My favorite electric guitar had no controls at all, though a volume pedal was handy. My second favorite had all kinds of weird multi-position selectors...
There's so many popular wiring options now...which do you find most valuable? This is for a guitar with 2 humbuckers.
1 humbucker coil taps (for lower output and lessinductance, more treble, switchable to high-output inductive metal screamers). Unfortunately not availalbe on the Alumitones I'm going to use. Still curious what you players out there think.
2 humbucker series/parallel switch (not between two pickups, between the two coils of one pickup). I think most humbuckers have their two internal coils in series.
3 phase-reverse switch for one pickup, so that the two pickups can be in phase or out of phase. This is a personal favorite because is makes pinch harmonics so easy and fun.
4 single-coil mode for humbucker, to turn off one coil of a humbucker and make kind of a single-coil (though of course the magnetic structure is still not like a single-coil).
5 Ability to control which coil is off and which is on when humbucker is in single-coil mode. Common compromise is a switch between the inner coils nearest each other versus the coils nearest bridge and neck. In single-pickup mode that allows you to select any single coil, but with both pickups on you can't have just the two coils (one in each pickup) nearest the bridge, nor just the two coils (one in each pickup) nearest the neck.
6 switch or knob to run bumbucker like a single-coil pickup for treble and mids, but like a humbucker for bass.
7 multi-position indented rotary selector. A friend's old ES 355 was interesting, but I won't get into wiring stereo guitars. I actually like having two "tone" pots, each with an associated multi-position rotary selector: One "treble-cut slope" pot and its knee selector, and one "bass-cut slope" knob with its knee selector. One thing I'm concerned about is how those knees may change with different pickup switch selections. More typical is a variety of bandpass filters on one rotary switch.
I've never had a switch for putting the two coils of a humbucker in series vs parallel, so I'm really curious about how that sounds. Not many pickups or guitars have that.
Similarly, I've never had a switch for putting two humbuckers in series vs parallel, so I'm really curious about how that sounds. Not many pickups or guitars have that either.
I'm starting to think I should wire up an off-guitar breadboard and try all these things first; but there's 4 wires from each pickup, and if I don't want to run 8 guitar cords I need 8 small flexible wires under 1 shield.
There's so many popular wiring options now...which do you find most valuable? This is for a guitar with 2 humbuckers.
1 humbucker coil taps (for lower output and lessinductance, more treble, switchable to high-output inductive metal screamers). Unfortunately not availalbe on the Alumitones I'm going to use. Still curious what you players out there think.
2 humbucker series/parallel switch (not between two pickups, between the two coils of one pickup). I think most humbuckers have their two internal coils in series.
3 phase-reverse switch for one pickup, so that the two pickups can be in phase or out of phase. This is a personal favorite because is makes pinch harmonics so easy and fun.
4 single-coil mode for humbucker, to turn off one coil of a humbucker and make kind of a single-coil (though of course the magnetic structure is still not like a single-coil).
5 Ability to control which coil is off and which is on when humbucker is in single-coil mode. Common compromise is a switch between the inner coils nearest each other versus the coils nearest bridge and neck. In single-pickup mode that allows you to select any single coil, but with both pickups on you can't have just the two coils (one in each pickup) nearest the bridge, nor just the two coils (one in each pickup) nearest the neck.
6 switch or knob to run bumbucker like a single-coil pickup for treble and mids, but like a humbucker for bass.
7 multi-position indented rotary selector. A friend's old ES 355 was interesting, but I won't get into wiring stereo guitars. I actually like having two "tone" pots, each with an associated multi-position rotary selector: One "treble-cut slope" pot and its knee selector, and one "bass-cut slope" knob with its knee selector. One thing I'm concerned about is how those knees may change with different pickup switch selections. More typical is a variety of bandpass filters on one rotary switch.
I've never had a switch for putting the two coils of a humbucker in series vs parallel, so I'm really curious about how that sounds. Not many pickups or guitars have that.
Similarly, I've never had a switch for putting two humbuckers in series vs parallel, so I'm really curious about how that sounds. Not many pickups or guitars have that either.
I'm starting to think I should wire up an off-guitar breadboard and try all these things first; but there's 4 wires from each pickup, and if I don't want to run 8 guitar cords I need 8 small flexible wires under 1 shield.