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I have been dreaming an interesting wiring idea for a few days now. It is for my Fender 1000 pedal steel. It has two necks with two pickups per neck. For each neck I would like to have a series/parallel switch and a blend pot before heading to a CRL 3-way switch that switches between each neck (or both, of course). I also have a stutter switch in there because why not!

If someone would take a look at this wiring diagram I drew up and tell me if there are any mistakes I would be very thankful. Also, if anyone has any experience with blend pots (I have none!) that would be appreciated.


This is the type of blend pot I have:
https://nextgenguitars.ca/products/bour ... d-pot.html

That looks perfect to me. The only thing I'd suggest is wiring the killswitch/stutter like this:



Explanation why: Premier Guitar - The (In)famous Stratocaster Kill Switch

Even if you leave the killswitch as it is, it will still work though! That's just to prevent any unnecessary noise.

Thanks!! I got it wired up today and melted the killswitch (whoops) so it is without one right now.

andy wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 20, 2021 9:23 pm

Thanks!! I got it wired up today and melted the killswitch (whoops) so it is without one right now.

Oops Everything else working ok and sounding good?

Yep! I don’t know using the blend pots was worth it, though. They have the centre detent which is handy but I feel like the switches would’ve been more suited to me.

You know, in all the time I've been making schematics and helping people with wiring, you're not the first person I've heard say that about blend pots. I was tempted to put one on a couple projects of mine, but decided against it. I tend to prefer switches myself as well.

Blend pots are cool when you have one, but the minute you start adding more I kinda check out a bit because there's way too much stuff to manage. I'm a switch + volume kinda guy, so even a Jazz Bass is finicky for me. Maybe a 4-way rotary ala Dingwall would be cool? Wire it in reverse (relative to the standard Tele 4-way) and you get both series, bridge, both parallel, neck, which gets you a bit less objective variety, but a lot more usability.

If I dive back in again, those blend pots are leaving. You basically only get source A or source B once you deviate in either direction from centre. Might as well have a switch because it’s quick and easy to operate. Plus all the switches makes it look more space shuttle-y

Blend pots tend to suck. Its hard to find one that will not attenuate in the middle which youd want 100/100 and then dialing back from there. They should act like two volumes.

Yet even then, just like having two volumes, there tends to be a definite centre where the phase relations of pickups click in, with only subtle changes everywhere else. Thats just how pickups combine. I guess if an extreme reverse-log taper was used it may do something else...

What i did is use switches. But for the small area of sound thats actually different - a hair off centre..i measured it and put in fixed resistors.
This for a jazz bass, its a more common "fatter" setting. So its a five way switch for two pickups.