Concentric Push Pull Pots For Under $50?

[Omnipharious]

Regardless of what I said and what the classical way of wiring is, color me interested in the results.

On that note, I have never wired anything like this before. I would go from the pickups to the switch plate, to the pots right? I guess it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm gonna have to break out some extra long solid core to do that for all of the pickups. I hope I have enough

 

[Nev375]

The lace sensor does not have a transformer component. It has weaker-than-normal magnets and a special metal shield to control hum and "focus" the magnetic field. Otherwise, they are pretty normal.

The transensors and alumitones are the ones with transformer components in them. They typically read about ~2K ohms rather than the usual ~8K ohms with a multimeter.

If you look at the underside of a transensor, you will see a mostly empty J bass cover that is lopsidedly potted with epoxy with a small cylinder submerged in the thicker end of the epoxy. That's how you can tell the difference if the printing has worn off the top of the pickup.

Not trying to be argumentative, but the transensor does not work well with a conventional J bass pickup. Sorry I cannot point you to a website with data to support this. I could prove it by rebuilding and rewiring my bass and posting a video demo, but I don't have the energy or motivation to do so.

 

[bassbenj]

Well, it seems that no one knows what a three-pickup bass sounds like, so I guess even if the rest of it is a bad idea, I should go through with it anyway, and post clips.

For the greater good.

Not such a bad idea. My Modulus is three pickups. The setup is Bridge, neck and what is often called "sweet spot" locations. It works pretty nice! I find that I sort of go in phases where sometimes all I use is the sweetspot, and others all I use are the bridge and neck together. I virtually never use all three at once in spite of ad I saw about a three pickup bass where the three together was supposed to peel the paint off the walls or something. I don't think so. No individual volumes or blend on mine you just get to select on or off for each pick up. I did mod mine however to change the switches so you can select series/off/parallel for each pickup. That gives more tonal selection range. Pretty nice.

Personally I am NO fan of the the separate tone for each pickup thing either on a guitar or a bass. On a passive instrument it basically doesn't work well. I've got a couple LP guitars with the VVTT thing and you might as well turn all knobs up full and slap a piece of duct tape over all the knobs and use the controls on the amp! Feh. Just too interactive.

I'm not a knob/switchophobe like some, (G&L, Conklin, etc.) but I have to say that over the years I've pretty much gone to switches over knobs for tonal changes. Trying to "dial-in" a Stingray tone while you are playing is a nightmare, but on the other hand, just flipping some switches to go from deep and dark to bright and loud is extremely useful. That's why I love my G&Ls where Leo went from all those "blend" things to just switching stuff in and out. Just my thoughts.

And Oh, the pots. Time for reminisce magazine! Back when American products were still the envy of the world, one of the pot companies used to make these modular pots. For example, you could buy two different pots of different values, a push pull switch of a couple of types and a concentric shaft front end of several shaft styles and lengths! You'd pick exactly what you needed and snap them together to make your pot. But that was then and this is now. Now I wonder how engineers can design ANY product using standard parts you can still get...

Good luck!

 

[Omnipharious]

not a knob/switchophobe like some, (G&L, Conklin, etc.) but I have to say that over the years I've pretty much gone to switches over knobs for tonal changes. Trying to "dial-in" a Stingray tone while you are playing is a nightmare, but on the other hand, just flipping some switches to go from deep and dark to bright and loud is extremely useful. That's why I love my G&Ls where Leo went from all those "blend" things to just switching stuff in and out. Just my thoughts.

I was kinda thinking of replacing the tone knob with a five way switch, with five different value caps on it, since the neck pickup is already so low, and the bridge pickup is so high, unless the tone is all the way off, I always end up fiddling with it when I go to a different pickup. Do you think I could fit a strat style five way switch, or the like, in a standard input sized hole? If not, I can get a varitone style five way, and just do it that way; I think either or would look fine.

 

[Omnipharious]

Okay, so I obviously have never played a strat. Looking at the switches a bit more now, I see that it would obviously fit through the hole, but it wouldn't be able to move more than like one position either way. So I guess I'm going with a rotary switch

Do you think this switch would be correct for what I want?
2pc 6Way Guitar Amplifier Rotary Switch for Custom Wiring | eBay

6 positions seem about right for me, but I'm not sure about what kind of switch I need exactly. I see many with 4 pole, 3 pole, and all kinds of stuff, and I have no idea what it means, because they all seem to look the same. I know it has CB legs, and they would be a bit of yakka to wire to, but the only 6 position switch with the correct legs cost big bikkies, and they have heads that would only fit small amp knobs.

 

[Omnipharious]

Okay, I've revised my plan a bit, and I was hoping to get some guidance on it.

I was hoping to use three jaguar style sliders for a normal/off/reverse wiring scheme for each pickup, but apparently those are SPDT, so that won't work, so I'm going to have to go with regular pole switches, which will hopefully wire to a push/pull volume for each pickup, going to a rotary five way rotary switch for four tone options, and a bypass. The push pulls would be for some combination of series/parallel switches for the bass. There are five different positions in which I could do such a switch, but I doubt I will like all five equally, so I will decide which positions each will effect once I can try them all.

You guys say there will be signal loss with the more junk I put in the guitar, so I have to take your word for it. But how much? Enough to really make a difference? The jazz is right at about the same volume level as the EB-0, and precision right now, so as long as it's not something above 5-10%, I wouldn't mind.