Gerry Hayes Haze Guitars
Forum Replies Created
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Addendum (thanks to Iker): If the series switch is engaged when the neck pickup is selected, there will be no output at all. It’ll essentially act like a kill switch because there’s nothing else active for it to be in series with. You can decide and tell your customer if this is a feature or a bug. 😄
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I think this is something that every one who does this job struggles with — probably because there’s no good answer. There’s no one-size-fits-all. What I do (and probably what most of us do) is explain the situation clearly and lay things out in terms of playability versus originality. We can make recommendations but the final call is down to the owner. I usually err on the side of over-communicating. I’ll explain in as much detail as the customer wants. I often draw little sketches when I think it’ll help.
Some owners are vintage-correct nuts and don’t want absolutely anything changed. Others are very practical and just want a guitar that plays well, not giving a damn about how it looks, how original it is, and how much it’s worth. Most fall on the spectrum somewhere between these two ends and all we can do is explain what we recommend, why we’re recommending it, and the compromises that exist in both decisions. Then we let the customer make the call.
It sounds like your customer is skewed more towards practical and the fact that there’s already been repair work to the instrument can make it easier for them to decide to proceed with more. From what you’ve said, I’m with Ian on this. It seems that bagging up some original hardware and replacing it with something appropriate is a reasonable way to go. Tuners and nut aren’t going to mean any invasive, irreversible changes so I think you can rest easy there.
As for anything that is invasive or irreversible, like I said: Explain how you’ll do the job, why you recommend it, and what it means if (a) you do it and (b) you don’t do it.
The last thing (which probably isn’t relevant here but is worth saying) is that you need to be pretty sure you can do a good job on anything you undertake. We all have to push ourselves sometimes and take a chance on a job that’s on the edge of our skills — that’s part of how we grow. We just need to be judicious about when we do those jobs and what the downside might be if we can’t pull it out of the bag as well as we thought. It’s always good to consider these things a little more carefully when the terribly expensive instrument is on our bench.
My two cents.
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Check out Seymour Duncan’s diagram at https://www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/P90_Standard.jpg
Wire like that and ignore the tone pots – just pretend they’re not there. Don’t forget a ground wire from the jack ground/sleeve lug to the back of the volume pot.
Standard Gibson-style wiring has both volumes ‘active’ in the bridge+neck position. That means adjusting one volume affects the sound of both pickups. That’s fine for most people but, if you don’t like it, search for ‘gibson independent volume controls’ and you should find heaps of info.
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Ok. First thing is that I need to put on a big disclaimer. Since you’re committing to a reasonable amount of work to modify and pot three humbuckers, I’d feel better if you were able to test this before doing all that work. I think it should work but haven’t done any extensive testing. The ideal would be if you happened to have three Strat pickups lying around and could mock up a prototype circuit to be sure.
That said, this seems to make sense in my head so hopefully it translates to reality.
The problem with this is trying to keep the pickups isolated and not accidentally link them causing issues. I think I’ve managed to do this by separating the bridge and middle negative (ground) wires and controlling them via the second side of the switch. That way, each is only connected to ground when that position is selected. Then we can interrupt that ground connection and join it to the neck hot wire via the push-pull.
I’ve used Seymour Duncan colours for this so you’ll need to transpose if you have different hook-up wire colours.
The neck negative (ground) is soldered to a pot as normal. The bridge and middle negatives go via the switch. The pickup series links (if you choose to expose them when rewiring the pickups) will just be soldered together and taped as usual. All bare wires for pickup shielding are soldered to a pot case too.
Hope this (a) makes sense and (b) actually works.
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I should mention for completeness that it is possible to rewire the internals of the pickups in order to add a separate wire to act as the pickup’s ground/shield. It tends to be a pretty fiddly job though so you’d have to really want a series connection.
I should also mention that, since you mentioned these were braided pickups, I haven’t actually spent the time to work out a circuit to see if the actual switching is possible. 😄 If you’re determined enough that you’re considering rewiring pickup internals, let me know so I can think about the rest of it.
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Ok. Bad news. The pickups here mean we can’t easily accomplish what you’re looking for.
Let me try to explain why. Check out the drawing which might make this easier to see.
The individual pickups are typically combined in parallel. The positive wire from each pickup gets joined together somewhere (maybe via the switch for instance) and all the negative wires are usually joined together at a ground point like a pot case.
When we connect pickups in series, we take the positive wire from one pickup and join it to the negative wire from another. The current then flows through each pickup, one after the other.
If you imagine a couple of Strat pickups, this is straightforward. The white wire from one pickup is connected/switched to the black wire from another and that connects them in series. With a four-wire humbucker, we can do something similar.
