DIY e-guitar - Part 8 - Electronics wiring testing
I've made a new wiring plate for testing the electronics, as the cardboard box didn't work well, and started desoldering/soldering the new electronics.
The plan was to:
* have a stereo jack wired up
* jack ring signal being piezo output
* jack tip signal being mix of piezo+electronic
* volume for each pickup separately, with modern wiring, and dependent volume controls for the two magnetic pickups
* toggle works as usual, bridge/bridge+neck/neck, and the piezo can be blended in any time with the piezo volume control
First attempt went surprisingly well, after doing the complete wiring+soldering I only had one minor issue and one major:
* the two volume push-pulls I have wired work inverse, rolling them down increases the volume and viceversa. Easy to fix, probably switching the stuff soldered to the outer lugs will solve it
* the rolling up the master tone pot adds a background noise, which I don't want, not sure of the reason, some forums state that it might be a bad pot or a bad cap. In any case, in the original wiring I had two tone pots and two tone caps, so I have another pre-capped tone pot to test with. If that fails, I'll try with a push-pull B500k I have ordered (which will not fit inside the cavity, but at least I can tell whether I have a wiring issue/a tone cap issue or the low-quality chinese pot is to blame for the noise).
Without having an Y-cable to test the tip/ring wiring, I decided to wire the mix of piezo+magnetic to the tip for testing, and the sound wasn't quite right. With tone knob rolled down to 0, magnetic pickups work just fine, their volume knobs work fine, everything noiseless even with both magnetic pickups and piezo pickup, but the piezo doesn't come through. If lowering the magnetic pup volumes to 0, the piezo can be heard, but it's volume can be increased by rolling up the tone pot (which also adds the noise I have to eliminate). So probably mixing the two will not work as it should. I already have two preamps, one for magnetic pickups and one for the piezo, but they have the same gain, so adding the preamp to both of them the two sources will still have different volume, thus won't mix well. If adding the preamp only to the piezo (something I will try), it might work, but I assume I'll get into troubles (https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/active-and-passive-in-the-same-guitar-can-it-be-done) so I'll have to find another solution.
So having the mix of the two sources inside the guitar probably out of the question, the next thing to plan for is how to get the two sources (magnetic+piezo) signal out of the guitar, and that will be a stereo jack, tip being magnetic signal, ring being piezo signal. That way I will be able to use them separately if I have an Y-cable, plug them into separate amps, and mix them from the amp. However that can not be adjusted on the fly without someone at the amp making the changes, so it looses from the versatility. Next thought is a device (either a small box plugged in the stereo jack, which does the mixing, or a pedal) which can do the mixing, adjusting the gain for each source, and blend them together, providing a single output. Looking around looks like BOSS LS-2 is the best thing to get this done, unless I find an easy DIY solution. Check the DIY pedals, but none of them offer nearly the same versatility as the BOSS pedal does, and their cost is not that lower if purchasing a kit. So I might simply live without this magic device, or get a BOSS LS-2 to get the versatility of switching/mixing at my fingertips (toetips). The good thing that the LS-2 is available locally, so I will be able to test it when the guitar is ready, and decide.
The LS-2 can do input switching, does impedance matching, per-input gain level, blend level, so it's kindof right the right tool for the job.
The plan was to:
* have a stereo jack wired up
* jack ring signal being piezo output
* jack tip signal being mix of piezo+electronic
* volume for each pickup separately, with modern wiring, and dependent volume controls for the two magnetic pickups
* toggle works as usual, bridge/bridge+neck/neck, and the piezo can be blended in any time with the piezo volume control
First attempt went surprisingly well, after doing the complete wiring+soldering I only had one minor issue and one major:
* the two volume push-pulls I have wired work inverse, rolling them down increases the volume and viceversa. Easy to fix, probably switching the stuff soldered to the outer lugs will solve it
* the rolling up the master tone pot adds a background noise, which I don't want, not sure of the reason, some forums state that it might be a bad pot or a bad cap. In any case, in the original wiring I had two tone pots and two tone caps, so I have another pre-capped tone pot to test with. If that fails, I'll try with a push-pull B500k I have ordered (which will not fit inside the cavity, but at least I can tell whether I have a wiring issue/a tone cap issue or the low-quality chinese pot is to blame for the noise).
Without having an Y-cable to test the tip/ring wiring, I decided to wire the mix of piezo+magnetic to the tip for testing, and the sound wasn't quite right. With tone knob rolled down to 0, magnetic pickups work just fine, their volume knobs work fine, everything noiseless even with both magnetic pickups and piezo pickup, but the piezo doesn't come through. If lowering the magnetic pup volumes to 0, the piezo can be heard, but it's volume can be increased by rolling up the tone pot (which also adds the noise I have to eliminate). So probably mixing the two will not work as it should. I already have two preamps, one for magnetic pickups and one for the piezo, but they have the same gain, so adding the preamp to both of them the two sources will still have different volume, thus won't mix well. If adding the preamp only to the piezo (something I will try), it might work, but I assume I'll get into troubles (https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/active-and-passive-in-the-same-guitar-can-it-be-done) so I'll have to find another solution.
So having the mix of the two sources inside the guitar probably out of the question, the next thing to plan for is how to get the two sources (magnetic+piezo) signal out of the guitar, and that will be a stereo jack, tip being magnetic signal, ring being piezo signal. That way I will be able to use them separately if I have an Y-cable, plug them into separate amps, and mix them from the amp. However that can not be adjusted on the fly without someone at the amp making the changes, so it looses from the versatility. Next thought is a device (either a small box plugged in the stereo jack, which does the mixing, or a pedal) which can do the mixing, adjusting the gain for each source, and blend them together, providing a single output. Looking around looks like BOSS LS-2 is the best thing to get this done, unless I find an easy DIY solution. Check the DIY pedals, but none of them offer nearly the same versatility as the BOSS pedal does, and their cost is not that lower if purchasing a kit. So I might simply live without this magic device, or get a BOSS LS-2 to get the versatility of switching/mixing at my fingertips (toetips). The good thing that the LS-2 is available locally, so I will be able to test it when the guitar is ready, and decide.
The LS-2 can do input switching, does impedance matching, per-input gain level, blend level, so it's kindof right the right tool for the job.
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