4 wire mini hum & Tele Bridge - switch options & pot values?

4mal · May 6th, 2008, 03:25 PM

Can I treat the humbucker as a set of single coils & do a 5 way ? Anything special about the switch itself I need to know of will any old Strat 5 way fit into a Tele too ?

Stew Mac has their Mega-Switch which looks kinda interesting ...

What pot values do you mini-hum or full sized humbucker int eh neck position guys use ? The Hummer is darker than I would like (it's new so I need to play it in for a bit and get used to it I suppose...) would 500K pots brithen it up ? would it make the Tele briodge pickup unbearably too brite ?

Is anyone out there doing a switch plus 3 hole Tele control plate ?

Chris Leger · May 6th, 2008, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4mal

Can I treat the humbucker as a set of single coils & do a 5 way ? Anything special about the switch itself I need to know of will any old Strat 5 way fit into a Tele too ?

Stew Mac has their Mega-Switch which looks kinda interesting ...

What pot values do you mini-hum or full sized humbucker int eh neck position guys use ? The Hummer is darker than I would like (it's new so I need to play it in for a bit and get used to it I suppose...) would 500K pots brithen it up ? would it make the Tele briodge pickup unbearably too brite ?

My first-ever post! I'm not as expert as some here, but I'm working around some of the same issues right now, and I've installed neck humbuckers in teles in the past, so maybe some of what I'm about to write will give you ideas or provoke a response from others more expert.

Having played in lots of cover bands in my youth, I eventually gravitated toward the tele with neck humbucker as versatile do-it-all guitar. I've owned 2 teles that I set up this way, and working on a third.

The way I do it is with a dual 500K pot, with a 500K resistor in parallel on one stage for a 500/250K pot. With a 250K pot, your humbucker will be rather dark, and with a 500K, your bridge will get a bit shrill. Whether it would be "unbearable" would be for you to decide, but I've never liked my guitars set up with a single 500K Pot (and I've tried it.)

Re: using the humbucker split with a 5-way, even if you can (and I don't know,) it wouldn't be worth it, if you ask me. The bobbins on the humbucker are too close together. In other words, I don't think there would such a great (or at least useful) difference between, say, bridge + HB bobbin #1, and bridge + HB bobbin #2. I've never tried it, I could be wrong, and maybe others will disagree.

If you want a 5-way set-up, I'd suggest you think about doing some more traditional things with the HB, e.g. in/out of phase, parallel, series, etc. I think you'll get more useful tones that way. The megaswitch will simplify all of this. If you're going to get fancy, that switch plus a push/pull pot to drop the HB to single will get you some real complexity.

Personally, I'm shooting for simplicity. I'll save my questions for my second post.

4mal · May 6th, 2008, 07:58 PM

Thanks Chris and welcome to what many of us think of as the most musical site on the net.

The dual 500K pot is vol or tone ? or both ? As a dual pot, it is two pot bodies on 1 shaft ? Not like a stacked pot where you use concentric, independant knobs ?

Chris Leger · May 6th, 2008, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4mal

Thanks Chris and welcome to what many of us think of as the most musical site on the net.

The dual 500K pot is vol or tone ? or both ? As a dual pot, it is two pot bodies on 1 shaft ? Not like a stacked pot where you use concentric, independant knobs ?

Thanks 4mal.

It's a "dual pot," 2 pot bodies on a single shaft (not concentric.) The only ones I've ever found have the same value for both "bodies." Used for volume control only. Like this:

http://www.tubedepot.com/rv24b-10-15r1-a.html

But they're available everywhere. All the mfrs make them. Get a dual 500K, put another 500K resistor across the hot/sweep on one of the "bodies," and you have a stacked 250/500K that gives volume control to both categories of pickup with the turn of a single knob. You could run a single humbucker and a pair of single coils, or any way you want to do it. On the one I have in my old guitar, I jumped the bodies and used the back of the outermost pot for grounding.

Worked well for me. I can't remember if I have a 250 or 500 for the tone control, but it doesn't really matter in my case, because I'm one of those guys that runs the tone wide-open 99.9% of the time.

Deaf Eddie · May 8th, 2008, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Re: using the humbucker split with a 5-way, even if you can (and I don't know,) it wouldn't be worth it, if you ask me. The bobbins on the humbucker are too close together. In other words, I don't think there would such a great (or at least useful) difference between, say, bridge + HB bobbin #1, and bridge + HB bobbin #2. I've never tried it, I could be wrong, and maybe others will disagree.

I concur. It can be easily done, but is not worth the effort. Not only will you (probably) not hear much difference between each of the two coils played solo, but you also lose the traditional warm humbucker tone - a humbucker's coils are played in series, not parallel as a standard 5-way scheme would have them.

