Pickup Blend WITH a 3 way toggle?

Pickups, wiring schemes, switch techniques and onboard active electronics for guitars and basses
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DarrylC.
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Post by DarrylC. »

Sorry if this has been addressed...I can't seem to find any thing out there about doing this and I am frankly starting to believe this isn't actually possible. A friend of mine wants me to mod his le paul for a master volume, two tone controls, and a pickup blender. That is easy, but he doesn't want the 3 way toggle to do nothing. He is convinced that there is a way to wire the guitar so that when the toggle is in the middle position it will essentially give up pickup switching duties to the blend pot (and vice versa). I know some rickenbackers I've worked on can do something similar (when run in mono) but I just don't see how I can do this to a les paul. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

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JSC_ltd
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Post by JSC_ltd »

You'd have to use a different switch. The stock switch has two inputs and one output, but you need two inputs and two exclusive outputs, one for either pickup and one for both. The only way to isolate the OR output from the AND output is to use logic switching, rather than mechanical switching. The design of such a logic switch is beyond me.

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phatt
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Post by phatt »

Hi , No need to go with complex stuff it is actually very simple.
Just swap the centre and top(Hot) wires on both volume pots and you can indeed blend each PU while in centre position.
You are effectively reversing the pots wiring.
This of course is not one single blend pot but that idea might be a little harder to implement and may not be needed.
Old Hofners and like stuff had No selector switch ,, you just blended by adjustment of each pot.

The gotcha is that you can't kill the circuit to ground so if you have hummy PU's crap grounding in the guitar then expect trouble.
Hope it helps.
Phil.

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GuitarlCarl
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Post by GuitarlCarl »

Use the 3 way for a cap switch for his bridge pup, and wire his controls as master volume, blender, tone, tone... better use of the 3 way...
I want it to sound like bees buzzing around in a 55 gallon drum...

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Jooshtin
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Post by Jooshtin »

Another idea for ye. I've wired up one of my LPs with Jimmy Page wiring, I changed it so it has a modern wired bridge volume and a 50s neck volume. When both pickups are in parallel the neck p/u can be blended and the bridge vol acts as a master. You also get the fun of single coil, series and out of phase 8)

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