Help needed, Strat with 2 Volumes and 1 Tone control

[GuitarIv]

Hey guys,

so I after not having found a wiring diagram and trying to make this work I spent the last few hours soldering until I eventually gave up. Following problem:

I treated my Strat to a Dimarzio Area Set, the 61, 67 and 58.

I also bought 2 logarithmic 250k CTS pots and a Fender 250k No Load pot. I want the first pot closest to the Bridge to function as Volume for both Neck and Middle, the next pot to be solely for the Bridge and naturally the No Load one as Master Tone, so it's out the circuit when not engaged. Also bought a Sprague Orange Drop 0.022uF Cap.

Guitar is completely shielded with star grounding, can't get this to work. I have retraced my steps at least 10 times and am surprised I didn't fry any components so far.
Bridge Volume and Middle/Neck Volume should allow blending. Like with a Les Paul.

I checked connections with a multimeter and noticed the Orange drop doesn't conduct from one leg to the other (no "peeep" when setting the multimeter to conductivity detection and touching both legs). Is this normal?

Hope someone smarter than me can help me out. I spent a whole evening with zero success and I'm really frustrated right now.


Thanks in advance for help, cheers!

[GuitarIv]

Ok guys, the following happened:

As soon as I woke up today, I made some coffee and went over the whole damn thing again. Grounding problems are gone and I managed to find a signal path that allows the circuit to work 90% of how I want it. Seperate Volumes function except for in the position when the bridge and the middle are selected together, then if one of the two volume pots is off, it kills the signal of both. I made some drawings of my wiring (which look horrible) and I'm gonna take a fresh piece of paper and redo just that in a nice an clean manner including different colors so everybody can follow the signal path without a problem. Maybe then some of you folks can chime and suggest a solution to get the combined position to work as desired as well.

My conclusion so far is that it's not possible to do it as that would require a super switch of some sorts. I might be wrong. So stay tuned for my diagram.

Cheers!

[AndyR]

I'm fairly certain that's what I'd have expected?

In the middle position on my LPs, SGs, etc, etc... they all go to silent when one volume is turned all the way down. So I'd probably expect the bridge + middle position on a strat's 5 way to do the same if one vol is controlling bridge, one middle?

However, I do also have an SG bass and a couple of Jazz basses - they all have 2 vols, one tone, no switch, for two pickups. You can turn one of the vols all the way down and it still works.

Maybe look up Jazz wiring (or gibson EB3) to see if you can get some insights you could apply to yours?

[GuitarIv]

You're on the right track Andy, a member on the Marshall Forum pointed me into the right direction, this is the solution, both for my Strat and the Les Paul:

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/21106-mod-garage-decouple-your-les-pauls-volume-controls

Gonna try this next and post a wiring diagram if it works out. All you need to do is swap around the signal and the pickup wires on the pots. "Reverse wiring"

[AndyR]

Interesting stuff. I'm firmly in the "that's the way it works, don't mess with it" camp! lol

I'm SO used to it I had to get off the sofa and plug a Les Paul in to confirm what I'd typed before hitting post. I really don't notice the sound going when I turn one down to zero. However, I do remember getting disturbed by it some time ago (er, 1982 or something!) and trying to find out if there was anything I could do.

I don't think I'd change anything on my guitars now, but I would be interested to know how it works out. I couldn't make my mind up - is he saying the controls would work in reverse? (You'd have to turn it up to turn it down?)

Another thing that crossed my mind since I posted was the strat mod that adds neck to everything, I've never tried it but often wondered about it when I was gigging in the 90s. You go Master Vol, Master Tone, and then use the third pot as another volume on the neck only. Has no effect on neck, neck + middle, cos neck's already in the circuit. But on bridge, middle, and bridge + middle it enables you to blend in the neck. This gives you "all three at once" or "bridge + neck". When I was thinking earlier I realised that MUST work how you want... because otherwise the mod would lose you pure bridge and bridge + middle!! (turn the neck control down and the sound goes!!).

Aahh... looked it up, you'd need a special pot (eg http://www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk/html/neck_adder.html) that goes open circuit when you turn it all the way down. Actually, I'm quite tempted now...