You could certainly do some slick stuff with a Superswitch - I always do!

4mal · May 8th, 2008, 06:07 PM

So - should I skip the 5 way and simply add a coil tap for the bucker ?

Chris Leger · May 10th, 2008, 07:19 PM

My choice would be to have to option of the tapped humbucker.

Might want to still go with a 4 or 5-way switch though... you could use the two extra positions to run the tapped humbucker in parallel with the bridge pickup for an approximation of the OEM middle switch position, and maybe use the other to run the tapped humbucker in series with the bridge, for something like the "4-way series" mod that's so popular these days with the standard tele pickups.

Still can't decide myself what I want to do with my guitar. I may do the above, but I'm thinking about going with a neck humbucker and moving the OEM neck pickup to the middle. Or, I may try the same with a mini humbucker.

Decisions, decisions.

Chris Leger · May 10th, 2008, 07:39 PM

Wait... I forgot you were talking about a mini humbucker... I was thinking full size.

The minis that come from the usual places (Allparts, GFS, SD, etc) are not so hot that the single coil that results from tapping is going to be very useful... certainly not by itself. That's mostly true of even full size humbuckers (IMHO.) The full size humbuckers' tapped coils can provide useful sounds, but mostly (to my ear/tastes anyway) when used in concert with another pickup.

The minis are almost too weak for this. Again, others may disagree, and while you might still get some interesting tones, if it were me, and I wanted to mess with the usual phase/series/parallel tapped humber thing, I'd use a full size humbucker. Besides, the full size humbucker is great all by itself.

With the mini though, I don't think I'd bother tapping it, unless it were in order to have the option of running the single HB coil in series with the bridge, and in that case you should consider a 4 or 5 way switch, so you still get the 3 "stock" switching options.

On the other hand, with a mini, you might try just running the whole think in series with the bridge to really push your amp. (And in that case, you still might want to consider the 4-way switch in order to avoid the push/pull pot... I don't care for them that much. I just find them a pain to use because they're not as "visual" as a toggle. If I can keep everything on one switch, I'm happier, especially if I can see how my guitar is set without having to touch anything.)

All of this still has me thinking about my own guitar. Thanks for asking your questions.

4mal · May 12th, 2008, 09:54 AM

I'm with you on using the toggle rather than a push pull - or adding a mini for that matter.

The mini in question is a Duncan Design prior to the current series. with the coils in series it's hot enough to about bury the Vintage Vibe pickup at the bridge. I've got the mini backed off the strings and the VV up close. I'm going to take the mini down as far as it can go to see if I can get balanced better.

The VV in the bridge is just killer on it's own and overall that is kinda the main event in a Tele. There is the possibility that I go back to Pete and ask for a mini-hum that would retain the essential character of the mini but with a little lower output... I'm rapidly becoming a Vintage VIbe Cheerleader. I did a P-Bass replacement in my '87 and WOW. Warm, articulate - and no switches

After spending a little shed time with the Tele. I think the following toggle positions would be real useful. This with the caveat that I need to manually do a tap on the neck and play that a bit to be sure. I suspect that this setup would prover to be pretty usable though.

1. neck both
2. neck tapped
3. neck tapped w/bridge
4. *neck tapped w/ bridge - but 'out of phase'
5. bridge solo

* would this 'duck' similar to positions 2 & 4 on my Strat ? If so - great - if not a 4 -way would be simpler

Looks like I need to get the iron hot and try a couple of these manually - then get a switch ordered. If I go 5-way, then the mega from Stew Mac looks to be a good choice. Whose 4 - way makes sense ?

Deaf Eddie · May 12th, 2008, 10:06 AM

Quote:

4. *neck tapped w/ bridge - but 'out of phase'
* would this 'duck' similar to positions 2 & 4 on my Strat ? If so - great - if not a 4 -way would be simpler

The Strat quack is NOT from out of phase pups, and I doubt that this will get you very close, although it may be a neat new tone (if thin and nasally, which it definitely WILL be).

If you went with a Superswitch, I THINK I could draw it up so that you could have an "all three coils parallel" combo, which I would expect to be closer to a "quack" than this tone.

Chris Leger · May 12th, 2008, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4mal

The mini in question is a Duncan Design prior to the current series. with the coils in series it's hot enough to about bury the Vintage Vibe pickup at the bridge. I've got the mini backed off the strings and the VV up close. I'm going to take the mini down as far as it can go to see if I can get balanced better...

...I suspect that this setup would prover to be pretty usable though.

