Wiring up the toggle switch????

[richedie]

Hey all!

I have done a ton of pickup swaps but don't believe I have done a toggle swap. I have this odd thing with my burst where the bridge and neck toggle positions are full volume but there is a noticable volume drop in the middle position, very noticable! I was looking in the cavity and thought about replacing the toggle switch and that should be a simple few wires but I noticed Gibson has this thinkg in the middle of the cavity with wires coming and going everywhere! From looking at diagrams, wiring the toggle looks easy, but looking in the cavity, this little plastic thing in the middle has me confused.

Any thoughts? What about my problem? What does it sound like?

Thanks all!

[martin6string]

I think what your referring to is the grounding plate in the electronics cavity.

What I do is take that entire plate out and rewire everything 50's style, but thats just my personal preference.

[eddie_bowers]

There is probably nothing wrong with the switch itself, but you may have one pickup wired out of phase.
You might also try changing the hieght of one of the pickups slightly to see if it gets better.

When the same signal gets mixed together from different positions on the string all kinds of good and bad phase cancelations can happen. You get these more on a strat with adjacent pickups (which is why you can get that sweet quack sound), but it happens on a LP too.

-Eddie

[richedie]

So, that's what that is, the grounding plate, duh! Thanks. What is the 50s wiring? Only thing I have done was to move the cap to retain some highs, ala 50s wiring, but never touched the grounding plate! However, I prefer the modern configuration because I like the tone to get darker and more vintage When rolling back the volume, with good CTS pots and good pickups, I don't notice issues with clarity that much. Anyway, how does it remove the grounding plate? Problem with that is that I already have new long shaft CTS pots in all guitars. I'd have to use short shaft pots if the plate was removed. I figure, why fix what isn't broken. Only problem is the midle position.

It can't be a pickup height issue because the neck and bridge positions are both equally loud and where I always set them!How can it be wired out of phase? Just lead to lug and ground to pot back. Could it be the type of pickups??????? I have a Motor City Torque in the bridge and a Gibson Burstbucker Pro in the neck. Could that be it?

THANKS!

Also,
What is the strat 'quack' everyone talks about? Never understood that.

[eddie_bowers]

It may not be your issue, but it CAN be the pickup hight. Both pickups can be the same loudness, but combined they cancel each other out. Adjust one down a bit (making it only slightly quieter) and it can make the middle position level go up.
Again, this might not be your problem, but this CAN happen. What your doing is causing the magnetic vibrations of the string to hit the pickup slightly later (like less than nanoseconds) preventing the phase cancelation issues.

With a strat you can make that work for you a bit more to get that cluck or quack sound by making the adjacent pickups not paralell (cocking the middle one more to the treble side). Listen to just about any Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar part and thats the sound.

[richedie]

Thanks! The whole phase, out of phase thing kind of goes over my head. Sorry...I am not an electronics whiz. However, I will play with the pickup height. I assume the best way to adjust the height of teh neck pickup then would be while in the middle position?

[eddie_bowers]

Yeah. Just adjust it 1mm up or down and see if it makes any difference.
This could be a loading issue too. When in the middle position your putting both volume controls and tone pots in paralell (which cuts the resistance in half). There is a trick you can do with the tone controls so that only the neck tone is on when in the middle position, but I would test unsoldering one of the tone controls to see if that helps before going through the hassle of doing that wiring trick.

-Eddie

[richedie]

Are you talking about how you can reconfigure the volume and tone controls? Right now in the middle position, they function as a master volume but I can rewire to have them independent volume. It is only my burst LP, which is weird. I'll have to mess with it tonight.

[eddie_bowers]

Naa, I have a weird thing I came up with (i'm sure it's not totally original) where I use a 3 pickup toggle on a standard 2 pickup LP. The extra connection is used to only enable the bridge tone when the bridge pickup is selected on it's own. The neck tone works for neck and middle. This unloads the middle position and gives you more independant control.

-Eddie

[richedie]

Originally Posted by eddie_bowers

Naa, I have a weird thing I came up with (i'm sure it's not totally original) where I use a 3 pickup toggle on a standard 2 pickup LP. The extra connection is used to only enable the bridge tone when the bridge pickup is selected on it's own. The neck tone works for neck and middle. This unloads the middle position and gives you more independant control.

-Eddie

So my idea of independent volume will make no difference...

[eddie_bowers]

I don't think it will, but i'm not tatoally sure to be honest. I think it's worth a try.

[richedie]

Originally Posted by martin6stringcustoms

I think what your referring to is the grounding plate in the electronics cavity.

What I do is take that entire plate out and rewire everything 50's style, but thats just my personal preference.

Can I touch on grounding for a minute?

Why do some companies like RS Guitar Works use a grounding sytem where there is a ground wire going from one volume to both tones and to the other volume. Does this replace the Gibson grounding plate and is it necessary?

Also, should all grounds go to the same point? For example, should my pickup lead ground to the same spot as the pot lug or ground wires? Thanks!

[martin6string]

Originally Posted by richedie

Can I touch on grounding for a minute?

Why do some companies like RS Guitar Works use a grounding sytem where there is a ground wire going from one volume to both tones and to the other volume. Does this replace the Gibson grounding plate and is it necessary?

Also, should all grounds go to the same point? For example, should my pickup lead ground to the same spot as the pot lug or ground wires? Thanks!

Yeah, the harnesses that I sell and RS sells have the ground wires from pot to pot, which replaces the need for the metal grounding plate that Gibson uses. Here's a photo of my LP Standard that just got rewired this weekend: