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Too many knobs, too little time
I have a custom electric tele-like guitar on my bench with active electronics, and the owner would like to know what the knobs and switches do. Perhaps someone recognizes this configuration and can tell me if my guesses are correct regarding the “distortion” knob and how it interacts with the mini switch.
Here’s what I think the knobs do:
– 4 way switch selects pickup: 1 Neck loud, 2 Neck regular, 3 Bridge and Neck, 4 Bridge
– top left knob (from players perspective): Volume
– bottom knob: Tone
– right top knob: Distortion?
– 3 way mini switch: 1 on, 2 on, 3 kill (no sound). I think 1 or 2 modifies the distortion or bypasses the tone pot?
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7 Replies
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Hi Elaine
It’s hard to say anything for sure from a photo as it’s hard to trace wires around under others. Things are too tight packed here to be sure but I think you’re correct in identifying the pots. One certainly looks like volume and the other certainly looks like tone. It’s safe to assume the one with the PCB attached is distortion or gain.
I think that orange wire goes from the volume to the common lug of the switch and then, from one of the corresponding switched lugs, there’s a white wire that seems to go to the tone pot. This does suggest that in one position the tone is bypassed but I can’t be 100% certain. Should be possible to check with some listening tests though.
As to the other toggle switch positions, your own testing is the best thing here. Once those wires get to the PCB, it’s a lot more difficult to trace out what they’re doing.
On the subject of listening tests, it might be worth doing the ‘clunk’ test and tapping a screwdriver against the pickup poles to verify the 4-way pickup switch positions. I have a suspicion that the position 1 (neck loud) you mention could be a series pickup connection. That’d bring in the neck and bridge pickups in series and would give a slightly beefier output. This sort of 4-way switching (neck+bridge series/neck/neck+bridge parallel/bridge) is sometimes seen on Teles.
If you tap the screwdriver off a pole on each pickup as you move switch positions you should be able to confirm which is active in each position.
Hope this helps a bit.
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This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by Gerry Hayes Haze Guitars. Reason: Removing image as was incorrect and likely to mislead. Read full thread for more info
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Thank you very much, that is helpful. I did do the pickup tap test to determine the four way switch settings. As for the listening test, maybe my amp (or my ears) aren’t good enough to figure out what the difference is when using the mystery pot. I thought for a bit that it might be adding reverb, but maybe that was just my head vibrating.
Cheers,
Elaine
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This reply was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by Elaine S Hartstein Hartstein Guitars.
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Ah. Sorry for making an assumption. When you originally mentioned distortion, I just jumped on that bandwagon. If that’s not definitely what it is, apologies. One possibility (relatively likely if we don’t assume distortion) is a boost of some kind. It’s probably one of the more common on-board effects. It could be an across-the-board boost with the knob as an overall gain or maybe a mid-boost with the knob controlling the boosted gain or frequency.
Of course, it could be a reverb. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an on-board reverb but I never underestimate the ingenuity/insanity of guitarists. 😄
I realise this probably just muddies the waters again. Sorry.
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Thanks so much for your input, much appreciated. The guitar has gone back to it’s owner, who has promised to confer with an electric guitar guru. If they figure it out, I’ll let you know.
Cheers,
Elaine
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This reply was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by
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This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by
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I would suggest that we may be overlooking some fairly obvious things here which are popular
The bridge on the guitar looks like it has piezo elements – like a fishman powerbridge, or an LR Baggs piezo equipped tele bridge.
I would suggest that the mini toggle and circuitry on a knob is a piezo buffer circuit and allows switching between magnetic pickups , mix of mag and piezo and piezo on it’s own
Most likely has a special jack that will allow the signal to come out in mono as a mix, or stereo via a RTS cable and have the magnetic output go down one wire and the piezo go down the other
Have you checked the battery for voltage ?
The 4 way switch is likely to be an Oak Grigsby 4 way switch for tye magnetic pickups giving
Bridge
bridge and neck combined in parallel
Neck
Neck and bridge in series
I could be wrong , but that is a popular set of options
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This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by Jonathan Law Feline Guitars. Reason: Spelling and adding check battery voltage
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Ha. Great catch, Jonathan. Piezo elements hiding in plain sight. D’oh! 😄
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I think you are probably right about the piezo bridge. I just thought it was a bridge design I was unfamiliar with. The current owner said that he’d been told something about it being made so that it could sound “more acoustic”, so that adds up. Thank you!
And I did replace the 9 volt battery.
Cheers,
Elaine
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This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by
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