PRS "rotary to toggle" mod - reversible?

PonchoGreg

For anyone who's replaced a 5-way rotary with a 3-way toggle: is that a permanent mod, given that the hole needs to be enlarged to fit the switch? Or will the rotary fit back in just fine with washers?

Thanks!

PhilKing

The rotary will go back in with washers and you won't see it under the knob.  I picked up a PRS Artist II many years ago and the previous owner had done that to it, but I wanted to make it look original and was able to do it.  In those days you had to get the rotary switches from PRS, and I had to give them the serial number of the guitar.  Now they are easy to get hold of.

PonchoGreg

Thanks man - I've actually just measured a standard pot washer and it looks like it would cover up the 1/2" hole adequately

Jalapeno

It always felt odd to me - a 5-way rotary with a knob numbered 1-10, and no reference point

If it has a 5 way switch I'd leave it, a 3-way with push/pull pots, not so sure

PonchoGreg

Jalapeno said:

It always felt odd to me - a 5-way rotary with a knob numbered 1-10, and no reference point

If it has a 5 way switch I'd leave it, a 3-way with push/pull pots, not so sure

It's actually a stock rotary - guitar is on the way and I've never used the rotary setup before, so will most likely play around with it for a little while before making any alterations. But I instinctively have the same reservation as you re: reference point so started thinking about the McCarty wiring alternative, in case I decide I can live without the various coil permutations of the rotary.

ICBM

I just find the rotary such a huge faff to use that I would always fit the toggle and push-pull - or push-push - switch, but it's a personal thing and you do need to try it first, preferably in a band situation. (Might be difficult at the moment.)

I could just about see the point if it had more sounds than you can get with simple switching, or some really different ones, but just to get five sounds it seems like a backward design step. You get six with a toggle and just one pull-switch...

PonchoGreg

ICBM said:

I could just about see the point if it had more sounds than you can get with simple switching, or some really different ones, but just to get five sounds it seems like a backward design step. You get six with a toggle and just one pull-switch...

Exactly - it's likely to be the PCB version too, so preset combos. At least the McCarty wiring allows for two positions that I would instinctively favour over some of the rotary ones, namely neck single on it own, and neck single + full bridge (in parallel) if I decide not to split the bridge.

Anyway - I might fall in love with the rotary so will give it a fair shake!

PeteC

Ive tried both - and much prefer the McCarty wiring ( that is, the coil split and toggle, not the original non-coil tap 3-way option that the first McCarty's had)
But give it a go and see what you prefer. 

What I didn't like was not being able to tell what position I was in during a gig. 

Jalapeno

One of these might help of course ....

ICBM

PeteC said:

What I didn't like was not being able to tell what position I was in during a gig. 

This, plus -

Not being able to just hit the switch with the side of your hand in between beats, you have to grasp the knob.
Not being able to quickly change from one position to any other except one of the end positions without having to count the clicks, or go all the way to the end and then back one.
The loud-quiet-loud-quiet-loud arrangement, with the resulting wrong output level if you click it one too many or too few (much worse than just getting the wrong type of sound).

The only real disadvantage of the toggle and pull-switch is that some changes need two hand movements, but I never found that a problem - I could even do that quicker than having to turn the rotary.

PonchoGreg

@ICBM ; when you've done the mod, how did you go about enlarging the hole? Tapered reamer followed by drill bit?

ICBM

PonchoGreg said:

@ICBM ; when you've done the mod, how did you go about enlarging the hole? Tapered reamer followed by drill bit?

Why a drill bit? A reamer is all you need.

PonchoGreg

ICBM said:

PonchoGreg said:

@ICBM ;; when you've done the mod, how did you go about enlarging the hole? Tapered reamer followed by drill bit?

Why a drill bit? A reamer is all you need.

Ah cool. I thought that the reamer would do a tapered hole, i.e. it would be too wide on the top by the time I got the right width at the bottom, if that makes sense

ICBM

PonchoGreg said:

Ah cool. I thought that the reamer would do a tapered hole, i.e. it would be too wide on the top by the time I got the right width at the bottom, it makes sense

Slightly, but the taper is shallow and the top of the guitar is thin enough that it makes no practical difference.

