Cold Sweats - Which guitar to put them in?

[Brow]

I have a Cold Sweat in the bridge of a Hard Ash bodied Strat with Maple/Rosewood neck and fretboard and whilst it's bright, it's not as bright as the Rebel Yells in my Mahogany bodied Tokai Love Rock Custom.

Going by the specs the Cold Sweat should be far too bright for the guitar I have it in, but it just works!  :lol:

[darkbluemurder]

I would put the CS into the guitar with the maple cap for the reasons Eric stated - maple usually adds mids/high mids and that would compliment the CS bridge well.

Compared to the Dragon II you should expect more bass, more punch and more cut.

Cheers Stephan

[DefaultM]

My only concern was that there's more maple on that guitar than there is mahogany (maple neck and the cap is half the thickness of the mody) so would it not be too bright?

[Dave Sloven]

I would say that the Cold Sweats would be a *safe* swap into the all-mahogany guitar.  That would leave your other guitar for a pickup set that is not so great in mahogany, if you wanted to do that later.

I tend to think there is a good chance that it will work in both though.

[witeter]

They tend to suit all mahogany guitars well, as the mids from the mahogany counteract the slightly scooped mid response of the CS

[DefaultM]

Thanks guys. I've also heard that if I want to have the coil splitting options with my rotary switch I need to swap the magnet round or something?
I'm thinking of swapping it out for a three way toggle switch, but want to consider my options.

[Dave Sloven]

I don't know about that, I've never heard that before, but as long as you have the 4 conductor version of the pickup with the green and white wires you should be able to wire up a coil split somehow

[DefaultM]

Its the thing where positions 2 and 4 combine the outer coils of both pickups and the inner.
Apparently if the magnet isn't somehow changed then you get out of phase sounds.

[Dave Sloven]

I would ask the people at BKP about this but what you are basically wanting to do is run the screw coils in series with a centre single coil?

Does something like this help at all?

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/downloads/schematics/general/hsh_hss/hsh__1_vol__1_tone__5_way_with_auto_coilsplit.pdf

The way that's set up you would have the inner coils (slug coils) on with the centre pickup.  I'm pretty sure using the screw coil just involves moving the wires around

If anything needs to be changed it's likely to be your centre pickup to a RWRP one, but maybe not

[Philly Q]

Its the thing where positions 2 and 4 combine the outer coils of both pickups and the inner.
Apparently if the magnet isn't somehow changed then you get out of phase sounds.

Yeah, if you have the PRS rotary five-way switch you need a "flipped" magnet in one of the pickups (usually the neck, but it could be either).

It means the positions where both pickups are split remain hum-cancelling.

[DefaultM]

Would I still need to do that if I change to a 3 way toggle with 2 push pull pots? If so is it easy enough for my tech to do?
If it's not possible then I can do without, it's just nice to have options.

[darkbluemurder]

Thanks guys. I've also heard that if I want to have the coil splitting options with my rotary switch I need to swap the magnet round or something?

Only if you want positions #2, 3 and 4 to be humcancelling. The normal magnet orientation is such that seen from the bridge the coils are south-north-north-south. Combining the inner or outer coils of both humbuckers would result in combinations of coils with the same magnetic direction which would only result in a humcancelling arrangement if one of the coils is electricaly out of phase with the other. That however would not give you the expected PRS sounds.

The solution is therefore to reverse the magnet in one of the pickups to achieve a south-north-south-north or north-south-north-south orientation (don't matter which way round). You will also have to change the electric phase of the pickup whose magnet is reversed (this is done with BKPs by soldering the black wire to the hot connection and the red wire to ground) - otherwise you get again out of phase sounds which are not humcancelling.   

I did this myself with a Holydiver and a Crawler bridge pickup to work properly with the 5-way rotary switch (and voided the warranty on the Crawler but I am confident that I will never have BKP to take up on that anyway - the HD was bought used). If it's the first time you attempt a magnet reversion I would not start with a BKP - best to leave the job to a pro shop or BKP.

I'm thinking of swapping it out for a three way toggle switch, but want to consider my options.

That is IMHO the most practical option if your favorite playing positions are bridge humbucker alone and neck humbucker alone. These are farthest away from each other on the 5-way rotary.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

Would I still need to do that if I change to a 3 way toggle with 2 push pull pots? If so is it easy enough for my tech to do?
If it's not possible then I can do without, it's just nice to have options.

In that case there is a simpler solution. I would wire the neck pickup so that in the single coil mode the coil closest to the neck stays active. This would not require the magnet reversal. Instead, the black and red wires would have to be soldered together and to the push-pull pot. Green would then go to hot and white to ground (or the other way round if it turns out to be out of phase).

Hope that helps,
Stephan

[DefaultM]

Just spent some time with the 2 guitars using a basic clean and distortion and I'm surprised with the results. Using the same setting for each guitar; the maple topped one actually sounds a lot bassier and full, whereas the mahogany bodied one sounds bright and thinner.

[ericsabbath]

I usually get the impression that the maple topped ones usually deliver an overall fuller sound (not really bassier)
and maple necks tend to make the midrange bumpier and fuller as well, despite of sounding more snappy