Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

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akpasta
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Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by akpasta » Sun Nov 15, 2020 4:08 pm

Hi All,

I have a vintage XII and love the 4-way rotary switch. The first three settings on the switch are your normal 3-way (neck, both, bridge) but the 4th is like out of phase or something and sounds kinda slinky and sharp, which I hated at first but have come to really like for for certain sounds especially cutting through a mix.

I bought an Alternate Reality reissue XII, switched out the dull pickguard and installed some Curtis Novak pickups and they sound awesome of course. Here's a photo - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nf8wQv ... sp=sharing

I accidentally wired the middle setting of the 3-way switch like the 4th position on the vintage 4-way, and I like it, but I also need the sound of both pickups normal. So I'd like to wire up a 4-way switch just like the vintage xii.

I'm pretty novice at wiring up guitars. Does anyone have advice on what kind of switch I could pop right into the pickguard, without having to route anything underneath?

Thanks!

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timtam
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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by timtam » Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:35 pm

IIRC the 4th position on the vintage XII is the two pickups in parallel but out of phase (in addition to the 'usual' two in parallel option).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Electric_XII
https://www.fender.com/articles/gear/ri ... ic-guitars

From what you describe it's possible that you might have wired your 3way in parallel / out of phase, ie thin, quacky ? If you swap the hot and ground from one pickup at the switch you'll hear what the opposite phase sounds like. It will be fuller if you were originally OOP.

Vintage wiring of the 4way is described in the resources below. The rotary switch I believe is 2P4T.

https://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/fe ... t_1968.php
https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vi ... 29&t=17272
https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vi ... 105#p59948
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Bradley-Jazz
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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by Bradley-Jazz » Mon Nov 16, 2020 2:17 am

If you can't find the proper switchcraft type rotary switch (like I couldn't), you can use a much cheaper plastic rotary like this Alpha. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alpha-Make-B ... SwTd9fXKay. I then put a nice Dakaware switch lever on. Works well, if probably not quite the feel of an original switch.

I used this wiring diagram - [/url]https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vi ... 576845[url]

This gave me the three regular positions plus the out of phase, although the two both-on positions sit next to each other in the centre of the switch rotation. Not problem for me, but be aware if you want exactly the same as a vintage XII.
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matbard
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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by matbard » Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:10 am

You can't find the original switch as it was custom made for Fender in the '60s.

I found an original one on DevilBay years ago, when I completed my Electric XII replica.

The original switch, as said before has these functions:

1 - neck pickup
2 - both pickups in parallel, in phase
3 - bridge pickup
4 - both pickups in parallel, out of phase

You can easily wire an Alpha 4-way rotary switch to achieve the same functions, but not in that sequence.

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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by daCod » Wed Nov 18, 2020 5:14 am

here's the switch i used in mine...

https://www.amplifiedparts.com/products ... 4-position

and here's the diagram i worked off of. worked perfect!

Image
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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by Bradley-Jazz » Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:33 am

here's the switch i used in mine...

https://www.amplifiedparts.com/products ... 4-position

and here's the diagram i worked off of. worked perfect!
Yep, that's the diagram I used, also successfully.

Your switch is much more solid looking than mine though - I couldn't find suitable metal switches in the UK or EU.
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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by akpasta » Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:41 am

Awesome! I bought that switch and found the lever on reverb. I’ve never wired up one of these, can anyone share a photo of what it looks like actually wired up? How do you jump the same wire from post to post like the above diagram?

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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by Bradley-Jazz » Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:50 am

Awesome! I bought that switch and found the lever on reverb. I’ve never wired up one of these, can anyone share a photo of what it looks like actually wired up? How do you jump the same wire from post to post like the above diagram?
I don't have a picture, but for the adjacent links, I used bare solid wire (e.g. offcuts from capacitor legs) and threaded it through the holes in the legs before soldering. Where it straddled another connection, I either used a little bit of regular insulated wire (fiddly), or the bare wire, but with some heat shrink insulation around it. I also put heat shrink on as many of the incoming/outgoing connections as possible, just to be on the safe site.