1. neck both
2. neck tapped
3. neck tapped w/bridge
4. *neck tapped w/ bridge - but 'out of phase'
5. bridge solo

Entirely expected that the mini with standard series wiring will overpower your bridge.

I am sceptical about the real usefulness of your positions 2 and 4 though. Especially #2.

If it were me, and I wanted to get extra tones out of a mini, I'd probably have one position with the mini in (standard) series, and another in parallel. In fact, now that I think of it, off the top of my head, I would be inclined to try:

neck (full standard/series)
neck (full parallel)
neck tapped w/bridge in series
neck (full standard/series) in parallel with bridge
bridge

...in some sensible order.

That's just me though! I've never tried to get this creative with a mini, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

My present thinking for my own guitar is to use a standard bridge and full-size humbucker at the neck:

1. humbucker
2. humbucker (tapped) in series with bridge
3. humbucker (full) in parallel with bridge
4. bridge

4mal · May 12th, 2008, 11:42 AM

I'm going to re-wire for parallel this morning and see where that get's me. I think that is a mater of un-soldering the white & red and running black & red (the + from each coil) to the switch and the white & green (- from each coil) to ground.

Then I can lop a coil off and compare.

That will tell me a bit more about where I should be heading I think.

Chris Leger · May 12th, 2008, 11:52 AM

That's cool.

To clarify, what I'm getting at is that I would expect the mini humbucker wired with both coils in parallel to be of secondary usefulness. They're best in series as intended. I just think the mini in parallel would be more useful than the mini tapped.

To my mind, the kind of mods you're going to be able to "get away with" using a mini are going to be rather more subtle than what you'd get from a full-size. The mini has a very cool distinctive tone, but when you start shunting coils & such, it's going to get a little thin.

4mal · May 12th, 2008, 10:04 PM

gotcha.

It will probably be a couple of days before I get to the re-wiring. I did record a track this morning so I have a reference point for the coils in series. Quick trip to Seattle for a couple of days though. So it will be the weekend before I can pickup a soldering iron again.

Oddly enough, as I was cutting the track - badly - man I need to shed some guitar... I flipped around from the neck to the combination, to the bridge and back. Volume wise, they aren't as far off as I thought. Tape - well electrons on a disk actually - doesn't lie. I'm a little suprised by that.

Probably the next thing to do would be to get the stacked vol in place. See how brightening up the mini changes the overall ambience.

I keep getting blown away by how good that VV bridge pickup is. I should have dumped the p-90 bridge a long time ago ... even if it is maybe more revealing than my right hand should be exposed to

May 6th, 2008, 03:25 PM	#1 (permalink)
4mal Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge Posts: 1,933	4 wire mini hum & Tele Bridge - switch options & pot values? Can I treat the humbucker as a set of single coils & do a 5 way ? Anything special about the switch itself I need to know of will any old Strat 5 way fit into a Tele too ? Stew Mac has their Mega-Switch which looks kinda interesting ... What pot values do you mini-hum or full sized humbucker int eh neck position guys use ? The Hummer is darker than I would like (it's new so I need to play it in for a bit and get used to it I suppose...) would 500K pots brithen it up ? would it make the Tele briodge pickup unbearably too brite ? Is anyone out there doing a switch plus 3 hole Tele control plate ?

May 6th, 2008, 07:58 PM	#3 (permalink)
4mal Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge Posts: 1,933	Thanks Chris and welcome to what many of us think of as the most musical site on the net. The dual 500K pot is vol or tone ? or both ? As a dual pot, it is two pot bodies on 1 shaft ? Not like a stacked pot where you use concentric, independant knobs ?

May 8th, 2008, 06:07 PM	#6 (permalink)
4mal Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge Posts: 1,933	So - should I skip the 5 way and simply add a coil tap for the bucker ?

May 10th, 2008, 07:19 PM	#7 (permalink)
Chris Leger Tele-Meister Join Date: May 2008 Location: New Hampshire Age: 43 Posts: 123 2 Photos	My choice would be to have to option of the tapped humbucker. Might want to still go with a 4 or 5-way switch though... you could use the two extra positions to run the tapped humbucker in parallel with the bridge pickup for an approximation of the OEM middle switch position, and maybe use the other to run the tapped humbucker in series with the bridge, for something like the "4-way series" mod that's so popular these days with the standard tele pickups. Still can't decide myself what I want to do with my guitar. I may do the above, but I'm thinking about going with a neck humbucker and moving the OEM neck pickup to the middle. Or, I may try the same with a mini humbucker. Decisions, decisions.

