Noob asking for help

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Offline JimEVee

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Noob asking for help
« on: July 09, 2020, 09:36:40 AM »
Dear pickup experts :

I have an abused pre owned fender 50s Japanese telecaster ..I think those were made in the nineties at some point ..My plan since the guitar is basswood that doesn't have that "twang" is to repair it repaint it and install some real rock set of pickups ...I decided to go with a mini humbucker for neck and a full humbucker on bridge.

Here is my trouble now : I play everything from funk, classic rock, to shreddy stuff  virtuosity etc. I also have a soft soft spot for 80s melodic metal , rock and AOR... My pickup choices as a Dimarzio fan for this particular built are :
1. DP 240 mini humbucker on bridge
2. Andy Timmons AT-1 or the Steve Lukather transition for bridge .....

What do you guys think would be the best choice ..anything else would work better ? Can I install also a super switch for extra versatility??
On YouTube there are no good clips of the for mentioned pickups especially the AT-1....

Please help?

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Offline darkbluemurder

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2020, 12:03:20 PM »
I guess you meant DP-240 mini for the neck position. That would be an excellent choice and would cover the bases you enumerated. It is one of my personal favorite neck pickups. I have two of them in two different telecasters and a third one which is not yet installed in anything.

AT-1 would be a good match. I still have that combination on one of the teles. In the other the bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Custom 5 which I preferred as I was looking for less midrange in that particular guitar.

A 5-way super switch is a clever idea. Where space is at a premium (i.e. in teles), the Eyb Megaswitch M is a good solution. I wired mine in the following way

- Neck humbucker
- neck humbucker in parallel with bridge humbucker parallel (excellent tele tone)
- neck humbucker in parallel with bridge humbucker series (same as before but a little fuller in the low end)
- bridge humbucker parallel (this emulates the tele bridge tone quite well)
- bridge humbucker series

Easy to operate and very versatile.

Cheers Stephan
Area 67, Area 58, Area 61, VV Pro 54, Injectors, VV HB2, Virtual Solo, SDS-1, Area T, Area T 615, Virtual Hot T, Chopper T, Bluesbucker, Breed set, Air Norton, Super Distortion, DLX+ set, DLX-90, DP240, DP198, DP168, VPAF b, AT-1, Mo' Joe, FRED, Super 2; GS b

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Offline JimEVee

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2020, 12:55:50 PM »
Stephan

Thanks for the reply if you could be so kind can you tell me where to find the schematic for this wiring? Also I was wondering have you used any caps or resistors in your circuit ? Was also thinking coil splitting for some positions is  it  a  good or bad idea?

Thanks again
Jim

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Offline darkbluemurder

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2020, 03:06:39 AM »
I don't like coil splits as they lose the humcancelling effect but if it does not bother you why not?

I worked the wiring out myself. I have to check where I put the notes so I could scan it for you.

I only used a 470k resistor to give the parallel humbucker positions a lower load (approx. 240k) instead of the 500k for the other positions - otherwise the parallel humbucker would be very very bright. It works like this: see the wiring in the link: https://guitarelectronics.com/humbucker-series-off-parallel/

See the two middle lugs? Put the resistor there. In series mode the lugs are connected so the resistor is bridged and out of the circuit. In parallel mode it goes from hot to ground and is therefore in parallel with the 500k volume pot, thus lowering the total load. The formula to calculate the total load is Rg = R1xR2/(R1+R2).

Cheers Stephan
Area 67, Area 58, Area 61, VV Pro 54, Injectors, VV HB2, Virtual Solo, SDS-1, Area T, Area T 615, Virtual Hot T, Chopper T, Bluesbucker, Breed set, Air Norton, Super Distortion, DLX+ set, DLX-90, DP240, DP198, DP168, VPAF b, AT-1, Mo' Joe, FRED, Super 2; GS b

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Offline JimEVee

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2020, 04:47:06 AM »
Thank you so much for the input Stephan.

Thing is I am total noob when it comes to circuitry. I have a friend that is going to help but I am afraid his experience is only with amps as he is a technician doing mostly hi fi stuff.
A full schematic would be much appreciated till I get more experienced ...hahaha .....well as for the splitting my initial thought was like this :

1. Mini humbucker by itself.
2. Split on both outer coil working on mini and inner coil working on humbucker
3. Split both inner coils working
4. Split inner coil working on mini and outer on humbucker
5. Humbucker by itself


Are those options provide hum canceling for 2 ,3,4 positions?
Also someone else mentioned "Fred" as a good option ....the humbucker thing really puzzles me as I try to make the best combo possible .....
Thanks again for the help
Jim

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Offline darkbluemurder

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2020, 02:31:18 AM »
Whether 2,3 and 4 are humcancelling in that set up depends on the magnetic polarity, which should be the same if you stick with DiMarzio. But in the normal orientation and wiring my guess is that # 2 and 4 would be humcancelling whereas #3 would not.

