I have a "teaching guitar" (£35 Pacifica) that I use to learn various guitar modding techniques on.
I was looking to have a hot HSS setup so I've bought and fitted a couple of Iron Gear Texas Loco single coils and a Dirty Torque Humbucker. Even with the stock pots and wiring they sound much better than the stock 112 pickups and it has a lot more crunch to it.
I have a 500k Push/ Pull Volume, 500k tone and CRL 5 way switch ordered but I was wondering in order to balance the single coils and humbuckers could you use a Stacked Concentric Audio Taper Pot - 250K/500K for the tone and wire it like two separate pots (like a regular two tone pot Strat. 250k side to single coils and 500k side to humbucker) and if this is possible what would the wiring layout look like? In my ignorance I feel this wouldn't be difficult until you factor the coil split on the humbucker into the equation.
Any thoughts, wiring layout ideas and links to sites that might help me would be appreciated
Comments
What to do is use 500K pots for both, and use the other side of the pickup selector switch and the second pole of the push-pull to engage a 500K resistor (470K is the nearest standard value) to emulate a 250K volume pot when the single-coil pickups are in use or the humbucker is split. It's the volume pot value that matters most, not the tone.
I would also use the push-pull for the tone pot not the volume unless you really prefer it in the front position - the tapers are often not as good.
I don't have the wiring diagram drawn out, but I think there's another thread here with it... or if you can follow a 'descriptive' schematic -
If you label the six terminals on the push-pull as
1 4
2 5
3 6
(1 and 4 closest to the pot body)
1 to ground
2 to the humbucker coil split connection
3 no connection
4 to the volume pot input (end) terminal
5 to the 470K resistor which then goes to ground at the other end
6 to the neck and middle pickup terminals on the second side of the selector switch
The two rotors on each side of the selector are connected together (as normal for Strat wiring where the second side selects the tone controls).
Does any of that make sense?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Additionally, I am not certain that the control cavity in older Pacifica 112 guitars is deep enough to accommodate push/pull, push/push or stacked up dual concentric or dual ganged pots.
The more recent variant with rear-mounted controls might fair better in this respect.
If you're doing a partial split on the humbucker you might not need the resistor to simulate the 250k pot when it's split (as the partial split makes things a lot warmer/darker anyway). The Dirty Torque may be hot enough not to need a partial split resistor, though. But all of the humbuckers I've wired to split (admittedly not as hot as the Dirty Torque), I've just used a partial split resistor and not bothered with the switched 470k resistor as it's a lot easier to wire!
@Funkfingers I'll have a measure up on the cavity when the pots arrive and get the power tools out if necessary.
@Dave_Mc Prior to your suggestion I didn't even know what a partial split was but if my research has informed me correctly I'll be coil splitting a 16.4kOhm humbucker to a 8.2kOhm single coil which is still hotter than my neck (6.2kOhm) and middle (6.5kOhm) SC's.
I do appreciate all your input. In a week or so we'll see whether I have understood things properly.
That's assuming that the humbucker is symmetrically-wound (it might not be or it might be; symmetrical means the same number of winds on each coil) and also assuming that single coils and split humbuckers are directly comparable in terms of output related to DC resistance (they're different enough in construction that they might not be- I'm not sure!).
All that being said, it's really a matter of personal preference etc.- you really won't know if you need a partial split resistor until you try it. I definitely felt that the JB in my Framus could have done with a partial split resistor even though it was similar output to yours (I never bothered because I was planning to swap it out eventually anyway). But other pickups are sometimes fine if they're hot and/or warm-sounding enough. You can also use a trimpot (probably 10k... 5k gives you more fine control, but you can run out of room especially on the bridge pickup where you might want slightly more than 5k!) which lets you really dial in the amount of partial split (if you don't lose the will to live before you've finished adjusting it! ) but it's easier to adjust one of those in a rear-routed guitar... (I think some of the Pacificas are but some aren't)
Also I should add @TonyC63 - I just remembered that Irongear helpfully does list its wire gauges for its pickups. The Dirty Torque is indeed 44AWG and the Texas Loco is 42AWG, so what I said about the relative resistances should (more or less) hold- though as I said, whether splits' resistances are directly relatable to genuine Strat single coil resistances, I'm not so sure.
An alternative if the cap has long leads is to put the cap between the volume and tone pots - the same terminals - and ground the tone pot middle terminal.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein