Guitar mod (i guess guitars class as a device)

[the mitchell]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but this seemed the best place.

Right I'm modding my guitar. Firstly I would like to know if anyone has any ideas on how the guitar would be wired up. I have 2 single coil pickups and one humbucker with the usual simple 2 wire connections (+ve and -ve) each pickup is having a dual concentric pot so that each pickup will have individual tone and volume control. Also each pickup is having a phase invertor switch. There is then also going to be a kill switch circuit after this (Which is being wired so that when the kill switch is off the guitar is working normally but when turned on a push button must me pressed to turn the signal on [Same as radiohead's guitarist iirc]). So thats the idea. I havent completed the kill switch circuit yet so instead ive just connected it to ground. For some reason though i appear to be having problems. The way ive wired it appears to be wrong and wondered if maybe anyone could possibly help out with ideas on how to do this or schematic. I know how to do a simple tone or volume or even phase invertion switch but i cant understand why im wrong.
help :S

[SpectralJulian]

Well, I take it the pickup selector switch is what you connect to the 1/4" jack.  What you want to do is put the kill switch right inbetween your pickup selector and 1/4" jack.  If that doesn't work, you probably wired your signal to where ground should be and ground to where your signal should be, so all you'd have to do is reverse it.

[danoisefactory]

Well, first, for all your pickup wiring schematics, check the seymour duncan website and the dimarzio website. The've got just about every combination in pickup wiring available.

Now the kill switch.
Let me get this straight.

First you have the pickups, and all three of them have a seperate tone/volume control.  That means: pickups->tone volume's -> selector.

After your pickup selector, you want a kill switch.
As i understand its eiteher bypassed or in kill mode, meaning, you have to push a button to make contact.

For a bypass-switch use a dpdt-switch,

Wire like this:

     to kill  from kill
   >-- *         * -->

    signal in  out
   >-- *         * -->

          bypass
        *--------*


Then the kill switch, , wire so that push is on, release is off.

 to kill *---/ ---* from kill

Then when you push, there should be sound.
If there is humming, try to use a dpdt and wire the ground in the kill switch so yiu'll kill both signal and ground signal. Not sure how, or how it'll work. But i'n quite positive that if you just interrupt the signal path, no sound is coming out of your guitar.

Anyway, that's how i think i would wire up a kill-switch, let us know when you've got it working, çause i like the push buton idea.

greets!

[expanoncolin]

Danoisefactory has it odown, just a couple of comments though-

For the kill switch, you are going to want a normally OFF SPST pushbutton.  The order of wiring doesn't matter-this type of switch simply connects or disconnects these two terminals, connecting or disconnecting your signal.  You shouldn't have to deal with groud at all-this wiring setup simply deals with the pickup signal.  Just wire groud as seen in the other schematics.

-Colin

[danoisefactory]

Colin, you're right.

Forgot to edit the ground part. Had a lot more ground bits written in at first untill i drew a schematic and saw my mistake .
stupid me.  :lol:

What kind of seeing gizmo can i use to substitute the original pot?
I'm not sure about the value of the pot, i'm guessing 50k, so maybe electronic eye wont work, so then maybe, somethng else, a strip of copper or i dunno?

[SpectralJulian]

Well, you could make a theremin controlled wah and make the theremin part in the pick guard, like the ZVEX drip.

[the mitchell]

Well, you could make a theremin controlled wah and make the theremin part in the pick guard, like the ZVEX drip.

Also another idea i was thinking only slightly different. Wanted to make an optical volume swell for my guitar too to sit under the strings in the scratch plate and use it so as you move your hand over the optical thingymabobby the volume increases.
Anyone got any idea where these optical parts can be sourced from. I know its possible as a friend had an optical volume swell foot pedal made from someone on ebay but hes lost the contact now.

[expanoncolin]

You can get photoresistors from all over the place... take a look at the parts pricing list in articles and tutorials.  You are going to want to match the wah's pot as best you can with the photoresistor, and play around a bit.  For a passive volume, you will probably have to fool around with a resistor divider that looks like a volume pot... with either a fixed resistance for the non-grounded end, or perhaps just the photoresistor straight to ground.

-Colin

[danoisefactory]

Ok, cool!

The wah's pot is 50k.

So i'll try to find a matching photo-resistor.