?
You've lost me again with the tech stuff :oops: :lol:, but here's a Seymour Duncan chart of the comparative colour coding. BKP use the same as Peavey:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=color_codes (http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=color_codes)
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i cant help with the wiring because i can never remember that stuff till i really need it but dont forget to show us the guitar!!
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I sure will Wez- it's turning out pretty nice I think, although it's my first project and not a patch on the work you're doing atm.
Anyway, I've drawn up a little schematic of the super-switch connections for the five options listed above. Pic below, if anyone wants a higher quality copy let me know and I'll post up a link to a PDF or something.
Philly, hope this explains a bit - although, alternatively, if anyone spots any mistakes, don't be shy to let me know! :D
Body's polished up really nice, just got the EM shielding to go in the cavities now and then it's build-up time. Hopefully there will be noises before the weekend is out! :D
(http://www.avdr28.dsl.pipex.com/SuperSwitch.jpg)
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Philly, hope this explains a bit - although, alternatively, if anyone spots any mistakes, don't be shy to let me know! :D
I wouldn't be able to spot any mistakes in a million years, but I think I can understand the diagram! :D
I was afraid you'd do one of those horrible schematic things which always baffle me.
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Well damn you to hell, HTH, for making that neck + parallel bridge suggestion! 8) Finally got round to some initial wiring up last night, and once I'd got the action and intonation set up rough, did a bit of pickup experimentation, and played a bit, just for the hell of it.
Turns out that the neck and parallel bridge setup sounds really nice, but it can't be done with the SuperSwitch. However, I think I know a way round that, without the need to add any extra toggles or anything, so watch this space. :)
Most important tho, it plays and sounds great, well pleased. In fact, choosing the pickup switch options is going to be a hell of a nice problem to solve as I haven't found a combination I don't like yet. BKP's rule, and for a first build, I'm well pleased with the way the guitar's turning out.
I daresay I'll be doing another thread on it at some point, but in the meantime, Wez and anyone else who'd like a sneak peek, here tis. Apologies for the duvet cover! :lol:
(http://www.avdr28.dsl.pipex.com/build04.jpg)
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well my first certainly wasnt that nice!! very classy
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Looks nice! It's like a tele that had most of the things that sucks about it fixed.
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It looks great! :)
I have to ask, what's going on with the knobs and mini switch behind the bridge?
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Thanks guys! il˙ti, you're pretty much spot-on. My intention at the outset was to start from the Tele design and make it how I wanted it. In fact, because it was my first shot at building, I opted in the end to save some of the work by starting from a Tele kit body.
In practice though, the modifications became so extensive and elaborate that it would have been less work to start from scratch. Still, the main purpose of starting from the kit was to learn the basics while being reasonably confident of ending up with a nice guitar at the end, and that goal's definitely been achieved. Now I know what's involved, the next one will be a true scratchbuild.
Philly, the controls behind the bridge are for an onboard Zvex Fuzz Factory, although it's not actually installed at the moment. Have all the temp pickup switching in that cavity until I settle on the final options and wire it all up properly. Which is also why the vol/tone and pu selector holes are currently unoccupied.
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should have guessed it was a fuzz factory with the matt bellamy pickups
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Matt Bellamy? Who he? :? :D
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Alrighty, have worked out a neat way of getting neck + bridge in parallel on the superswitch. Result! :)
A spin-off question tho, as I'm still getting my head around winding directions and magnetic polarities...
If I wanted to try the neck pickup in series with one coil of the bridge, would I be correct in thinking that the screw coil (connecting the white of the bridge to the shield of the neck) will give some hum cancellation?
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That looks ace - I too was puzzled by the controls behind the bridge...
Really nice finish.
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Pickup selection sorted. When a four-pole SuperSwitch won't get you where you want to be, and you want to avoid cluttering the front of the guitar with extra stuff, where do you go next? Six poles on your selector:
(http://www.avdr28.dsl.pipex.com/6pss.jpg)
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yeah, thats my idea of a nightmare!!
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Sweet zombie jesus! Now THAT'S a switch. I'll stick with a 3 or 5 way thankya very much. I have some fancy wiring on my esquire- holydiver humbucker in the bridge with a tele 3 way switch- coils in series (normal HB, coils in parallel, split slug coil. Have to admit the 'fancy' positions don't do much for me, i like the basic humbucker sound more than the others, so they don't get used at all.
Let us know how you get on with it once you have everything wired, and if you get round to using all those crazy switching options.
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Pickup selection sorted. When a four-pole SuperSwitch won't get you where you want to be, and you want to avoid cluttering the front of the guitar with extra stuff, where do you go next? Six poles on your selector
That's insane! Does it even fit in a Strat?
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That's insane! Does it even fit in a Strat?
Difficult to say without trying it. Just looking at the front of a Strat it'd be a close shave between the side of the switch and the neck tone pot, but it might just go. To be honest I wasn't 100% sure it'd fit the cavity on mine without a bit of extra routing until I test-fitted it, but it went in with a bit to spare. 8)
Got it all wired up now. After a bit of experimentation to find the widest/nicest range of sounds, have gone for the following.
1. Bridge conventional
2. Bridge parallel
3. Neck + bridge parallel
4. Neck + bridge inner
5. Neck only
In the end only needed one of the "extra" two poles to get these.
And you're right Mark, chances are it'll spend the bulk of its time in positions 1 and 5, but the whole point of building this guitar was as much to learn what's possible as anything else. Plus, as I come from the land of Strat I'm just used to having a five-way. The three middle options sounded interesting and different when I was testing, and with the FrankenSwitch I can have them all without cluttering the thing with toggles, push-pulls, or something that looks like it should be on a Jaguar or the Red Special.
Now it's done, I can work out which tones I genuinely like and use, so by the time I do another one, I'll have the benefit of the experience. The only annoying thing is that I cut my fingertip while making the FrankenSwitch, so going to need that to heal a bit before I can play properly. Doh! :x