My rewiring project

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I'm about to rewire my Schecter Sun Valley Super Shredder FR Exotic Black Limba. This involves:

Switching the pickups to Saphue Invader knockoffs, which should help me knock of the terrible pick attack I get from the stock pickups.
Shielding the cavity, pickguard, output jack, and the new pickups themselves. I just completed this part.
Installing two Bourns PDB183-GTR dual gang push pull pots.
Installing a 4-pole 5-way.
Installing a couple of Audio Signal Transformers to use as part of separate LCR networks for use as passive mid cut inductors.
Here's the diagram I've created. I've written in detail the logic of everything I'm planning in the notes on the diagram itself:

HH 5-Way Dual Gang VV Push Pull DPDT Resonant Peak.png

With my new pickups, I first wax potted them, then I wrapped copper tape around the outside cloth of each humbucker, creating a small gap, and I attached a wire to ground the shield. I then wrapped cloth tape around that shield to regain the standard uncovered humbucker look.

Here's the guitar as it is right now:

After Shielding.JPEG
 
I'm reshielding the pickups because the lump of solder was impeding their adjustable ranges in the pickguard. Here's the shielding, with a small gap so as not to wreck the self capacitance:

IMG_1611.jpeg
 
Reshielded, ground wires reattached at the bottom so as not to interfere with height adjustment, and rewrapped with pickup cloth tape:

IMG_1612.jpeg


IMG_1613.jpeg


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Was it noisy? I am probably too late but the CTS push pull is a lot better quality than the Bournes. It’s the only one I don’t get issues with.

The pickups? I don't know; I'm just doing all I can at the outset really.

For the pots, I don't think CTS makes a version of these; they're dual gang DPDT, And I've not seen that elsewhere.
 
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I think it can be kind of a crapshoot with pot brands. They all have a percentage of failure. The two I prefer are made by CTS and Bourns. CTS makes PRS pots, which I love and have mostly had great luck with. To contrast that, John Suhr moved to Bourns pots because he had too many issues with the CTS pots he was using. Bourns makes Seymour Duncan pots. I think both make good stuff but occasionally you get a bad one, or two.
 

I just double checked, and unfortunately those are single gang. My goal with dual gang is to have a different resonant frequency shift and treble bleed available for the same position on each pot. Since I'll be emulating a warm Les Paul tone controlled by one pot and scooping the mids for a kind of Strat tone on the other pot, I want each to act as a Master volume for that particular guitar emulation, using the push pull to go between dark and bright versions.
 
I just double checked, and unfortunately those are single gang. My goal with dual gang is to have a different resonant frequency shift and treble bleed available for the same position on each pot. Since I'll be emulating a warm Les Paul tone controlled by one pot and scooping the mids for a kind of Strat tone on the other pot, I want each to act as a Master volume for that particular guitar emulation, using the push pull to go between dark and bright versions.
Sorry missed that part somehow.
 
Basic wiring connected, with DuPont / breadboard wire connected where I'll need to test components by ear. One more check to make sure I didn't miss any connections, then I'll put little flags on each breadboard wire so I know what is what when I'm testing.

I know it looks like hell, but when I know for sure all the component values I'll be using, it will look a lot better haha!

For my testing, I'll use trimpots to determine resistance values, and I bought a 30 - 1200pF air variable capacitor to test cap values. I'll add bigger caps in parallel to that when necessary, as I'm guessing from my ChatGPT queries that I'll need electrolytic caps in the many nF range to get the mid scoops I'll want.

I have several different ASTs to use as the mid scoop inductors, and I have no idea what I'll like best. They range from about 1.7H to 7H! I can add them in series too to create the right scoop.

I expect the component testing to take weeks, but I just don't know for sure. Wish me luck haha!

One more note: when installing the two dual gang push pull pots, I actually tested their connectivity, to see if the copper tape on the pickguard was enough to connect them without needing an extra wire, and, sure enough, they are electrically continuous without needing a wire on the back of the pots!

IMG_1618.jpeg
 
I think it can be kind of a crapshoot with pot brands. They all have a percentage of failure. The two I prefer are made by CTS and Bourns. CTS makes PRS pots, which I love and have mostly had great luck with. To contrast that, John Suhr moved to Bourns pots because he had too many issues with the CTS pots he was using. Bourns makes Seymour Duncan pots. I think both make good stuff but occasionally you get a bad one, or two.