However with a two wire humbucker with the braided sheath, the negative wire also serves as the pickup’s ground/shield connection (it’s connected to the pickup’s metal base plate and metal cover). That means, if you were to join these types of pickups in series, for one pickup, that sheath, base plate, and metal cover are now carrying the hot signal too. Things will become incredibly noisy. Too noisy to be useful.
Long story, short: Connecting these pickups in series isn’t really practical. Sorry.
Hope this all makes sense.
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Hi Iker
We talked a little offline on this but I want to check with you on some hardware questions and also to get some clarification on exactly what you’re hoping to achieve
You mentioned a St.Vincent guitar so we’re taking about three pickups. You also mentioned a 3-way switch instead of a 5-way.
First question is what pickup selections you want. With a 3-way switch, there’s not so much choice so I’m guessing it’s just bridge/middle/neck one at a time.
This being the case, you want an option to bring in the neck pickup in series with EITHER the bridge or middle? Is that right?
Regarding the existing pickups? What are their hook-up cables like? Are they two wire pickups. Are they four wire? Are they braided cable.
If you can let me know, I’ll have a think about this. First thoughts are that, if you’re hoping to get the neck in series with either of the others, it probably complicates things but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.
Oh, lastly, are you open to different hardware/switches if needed?
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The reply in the Warmoth forum looks sound. Nothing else leaps to mind for a solution so I say go with this. I don’t expect there will be any issue with not having the red grounded in the split position. That coil is out of circuit so it shouldn’t cause any hassle.
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Hey Bryan
This is a little unusual but I think it should be possible.
The bridge and neck are wired to the 3-way as usual. There’s a fixed 470K resistor between the bridge and ground. Using a 500K pot for volume, this means that the pot’s resistance is halved when the bridge pickup is active — it makes the bridge positions only see (approx) 250K. That also applies to the bridge/neck mix but that seems a reasonable compromise unless you want to start installing super switches.
The middle pickup is switched on the push-pull (use a toggle if you want). Pulled up, it’s active and its signal goes straight to the volume (which is effectively a master volume now). Pushed down, the middle pickup is completely grounded and out of circuit.
This works in my head. Hopefully reality concurs.
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Hey Corey
I started out, in a small workshop out the back of my home, filled with naïveté and fake confidence. I’m still in that same workshop but am a little less naive and maybe faking things a little less. It sounds to me like you’re far, far better prepared and experienced than I was. I say trust your experience. Go for it. 🙂
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Hey Scott. Here’s how I decided to skin this particular cat. I used a 4PDT. And, as luck would have it, a Fender S1 works quite well for the job if you don’t want to try fit in that extra toggle.
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A thought in re-reading. I think you mentioned that you disconnected the series link from the switch but that the humbucker was still splitting in one position. If the series link is just twisted together as usual and not connected to either the hot or ground that shouldn’t happen. Maybe we should double check our pickup colours to be sure we’re on the right track
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Just catching up on this now. Sorry. Agree with Jacob that a recap of what’s needed in every position would be useful and please include pot info too if you want them to do particular things.
Maybe confirm what pickups you have too and if you know the colours for each. 👍
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Jacob’s switching is more elegant but, just in case you need more options, I’ve included another circuit. As shown, this one splits the humbucker to the opposite coil as Jacob’s and has the humbucker split for the Neck + Bridge selection (in case that’s important for your customer). Remove the pink wire if you want the N+B selection to be full humbucker.
I’ve also taken one of the poles for tone outputs. As it’s a super Strat style, I figured a tone for the bridge pickup would be expected so it’s got an output for Bridge tone and one for a Neck/Middle tone control.
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Yeah, should be possible. I’ve a few wiring things to think about and hope to get some time in the next day or two so will draw something out for you then. Do you/customer intend keeping the regular Strat tone configuration?
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Hey Ben
Sounds like Timothy’s done a much better job than I could at answering this. I don’t build pickups so I have relatively limited experience. I’ve potted quite a few pickups over the years, though, and the owners and I never noticed any real impact to the tone but maybe that means I was accidentally doing a good job on it. 😄 -
Hey Ben
Those slides just control linear potentiometers inside. Something like the photo below. I don’t know for certain but I’d guess that part (let’s call it a ‘paddle’) should either clip or maybe glue/cement/epoxy to the movable part of the linear pot. You’ll probably need to dismantle the preamp to take a look. Hopefully it’ll be repairable. 🤞
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Try connecting your pickup hot wires to the middle lug of each volume pot. The output wire from volume pot to switch will then come from lug 3 on the pot. Essentially swap the IN and OUT wires on the volume pots from where they appear to be in your photo
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Check out https://www.musicpickups.com and drop an email through the contact page. It’s run by a guy called Ben Cheevers and he’s a total nerd on this stuff. He might be able to point you in the right direction. Not sure if he can help out but, if anybody can, it’s him.