Funkfingers

The five-way rotary selector offers some coil combinations that would be a PITA to get from a three-way Switchcraft selector and one push-pull pot.

The inside coils to outside coils change requires a second switch. 

The inside coils in series option requires another switch.

Further, the magnet flip that makes the split coils modes noise-cancelling with the five-way rotary selector will screw up the three-way conversion.

My solution was the Freeway 3X3-03 six-way toggle selector. It will take some head scratching to wire up the pickup permutations you require but the effort will be worth it.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

The inside coils to outside coils change requires a second switch.

True, but that then gives you nine sounds.

Funkfingers said:

The inside coils in series option requires another switch.

No it doesn't. You just avoid having that awful sound .

Funkfingers said:

Further, the magnet flip that makes the split coils modes noise-cancelling with the five-way rotary selector will screw up the three-way conversion.

It works exactly the same. The only difference from a normal coil split scheme is that the connections must be to ground for one pickup and to hot for the other, which one is which depending on the coils you want to leave on - outer coils requires neck to hot and bridge to ground. (Edit - diagram below is correct.)

PonchoGreg

Yup - the following makes it all pretty clear actually

Looks like the standard split they're showing is for splitting to the inner coils, so using the treble wiring scheme for the neck (and vice versa) should split to the outers.

PonchoGreg

By way of an update, I now have the guitar and have mixed feelings about the rotary.

I actually quite like the inner coil series for cleans, a nice beefy sound that's a bit treblier than the neck humbucker. But the inner vs outer parallels is pretty much redundant on a 22 - there is a bit of a difference but it's very slight, and I actually prefer the outer split.

Beyond that, using the rotary is OK-ish. It's actually pretty firm to engage so hard to just roll off with the palm. It's pretty much a "grab it" job, which isn't great with a pick. And the fact that you need to rotate it towards the bridge, so to speak, to move towards the neck pickup is throwing me off!

Given all that, I think a McCarty setup is on the cards. I can live without the inner series setting, given the convenience trade-off. Will give it a few more days though.

ICBM

Aha! I had it the wrong way round. That means I’ve wired the Dragons I put in my Swamp Ash Special backwards, which makes no practical difference... it all works the same. I also prefer the outer coils.

I agree about the difference between inner and outer coils being fairly useless on a 22 - it’s much more noticeable on a 24 because the inner coils are closer together relative to the outers, so more Strat-like.

You do lose the series inner coils sound, but you also gain the both full humbuckers, which to me is a far better sound - it’s the one I use most.

By the way, it’s much better to do the coil splitting by simply connecting the red wire to hot or ground - if you ‘move’ the connection as shown in that diagram you leave the unused coil ‘floating’, which causes noise.

PonchoGreg

ICBM said:

By the way, it’s much better to do the coil splitting by simply connecting the red wire to hot or ground - if you ‘move’ the connection as shown in that diagram you leave the unused coil ‘floating’, which causes noise.

So basically both reds on the middle tabs of the push-pull, and then for the top tab: ground for the bridge side and toggle hot for the neck side? (leaving bottom row unused?

Edit: my bad would have to be reds on top and ground/hot on middle (otherwise the neck pickup would be disconnected altogether when not split)

ICBM

No, you've got it right - it doesn't matter which way round they're connected, and there is no disconnection. That's the second reason it's better to do it this way, as well as reducing noise - the full humbucker remains connected at all times, you just switch the split. The third reason is that it reduces switching noise because the signal path isn't briefly interrupted. Why PRS do it the wrong way I don't know...

For what it's worth, the reason I wired my Dragons the other way round is to do with physical layout in the cavity - with the bridge being switched to hot, I could more easily connect the bridge side of the toggle switch to the push-pull, as I wanted to do it with the DGT-type 'partial split' resistors. The resistors do make a noticeable difference to how good the split sounds are, so well worth considering.