Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum

Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: 9X3 on May 01, 2011, 06:11:10 PM

Title: John Petrucci style wiring for CS/ABomb pickups
Post by: 9X3 on May 01, 2011, 06:11:10 PM
I'm currently trying to decide on how I want to wire my guitar.  I'm a huge fan of John Petrucci's tones and I noticed that the majority of his guitars are wired to a 4PDT 3 way toggle switch (Neck in series,  Inner Neck+Bridge coils in parallel, Bridge in series).  I've currently got a CS neck and A-Bomb bridge.  Any thoughts on how this would sound?  The alternative is the standard DPDT Neck/Neck+Bridge/Bridge combo. 

Matt
Title: Re: John Petrucci style wiring for CS/ABomb pickups
Post by: Kiichi on May 01, 2011, 06:28:19 PM
I donīt know how exactly the CS/abomb combo would sound with this, but I know that I like it with my Crunch Lab / Liquifire. It definetly has a lot of single coil strat qualitys, but with more balls. Think fat, humcanceling singecoil, great for more classic rock stuff and with a certain type of dirt to it that I like. It is of course less loud than the other positions, but I certainly like it. Well worth it.

Beware though that it can be quite a pain to wire that. That wiring I had done by an experienced tech (who never did this type of wiring before) and he had serious problems. Most importantly you need to get a special switch, but to find that out alone...wow, Dimarzio could not help, musicman could not help as they use circuit board in their guitars that have that,...
Title: Re: John Petrucci style wiring for CS/ABomb pickups
Post by: darkbluemurder on May 06, 2011, 05:40:55 PM
Just google 4P3T switch and you will find it.

Cheers Stephan
Title: Re: John Petrucci style wiring for CS/ABomb pickups
Post by: 9X3 on May 10, 2011, 09:36:02 PM
So I've basically decided that rather than spend $30 on a 4PDT switch, I'm going to opt for two 3-way mini switches for series/split/parallel wiring.  That being said, I have a few new questions.  First, if I wire the two inner coils to be split, when used together will they be hum cancelling?  My understanding is that both inner coils will have a North polarity, so I'm wondering what kind of sound to expect.  If anyone has any articles on this, that would be much appreciated. 

Matt
Title: Re: John Petrucci style wiring for CS/ABomb pickups
Post by: Philly Q on May 10, 2011, 10:10:02 PM
With a normal set of pickups, the two inner coils won't be hum-cancelling, because as you've said they're the same polarity.  You could reverse the magnet in one of the pickups (PRS style) to get hum-cancelling, but then the both-humbuckers-together setting would be out of phase.
Title: Re: John Petrucci style wiring for CS/ABomb pickups
Post by: darkbluemurder on May 11, 2011, 10:03:44 AM
If you have one pickup with a reversed magnet you have to reverse the hot and ground leads on one pickup to get both pickups in phase. That will work for full humbuckers, inner coils or outer coils in parallel.

Cheers Stephan