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5 way rotary switch?

4

4bassguitar

Feb 3, 2010
38
0
#1
Hello again!
I am putting together a dual p pickup bass and I'm using a 5 way rotary switch as a pickup selector to utilize series and parallel options. Originally I wanted a 4 way switch, but I found an unopened Stewart Mac 5 way rotary switch in my house. How would I wire this? Both my pickups have 4 connector wires. Please and thank you
 
#6
4bassguitar said:
Hello again!
I am putting together a dual p pickup bass and I'm using a 5 way rotary switch as a pickup selector to utilize series and parallel options. Originally I wanted a 4 way switch, but I found an unopened Stewart Mac 5 way rotary switch in my house. How would I wire this? Both my pickups have 4 connector wires. Please and thank you
Click to expand...

When you say "dual P pickup" I assume you mean a p-pair at the neck (usual) position and another pair at the bridge. The way I would wire those would be with the usual 4 options. Neck only, both series, both parallel, bridge only.

Since P pickups have two coils you can put those in series or parallel too as an option, but I built that into my Squire P/J 5er and I found that P-pickup-pairs in parallel really just aren't that useful. In my case I had vol/vol so the usual 4 way switch wasn't an option.

And as for the 5th position? Well as it turns out I did one of those nifty 5 way switches as well and I decided to use the 5th position as "mute". Just run everything to ground. After using it for a while I have to admit that a "mute" position is a VERY nice feature to have. You'd think that just turning down the volume isn't that big a deal, but I tell ya, the mute switch IS nice to have.
 

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