push/pull pot to select pickups.

XJ980

Hey there, I have a question for you all out there.

I am building an explorer style guitar and want to go with a minimalistic design. I only want the 2 humbuckers, 1 volume, and my output.

I wa browsing SD's wiring diagrams and came across the scheme where there is a single coil at the neck and a humbucker at the bridge, and the push/pull volume pot allows you to select pickups (down for bridge and pulled up for neck). I was thinking, Just like a single coil pickup, a humbucker, (when not coil splitting) has a ground and a hot, so I should be  able to do the same wiring scheme but with two humbuckers?

what are your opinions on this? This is a cool idea in my mind and it will, 1. help me achieve the minimalistic design that i want, and 2. this wiring will be helpful for me since i dont use the neck pup as often as the bridge.

Thanks for any help in advance!

mart

It can certainly be done, and would help you achieve a minimalist look. But in my experience, push/pull switches are not easy to pull up in a hurry, so not ideal for switching pickup selections. 

You could try a push/push instead, but then you wouldn't have a visual indicator of which pickup is selected. You could get round that problem by fitting some LEDs to show which pickup is on, but that might not be minimalist enough for you.

If you want to go minimalist, how about losing the volume control, and using a volume pedal instead?

XJ980

mart said:

It can certainly be done, and would help you achieve a minimalist look. But in my experience, push/pull switches are not easy to pull up in a hurry, so not ideal for switching pickup selections. 

You could try a push/push instead, but then you wouldn't have a visual indicator of which pickup is selected. You could get round that problem by fitting some LEDs to show which pickup is on, but that might not be minimalist enough for you.

If you want to go minimalist, how about losing the volume control, and using a volume pedal instead?

Thanks for the reply, and the ideas. About the pedal, I dont really use pedals much. I am building this guitar as my GCSE project in school. I play in school concerts and sometimes outside of school in a band so a pedal isnt ideal for me.

I already have my electronics, including my spare push pull pot (ive built a guitar and modded several others before) and I was just looking around for some fairly unique wiring.

As an example, If I am playing Sweet Child O Mine, then the whole song is played in the neck position, but then the fast part of the solo onwards, Slash quickly switches to the bridge pup to continue, and with the push pull config I figured i can just hit the pot and it will make switching easier. 

I dont switch on the fly that often, and if i do it is from neck to bridge, so I wouldn't have to worry about pulling the pot up on the fly.

Got any other ideas, I like this one but I am always willing to listen to others

mart

If you wire it so that pull gives neck, then yes, you'll be able to switch from neck to bridge quickly. But not so quickly coming back out of the solo for the rest of the song.

But try it your way and see. Hopefully you'll prove me wrong! And if you're building this for your GCSE, then you'll probably have plenty more guitar builds in your future to try out other ideas.

XJ980

mart said:

If you wire it so that pull gives neck, then yes, you'll be able to switch from neck to bridge quickly. But not so quickly coming back out of the solo for the rest of the song.

But try it your way and see. Hopefully you'll prove me wrong! And if you're building this for your GCSE, then you'll probably have plenty more guitar builds in your future to try out other ideas.

Alright thanks! and I probably worded it wrong, once slash switches to the bridge mid solo, he doesn't switch back Thanks for your help though

axisus

mart said:

You could try a push/push instead, but then you wouldn't have a visual indicator of which pickup is selected. 

Yes you do, it is raised up a bit in one position. Just fitted one this weekend.