On the switch I used, the legs were also flexible enough to gently bend some in and some out to give more clearance as one wire would pass another.
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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by skarocker » Thu Aug 10, 2023 5:30 pm

I used this diagram. Doesn't work at all

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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by Nudger » Fri Aug 11, 2023 10:07 am

skarocker wrote:
Thu Aug 10, 2023 5:30 pm
I used this diagram. Doesn't work at all
If youre strugling with it, heres my tried n tested diagram for this blue/white alpha switch https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134181644350 ... media=COPY
Image

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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by timtam » Sun Aug 13, 2023 8:29 pm

I know this thread is ostensibly about the Alternate Reality reissue XII, but I was just looking at my notes/resources on the original Electric XII again and was struck by how non-definitive lots of the information I had derived from that available online is. This is seemingly due to possible variations in what different generations of the original XII's rotary switch/wiring might have done (eg the question as to whether series or out-of-phase was the 4th option), the fact that the original switch is not a straightforward 2P4T as one might have expected, and finally that there are versions of Fender's wiring diagram (from the service manual) floating around that are poor copies, making the exact wiring of the switch hard to discern. I did manage to refine my notions of how the original XII worked, based on some new information I found and pieced together ...

On the issue of the original switch's operation, the first clue that it's not a simple 2P4T is that while there are two wafers ("bottom" and top wafer in Fender's terminology in the service manual's wiring diagram - see bottom diagram below), there are actually 6 tabs on each wafer. A standard 2P4T switch would have 5 tabs for each pole - one common and 4 throws. So on the XII's switch there is an extra tab on each wafer.

A poster on TDPRI de-soldered an original switch (on a 1966 XII with wiring that had been modded away from stock) and traced its connections for each of the 4 switch positions with a multimeter. What that showed is that the original switch basically had two commons on each wafer, not just the typical single one (diagram below). I doubt that such a switch is available in modern form anywhere today.
Image
https://www.tdpri.com/threads/rewiring- ... ks.406725/

The next step in re-wiring an original XII back to stock with the odd original switch would be to find a good copy of Fender's original wiring diagram. I am less confident in the TDPRI poster's additional listing of how the stock switch should be wired, maybe because they worked off one of the poorer circulating copies of Fender's wiring diagram. Here is a better copy - if you zoom in on the switch you can clearly see how it was wired. What Fender calls the "bottom" wafer there is called the "inner" wafer in the above intrinsic switch function diagram from TDPRI.
Image

What remains somewhat ambiguous (I haven't actually had to rewire a XII), is whether the wiring in the Fender diagram achieves series as the 4th option or out of phase. When I have some time I may try to draw up a schematic from the wiring diagram and the complex TDPRI switch connections list, which would show what the switch wired according to that diagram actually achieves function-wise.

A Fender advertising blub on the XII from June 1965 refers to the 4th position as a "deep tone", which suggests series not OOP. OTOH @matbard indicated here that the true original XII had OOP as the 4th option (and also that the original switch was custom made by CTS) ...
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=1738&start=15#p1764088

To anyone having problems wiring up alternative switches to achieve something similar to the original XII, this is a good example of where just following someone else's wiring diagram in 'join the dots' fashion can get you into trouble. ;) You ideally need to understand exactly how the particular modern switch you bought works (all are not the same), and also how any posted wiring diagram actually achieves the switch functionality you want. Then you should be able to determine if your switch can do the same things as shown in any given wiring diagram.
"I just knew I wanted to make a sound that was the complete opposite of a Les Paul, and that’s pretty much a Jaguar." Rowland S. Howard.

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Re: Alternate Reality XII - 4-way switch?

Post by Bradley-Jazz » Sun Aug 13, 2023 11:15 pm

^ Timtam, as ever, your posts are fascinating and illuminating! Thanks!
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