May 10th, 2008, 07:39 PM	#8 (permalink)
Chris Leger Tele-Meister Join Date: May 2008 Location: New Hampshire Age: 43 Posts: 123 2 Photos	Wait... I forgot you were talking about a mini humbucker... I was thinking full size. The minis that come from the usual places (Allparts, GFS, SD, etc) are not so hot that the single coil that results from tapping is going to be very useful... certainly not by itself. That's mostly true of even full size humbuckers (IMHO.) The full size humbuckers' tapped coils can provide useful sounds, but mostly (to my ear/tastes anyway) when used in concert with another pickup. The minis are almost too weak for this. Again, others may disagree, and while you might still get some interesting tones, if it were me, and I wanted to mess with the usual phase/series/parallel tapped humber thing, I'd use a full size humbucker. Besides, the full size humbucker is great all by itself. With the mini though, I don't think I'd bother tapping it, unless it were in order to have the option of running the single HB coil in series with the bridge, and in that case you should consider a 4 or 5 way switch, so you still get the 3 "stock" switching options. On the other hand, with a mini, you might try just running the whole think in series with the bridge to really push your amp. (And in that case, you still might want to consider the 4-way switch in order to avoid the push/pull pot... I don't care for them that much. I just find them a pain to use because they're not as "visual" as a toggle. If I can keep everything on one switch, I'm happier, especially if I can see how my guitar is set without having to touch anything.) All of this still has me thinking about my own guitar. Thanks for asking your questions.

May 12th, 2008, 09:54 AM	#9 (permalink)
4mal Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge Posts: 1,933	I'm with you on using the toggle rather than a push pull - or adding a mini for that matter. The mini in question is a Duncan Design prior to the current series. with the coils in series it's hot enough to about bury the Vintage Vibe pickup at the bridge. I've got the mini backed off the strings and the VV up close. I'm going to take the mini down as far as it can go to see if I can get balanced better. The VV in the bridge is just killer on it's own and overall that is kinda the main event in a Tele. There is the possibility that I go back to Pete and ask for a mini-hum that would retain the essential character of the mini but with a little lower output... I'm rapidly becoming a Vintage VIbe Cheerleader. I did a P-Bass replacement in my '87 and WOW. Warm, articulate - and no switches After spending a little shed time with the Tele. I think the following toggle positions would be real useful. This with the caveat that I need to manually do a tap on the neck and play that a bit to be sure. I suspect that this setup would prover to be pretty usable though. 1. neck both 2. neck tapped 3. neck tapped w/bridge 4. neck tapped w/ bridge - but 'out of phase' 5. bridge solo would this 'duck' similar to positions 2 & 4 on my Strat ? If so - great - if not a 4 -way would be simpler Looks like I need to get the iron hot and try a couple of these manually - then get a switch ordered. If I go 5-way, then the mega from Stew Mac looks to be a good choice. Whose 4 - way makes sense ?

May 12th, 2008, 11:42 AM	#12 (permalink)
4mal Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge Posts: 1,933	I'm going to re-wire for parallel this morning and see where that get's me. I think that is a mater of un-soldering the white & red and running black & red (the + from each coil) to the switch and the white & green (- from each coil) to ground. Then I can lop a coil off and compare. That will tell me a bit more about where I should be heading I think.

May 12th, 2008, 11:52 AM	#13 (permalink)
Chris Leger Tele-Meister Join Date: May 2008 Location: New Hampshire Age: 43 Posts: 123 2 Photos	That's cool. To clarify, what I'm getting at is that I would expect the mini humbucker wired with both coils in parallel to be of secondary usefulness. They're best in series as intended. I just think the mini in parallel would be more useful than the mini tapped. To my mind, the kind of mods you're going to be able to "get away with" using a mini are going to be rather more subtle than what you'd get from a full-size. The mini has a very cool distinctive tone, but when you start shunting coils & such, it's going to get a little thin.

May 12th, 2008, 10:04 PM	#14 (permalink)
4mal Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Gorge Posts: 1,933	gotcha. It will probably be a couple of days before I get to the re-wiring. I did record a track this morning so I have a reference point for the coils in series. Quick trip to Seattle for a couple of days though. So it will be the weekend before I can pickup a soldering iron again. Oddly enough, as I was cutting the track - badly - man I need to shed some guitar... I flipped around from the neck to the combination, to the bridge and back. Volume wise, they aren't as far off as I thought. Tape - well electrons on a disk actually - doesn't lie. I'm a little suprised by that. Probably the next thing to do would be to get the stacked vol in place. See how brightening up the mini changes the overall ambience. I keep getting blown away by how good that VV bridge pickup is. I should have dumped the p-90 bridge a long time ago ... even if it is maybe more revealing than my right hand should be exposed to