I am not sure whether these split positions would all sound different from each other - why not choose both humbuckers for #3?

Cheers Stephan
Area 67, Area 58, Area 61, VV Pro 54, Injectors, VV HB2, Virtual Solo, SDS-1, Area T, Area T 615, Virtual Hot T, Chopper T, Bluesbucker, Breed set, Air Norton, Super Distortion, DLX+ set, DLX-90, DP240, DP198, DP168, VPAF b, AT-1, Mo' Joe, FRED, Super 2; GS b

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Offline JimEVee

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2020, 12:13:37 PM »
Stephan
As I was revising my plan it seemed a ton complicated tbh.....on the other hand your wiring has potential since its already tested .....also makes a lot of sense too....
Could you possibly direct me to a full schematic of your wiring considering that both will be dimarzios ...I think there is a difference with colour codes etc...after this is solved I will have to ask what to do with my strat next ..so be patient with me here...
Thanks a ton
Jim

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Offline darkbluemurder

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #7 on: July 13, 2020, 01:35:35 PM »
Seems like no diagram on the DiMarzio website matches mine exactly. Most put the neck pickup in parallel or split it, which I do not with the DP240 - I am not even sure if that would be useful as the DP240 is already bright enough in series mode. I haven't yet found my note but I can tell you what I did. I wanted the following positions:

1 = neck
2 = neck in parallel with the bridge in parallel mode
3 = neck in parallel with the bridge in series mode
4 = bridge in parallel mode
5 = bridge in series mode

I used a 4 level 5 way switch (what DiMarzio refers to as "multipole switch", aka "super switch" or "mega switch").  Each level contains 6 lugs, one of them is "common" - this is the one that the others connect to depending on where the switch is set. The individual switch positions are independent of each other, i.e. lug 1 has no internal connection to lug 2 or lug 3 etc. It is only connected to the common lug in switch position #1 but not in all the other positions. The four levels are identical so you can decide which you use as "level 1" and so on.

- I used the first level of the 4 level 5 way switch to control the neck pickup, which means the common lug goes to the volume pot input, and the neck pickup (red lead) goes to the positions where I want it to be heard, i.e. positions 1, 2 and 3. Green lead of the neck pickup goes to ground, Black and White are soldered together and taped off - they are not needed for my wiring.
- I used the second level of the switch to control the bridge pickup. Again, common lug goes to the volume (or to common lug of level 1) and the bridge pickup (red lead if it is a DiMarzio) goes to the positions where I want it to be heard (i.e. positions 2, 3, 4 and 5). Green lead goes to ground. Black and White will not be connected at the moment as we still have to implement the series parallel wiring with the remaining two levels.

For the series/parallel switching of the bridge pickup we will use level 3 and level 4 of the switch. Connect the black wire to the common lug of level 3 and the white wire to the common lug of level 4. As we want them to be connected for the series link in the switch positions 3 and 5, we would connect lugs no. 3 of both levels and lugs no. 5 of both levels.

For parallel operation, the black wire must go to ground, and the white wire must go to hot. This means that in order to get the bridge pickup working in parallel in #2 and #4, lugs 2 and 4 of level 3 must be connected to ground, and lugs 2 and 4 of level 4 must be connected to the volume pot.

That is the switch wiring, and this is the most complex part of the wiring. Volume and tone controls are wired in the normal way in my guitar so you can take a standard tele diagram for that.

Hope that helps,
Stephan
Area 67, Area 58, Area 61, VV Pro 54, Injectors, VV HB2, Virtual Solo, SDS-1, Area T, Area T 615, Virtual Hot T, Chopper T, Bluesbucker, Breed set, Air Norton, Super Distortion, DLX+ set, DLX-90, DP240, DP198, DP168, VPAF b, AT-1, Mo' Joe, FRED, Super 2; GS b

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BluesJam

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2020, 08:08:43 PM »
I think the DiMarizio EJ (Eric Johnson) set is a low wind humbucker with single coil overtones.  Humbucker from Hell, would be great too

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Offline darkbluemurder

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Re: Noob asking for help
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2020, 04:04:38 PM »
And here is the diagram to my essay above.

You will note the 330k to 470k resistor between the common terminals of levels 3 and 4. This is a tip from RayBarbeeMusic (many thanks, Ray!). It lowers the load of the bridge pickup in parallel mode to tame excessive brightness. In series mode the resistor is shunted and thus out of the circuit.

Cheers Stephan
« Last Edit: July 20, 2020, 04:07:04 PM by darkbluemurder »
Area 67, Area 58, Area 61, VV Pro 54, Injectors, VV HB2, Virtual Solo, SDS-1, Area T, Area T 615, Virtual Hot T, Chopper T, Bluesbucker, Breed set, Air Norton, Super Distortion, DLX+ set, DLX-90, DP240, DP198, DP168, VPAF b, AT-1, Mo' Joe, FRED, Super 2; GS b