Blend Pot

[Bluesdude]

ok, so my friend gave me a bunch of spare parts he had, and that included a blend pot, one of these dealies...
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...trol_Pots.html
I want to wire my strat so I can blend the bridge and neck pickups, but i have no idea how to go about doing this, and the wiring diagrams i've found do not help. Any suggestions?

[timspong]

http://www.fralinpickups.com/images/blendschem2.jpg

from the fralin web site. I had one on an old strat and it worked pretty good. I didn't use it much so I have yet to put it on any subsequent strats.

[vegetablejoe]

http://www.guitar-mod.com/blender.gif

I find this to be the easiest to follow blender mod ...

...although there seems to be some question on another forum as to whether the illustrator has properly given credit where credit is due with regard to the mid-sculpt mod included.

Just concentrate on the blender pot portion of the drawing. And make sure you're using a no-load pot.

[vegetablejoe]

http://www.guitar-mod.com/blender.gif

I find this to be the easiest to follow blender mod ...

...although there seems to be some question on another forum as to whether the illustrator has properly given credit where credit is due with regard to the mid-sculpt mod included.

Just concentrate on the blender pot portion of the drawing. And make sure you're using a no-load pot.

[Deaf Eddie]

It seems to me that neither of the drawings in the links posted so far are for a dual concentric-style pot like the StewMac one you indicate you have. I believe it's a different beast all togther.

Doncha just wire that as two volumes, one a "mirror image" reverse of the other, with the bridge pup on one and the neck pup on the other? The two pots should have a reverse-taper from each other, with that center detent for "full on" as described in the StewMac text.

Now, what to do with the outputs...
I guess you'd run the bridge output to the neck pup's lug on the 5-way, and vice-verse? Yeah, and, you'd have to do the "Jazz Bass" style volume pot wiring, with the input on the middle lug, so that turning the pot all the way off or on wouldn't mute one of the pups off the 5-way, too.

That way, you could have yer neck-bridge combo at either end of the 5-way BUT NOT the other, selectable by dialing the balance control to one extreme or the other. And the "blends" would work, too, by allowing you to add whatever amount of the pup not selected on the 5-way into its reciprocal pup...???

My brain hurtz... But I'd like to try it! Need a drawing?

[Bluesdude]

Originally Posted by Deaf Eddie

It seems to me that neither of the drawings in the links posted so far are for a dual concentric-style pot like the StewMac one you indicate you have. I believe it's a different beast all togther.

Doncha just wire that as two volumes, one a "mirror image" reverse of the other, with the bridge pup on one and the neck pup on the other? The two pots should have a reverse-taper from each other, with that center detent for "full on" as described in the StewMac text.

Now, what to do with the outputs...
I guess you'd run the bridge output to the neck pup's lug on the 5-way, and vice-verse? Yeah, and, you'd have to do the "Jazz Bass" style volume pot wiring, with the input on the middle lug, so that turning the pot all the way off or on wouldn't mute one of the pups off the 5-way, too.

That way, you could have yer neck-bridge combo at either end of the 5-way BUT NOT the other, selectable by dialing the balance control to one extreme or the other. And the "blends" would work, too, by allowing you to add whatever amount of the pup not selected on the 5-way into its reciprocal pup...???

My brain hurtz... But I'd like to try it! Need a drawing?

I think i get it...sorta. A drawing would probably help though. I dont have the ability to think of what I want and just know how to do it. :(

[Deaf Eddie]

FWIW, using this pot in a Strat sure seems like a long way to go to get essentially the same thing that the Fralin drawing gives you, and I think that the Fralin mod can be accomplished with a standard pot - no new parts required.

FURTHER, I think that this type of ganged blender pot is probably designed for use an an axe where there is NO pickup selector switch, and the blender IS the pickup selector.

******

Now, because I don't have one of the specific blend pots we're talking about, nor have I ever wired one, this was strictly a mental exercise for me... take it with a big ol' grain of salt. But, if the dual-concentric blend pot works the way I expect to to work by reading the StewMac description, this should do it - anyway, here's ONE way to try...

All that said, it is with some trepidation that I point you to this drawing, which I created to perform what you requested:

http://deaf-eddie.net/drawings/blend-stewmac.jpg

Basically, all I've done is wire each of the two stacked pots as a volume pot in the manner of the J-Bass - a lot of the new "import" Gibson-style axes come with their volume pots wired this way as well. You can see that the input and output lugs are reversed from your typical Tele or Strat volume - this because the way your T & S volume are wired, if you had TWO volumes wired that way, and turned one all the way off, it would mute both pickups. With the lugs reversed, you can turn either one completely off with no effect on the other.

Further, since the pair are supposed to be reverse taper, I simply reverse the whole wiring scheme on one - that should make them both work as desired, but completely opposite of each other.

The last "trick" here is the jumpers - as you can see, there's a jumper that goes from the bridge pup's lug on the 5-way to the OUTER lug of one pot and the INNER lug of the other - and the neck pup does the same thing, but "backwards."

So... When the pots are centered, both ends of the 5-way pup selector will have equal amounts of neck and bridge pup. As you roll the pot to one stop or the other, you will be turning down one pup's blend with the other at ONE end of the 5-way - but the other end, both pups will stay blended full-on.

RESTATED:
So, turning the pot one way removes some of the neck pup from the bridge throw on the 5-way, but the neck throw will still be equal parts neck and bridge. Turning it the other way removes some of the bridge pup from the neck spot on the 5-way, but the bridge throw will have equal bridge and neck...

That's not the way the Fralin idea works, but still might be fun... or, it might not! Seems like a pain to me... this might be the wrong part for this job.

Perhaps someone has a better trick for this kind of pot -
I certainly welcome any discussion about this idea and my drawing! Like I said, I just treated this as a kind of puzzle, and here was my best solution...