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musicpickups.com | vintage musical instrument pickups, effects units and amplifiers from Rowe Dearmond, Toledo, Ohio
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Yeah. That should work as described. Only thing to watch out for is, if you’re looking for the middle position to be off, you’ll need an ON/OFF/ON DPDT. Otherwise, the middle position will do something unplanned. 🙂
A regular 2-position switch would work if the middle off position isn’t needed.
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Hi Nicola
My active electronics knowledge isn’t strong enough to help you track down a faulty component on the preamp board. Sorry. A couple of things worth checking though.
First is to check or even replace the battery clip. Because it’s handled and pulled around a lot, these fail pretty easily. I’ve found more than a few preamp problems that were down to loose or troublesome connections on the battery clip.
Related, check the 9V connections on the board to ensure, it’s actually getting power when the jack is plugged in. I suspect this isn’t the issue because you’re hearing some noise but it’s worth checking.
If it’s neither of those (off board) things it looks like being a preamp component and things get more difficult (for me, anyway). Is the noise you hear consistent? Does it change if you adjust any controls? Does moving or (carefully) tapping the board with something non-conductive cause any change? Same question for any pickup, battery, or jack hook-up wires. Can you hear a clunk if you tap a pickup pole with a screwdriver? Is the noise random or repeating?
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One other thing (although you’ve probably already taken care of it): Those caps and resistor can present a lot of exposed hook-up wires. Make sure everything around there is well insulated so that nothing can short to somewhere it shouldn’t be. 🙂
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Hey Thom
I think the circuit looks good so, as long as you’ve replicated it, it seems like all should be ok. From what you’ve said, I understand that everything works properly except that, when you turn down the tone control (greasebucket) nothing happens — it has no effect. That being the case, it seems like there are a couple of possibilities that I can think of.
1. Something’s come loose as it was all being poked back into the f-hole. It’s such a fiddly job that it’s really easy to knock a wire or component loose as you wrestle with it. I’ve done it dozens of times. Double check the capacitor and resistor connections to the pot (and the cap-to-resistor joint too).
2. Triple check the ground wire going to the tone pot casing. If there no ground, there’s nowhere for the greasebucket to shunt signal to and nothing will happen.
3. As you mention, one of the components could be faulty. If you can replace the capacitors with alternatives, try that. Try another resistor. Try another pot. You may have some luck using a test lead or piece of wire to ‘bypass’ components as a test to see what happens but replacing them will be more certain.
As a last-ditch you could try installing a standard tone control arrangement and see what happens. If nothing else, it’ll point to the problem being in the tone area or in the rest of the circuit.
If I’ve misunderstood the symptoms, let me know. Also, let me know if this doesn’t work.
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Hey Ben
My feeling is that there are many millions of Strats out there with strings that don’t sit nicely over the poles pieces and, most of the time, it’s not an issue. It’s one of those things that might look wrong but probably sounds just fine. Have a listen and use that information to determine if there’s something to worry about.
If it really is a problem, you can get different pickups. There’s already a blade pickup installed so maybe the owner is willing to go with one in the bridge position too. Some makers offer different string spacing for Strat pickups (Kinman, for instance). These aren’t all that common but you might find some that work.
Personally, I wouldn’t file/notch Strat saddles to try change the string spacing. If it’s really an issue, it might be worth seeing if you can find a new bridge with a tighter spacing although that comes with playability considerations.
Short version: There’s a pretty good chance it’s not a problem aurally but if it is, the owner might have to compromise pickup or bridge choices.
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I checked on Music Nomad’s very handy truss rod finder and it tells me the US models use a 5/16″ but the Korean-made instruments are 7mm.
https://www.musicnomadcare.com/How-To-Advice/Truss-Rod-Wrench-Finder/musicnomadcare.com
Find the Truss Rod Wrench You Need for Your Guitar - Music Nomad
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I’m trying to get this straight in my head but things might go slowly with forum back-and-forths. Are you available to pop on the loothalong at some point in the next few days to talk it through?
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Just to confirm, you’ve disconnected the middle pickup’s hot wire from the push pull switch and the other pickups work as expected?
Can you post a photo of the wiring? 👍
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Ah. Missed the bit about wanting vol and tone on the blower. I think if you’re happy with an S1, this will do it. Just interrupts the middle and neck pickups. Don’t ground them in this scenario as it could pull everything down to ground depending on the selector position.
It’s pretty much what you’d already figured out. Engaging it breaks the coil-split ground, breaks the neck and mid feeds to the switch and shunts the bridge directly to the volume pot input. Makes sense in my head. Hope it makes sense in wire and solder. I’ve shown the S1 as the volume here.
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There’s no reason you couldn’t do it. Only you and your customer can find the reasons you shouldn’t do it. 😄
You can get all three coils working in series if you want (you can have two humbuckers/four coils in series too if you want). I have a feeling your other thoughts probably give you some better options for most people though. -
Hope it works out. 👍