I'm not sure what they're using, but the pots I've liked best so far are the Dunlop Super Pots, which are sealed so as never to get scratchy. I ride my knobs all the time, but I find no matter what pot I try, I end up getting used to it pretty quickly. I feel like I've tried so many. I'd love eventually to use PCB mounted pots, because they are all sealed. If I just set up everything in PCBs, I'd have a ton of flexibility, and the physical wiring part would be a breeze. Knowing how to design PCBs is a long term goal of mine, especially since a bunch of different places will produce one offs for you very afforfdably.
 
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I've been busy as shit, so I hadn't even had time to apply the flags to the breadboard wires until just now. Here's what it looks like with the wires coming out from the pickguard and a couple of nice oversize aluminum knobs for the dual gang push pulls:

IMG_1620.jpeg
 
Happy with the results? It looks great.

Thanks Man! High praise coming from you. I love the knobs if that's what you mean! 😀 The testing will take some real time, maybe weeks. I love these pickups right off the bat with no tweaking. I still will tune them, and I'm just working on the first bridge humbucker tone, going for a warm Les Paul type thing through the Fractal Super Lead Plexi:

IMG_1625.jpeg


I'm using a breadboard for once, to make my life way easier. I have all manner of caps in front of me, with a single 1M trimpot for the parallel resistance on the downshifted peak in trying to hit. The real test is hitting high notes on the high E, where this guitar will give you this pick attack that is just brutal. The new pickups are way way way better, but with the peak shift they're still much improved. This guitar is just brighter than bright with the pick attack. Here I've got a 2.2nF fixed cap in parallel with the air variable cap and the trimpot. I'll make sure I like this tone across many amps and IRs, then, if all is good, I'll make a note of the total resistance and capacitance for this one setting for the final wiring.

But even for this one test that's only the first half. Then I'll want to dial in its treble bleed, which is its own can of worms. I have two different resonant peak shifts per pickup per guitar emulation (LP or Strat), but each pickup in that emulation will have to share a treble bleed between the dark and bright setting. But the neck and bridge will have different bleeds from each other haha. This, if I can pull it off, will be a versatile beast. 🙂
 
Here's a closeup of where I landed with the dark bridge so far for tonight, then a shot of the components laid out for testing: three different packs of low value caps, one of trimpots, one of electrolytic higher value caps, and one of low value inductors, which might come into play when I test for my passive mid cut, based on the Bill Lawrence Q-Filter, Rothstein mid cut, and Torres mid cuts, but which I'll create with my own values. I haven't brought out the ASTs for that part yet. I figure I'll start with the easier part, the humbucker tones!
 
I discovered what I like a long time ago so I haven’t really changed my own wiring for years. The only thing that makes a particular difference in a tone cap for me is the physical size once you find your favourite value. Huge voltage headroom. Try it get two orange drop caps one that is perfectly capable in the application and a 200 volt one. The big one seams to not kill the treble completely in the first part of the taper. It has a more usable range.
 
I discovered what I like a long time ago so I haven’t really changed my own wiring for years. The only thing that makes a particular difference in a tone cap for me is the physical size once you find your favourite value. Huge voltage headroom. Try it get two orange drop caps one that is perfectly capable in the application and a 200 volt one. The big one seams to not kill the treble completely in the first part of the taper. It has a more usable range.

Cool. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm not going for a traditional tone cap at all with this; instead I'm going for four volume knobs essentially, with the trimpots acting as fixed value knob settings acting as "presets," if you will, for the different tones. It will be five tones from the pickup selector, with a bright and dark setting from the push pull pots for each, so ten tones total, each with it's own resonant peak tuning set with the caps and trimpots, with Strat tones including audio signal transformers acting as inductors for a passive mid cut, which, from what I understand, will also shift the resonant peak.

I have never considered the voltage handling of a cap; I totally assumed it wouldn't matter in a passive circuit. I don't have any electronics background though, so I'm just learning what I can as I go along.

This is very cool to learn; I'll read more about this to try to find out why this is the case. Maybe modeling it in LTspice would reveal what's going on with a high voltage cap in a passive circuit. Maybe the energy it takes to maintain the transmission of higher frequencies dissipates less in a high voltage cap.
 
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