Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Mr. Air on March 22, 2009, 08:02:35 AM
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I'm kinda new to this pickup business so here's what must be a quite beginners question.
How do a normal set of humbuckers react when connected to a 5 way switch? Are all 5 positions still working or will position 2 and 4 be "cancelled"? In my mind it would be logical if position 1 and 5 represents neck and bridge alone and position 3 represents both pickups. Well my mind isn't always that logic and come to think of it, it might all come down to the the way you wire the pickups.
I hope someone can enlighten me.
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To use 2 humbuckers with a 5-way, you need either the Mega (http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/2/Megaswitches.html) Switch or the Super (http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/Super_Switch.html) Switch.
You can wire 2 humbuckers into the standard 5-way lever that you find on a strat, but it's rather limited in the combinations available (& none of them make much sense):
Compare the std (http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2hb_1vol_5way) to the super (http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2h_1v__5wss) wiring diagrams...
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Hi Mr Air.
I wired my 2 Nailbombs to a Schaller Megaswitch - this gave me bridge, both and neck in the usual positions, plus the inner and outer coils in parallel - a really nice Strat-ish tone.
Not hard to wire either.
Mark.
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I don't know if this is a guitar you've already got or if you're just considering ideas, but if you've got two humbuckers plus a centre single-coil you can get a cool Ibanez style wiring using a regular 5-way switch:
http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/C.pdf (http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/C.pdf)
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Didn't Afghan Dave have some smart switching, where he had the front coil of his neck Fred in series with his middle Irish Tour (or something like that) in his Ibanez? That was a great sound...
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I thought it was just a regular split HB plus the single, in parallel, but I can't remember.
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I'm thinking of switching pickups in my Godin LG and it has two of what's called Tetrad pickups. Each pickup has 4 coils so in 2nd. and 4th. position there's only 2 of the 4 coils in use. I take that you can guess how it works for the rest of the positions.
And thanks for the replies.
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If that's the case, it is already doing a coil split in positions 2&4, and you should be able to get the same thing with a 4 conductor HB (although just one coil from each pickup in the split positions!).