all possible series /parallel/ phase permutations

[amplexus]

Has anyone ever come up with a schematic starting with 3 humbuckers/6 single coils that will give you every possible permutation of series/ parallel/ and phasing. Selecting any random group of pickups from 1 to 6, any 2 of 6 andy 3 of 6 etc again with the option of serial or parallel. I realize some of the combinations are fairly undesirable but I want to explore all the possible tome possibilities. Maybe split the series and parallel into two stereo channels or split everything into seperate channals and mix them in a preamp. The circiut could be done with conventional switches or some combination of analog switching ic's and data selector logic. I am sure there is some way to do this and I can't be the first one with this crazy idea. I would even be curious just to see the truth table.
Ender

[blueman335]

I've got a couple HHH guitars, and have thought about getting every sound from every PU too. But after re-wiring guitars for a few years, I've found that you don't need every option on every PU, because you'll never use them all. Just one PU with phase will take care of that. Also, I've found a PU in parallel by itself is too puny & weak to be of any use to me. Like many others, I think a middle HB's tone is surprisingly crappy (even if that same PU sounds good in the neck or bridge), so I went to a Phat Cat (P-90) for the middle. So with all that in mind, here's how I wired mine to get the most usable sounds:

Bridge - has it's own dedicated volume & tone, both are push-pulls. Lifting the volume pot gives me coil cut, and the tone gives me phase. This also allows me to get either screw or slug coil by itself in coil cut mode.

Middle/Neck - Both share a volume & tone. The volume is a blend pot with a center detent. I can get any mix of those two PU's or just one by itself. The tone pot is a push-pull for coil cut for the neck HB.

Between the various combination or full HB, coil cut, and phase, I get at least 20 different sounds (maybe 30, I counted once). Now with that to choose from, I have a few that are my favorites, and the rest don't get used much. I have push-pulls in almost all my guitars and love complicated wirings, but I do it to get a few favorite tones. For example, I have the Jimmy Page system in some guitars, and out of the 21 choices, there's half a dozen that I use (wouldn't you know they require all four push-pulls!). Do I use all 21 sounds? No. Do I want to have them available just-in-case, to fit a certain song or room's acoustics? Yes. I prefer to have more options than I normally use; other guys want it as simple and basic as possible.

I had a Lucille, with stereo & varitone. In theory lots of tone options (18). Stereo on a Lucille, it means the neck & bridge PU have different outputs, which to me didn't seem that appealing. Few of us use stereo, as that requires running two amps at once, which is more than most of us want to haul around to a gig. Although stereo is an interesting idea for some effects boxes, I haven't used it yet. The varitone switch is next to useless, which is why you havn't seen it copied over the last 50 years. The tones are thin or muffled, and all are weak. Great idea on paper, lousy in actual practice. A classic example of having lots of differents sounds available, but few if any that are usable.

HHH guitars are another 50 year-old Gibson idea that no one else copied, because there's no real benefit. Everyone copied HSS & HSH. Granted, there are few guitars that are as beautiful as an SG Custom or LP Black Beauty (I love 'em both), but don't kid yourself that you'll play the middle HB much, if at all. And to give that PU every wiring combination is a joke; totally pointless. While Gibson is still in denial decades later, what they should have done is used a middle P-90 or a neck and middle P-90 for their triple PU guitars. Take an SG with a HB/P-90/P-90, a 5-way switch, and a Floyd Rose, and it would have competed favorably with the Super Strats.

Owning both HH & HHH guitars myself, I think you can get all the usable sounds you'll ever use from a HH, and that an HHH offers nothing extra. Obviously the rest of the world concurs, as who else is making HHH guitars besides Gibson & Epiphone? Where's the demand? If you want the gorgeous looks of an HHH, then use Phat Cats/P-94's or whatever HB-sized P-90. It reduces your potential sounds, but what you do get is more usable sounds, and that's all that really matters.

[Zhangliqun]

I've got a couple HHH guitars, and have thought about getting every sound from every PU too.

Ain't that the truth. Find out which of all these tones you actually LIKE, and from there figure out a wiring scheme to get you all or at least most of them. Otherwise your guitar's "dashboard" gets waaaaaaay to complicated.

[blueman335]

Ain't that the truth. Find out which of all these tones you actually LIKE, and from there figure out a wiring scheme to get you all or at least most of them. Otherwise your guitar's "dashboard" gets waaaaaaay to complicated.

Amen. My wirings are complicated enough as it is. If you go for every sound possible, you'll have so many wires it'll look like a plate of spaghetti. Good luck trying to wire all that correctly; most guys struggle with the Page system, which is a breeze compared to what Amplexus is proposing. And for all that effort, you'll probably use less than 20% of those options. With three HB's, and 5 options each (series, parallel, phase, and coil cut to each screw & slug coil), that's 125 options. Plus that doesn't take into account some of the best options, which is linking the PU's in series, and Artie's coil swap mod. If you could do all that too, maybe you'd have 150 to 200 options. And you might find 10 that are viable. I don't know that anyone has figured out how to get all these from one guitar. Without linking PU's in series and swapping coils, you're not really not getting all the possible combinations, so the whole theory never even gets off the ground.

Hermetico: can you do series, parallel, phase, coil cut (both coils), coil swap, and link in series, to each PU? I don't think it's possible.

In fact, as one of the more experienced wiring guys on this forum, I can say that Artie's coil swap sounds better than coil cut or parallel (which represent dozens of combinations in what Amplexus is recommending). I'd rather have 5 options that sound good, than 50 that don't.

Like the first post said "I can't be the first one to come up with this crazy idea." No you're not. But those of us with years of experience at re-wiring have learned that we don't want every possible option, because a lot of them are dogs. We've filtered thru the useless stuff and focus on what sounds good. You could get some input from the members about the options they use, and narrow your quest, so you could direct your efforts to where they'll pay off.

[amplexus]

This is more of a test bed than a gutar to perforrm with I don't care how many switches, and spst or dpdt are preferable to rotaries. I eventually plan to strip out the useless tones but for now I would like to hear and record them all. Any schematic sketches would be appreciated. Everything I have drawn seems like it will have problems when I try to combine both serial and parallel. Also if switch clutter is the issue all the controls could be in a wirless pedal with no visible switches at all.

Amplexus

[super rad stuff]

if i were you, i'd put 3 on/on/on switches next to the pickups mustang style, then have 2 volume/tone switches for each, with coil taps for each coil, with volume being for the inner(towards neck) and tone being the outer coil. then, each would have series(standard), 2 coil cut, and parallel options. then, on the on/on/on, have oop for the middle and series with the other pickups for the third position.
can someone confirm if this would work??

[Willybomb]

The two I can think of is Brian May's Red Special had on/off series/parallel/phase using six switches, and the Anderson wiring using 3 3way toggles.

[Ashurbanipal]

The two I can think of is Brian May's Red Special had on/off series/parallel/phase using six switches, and the Anderson wiring using 3 3way toggles.

The switches closest to the pickups are on/off and the bottom ones are in/out of phase. The guitar is wired for series only. Though on the recent Q+PR tour, Brian has been using a lower end BMG guitar that's got a custom paint job and parallel wiring for some songs. There's a schematic somewhere on the internet in which someone made this "super mod" where you can switch between series and parallel on a Red Special type guitar - so it keeps all the archetypical options associated with the instrument but adds a parallel mode. Here's the link (scroll down): http://www.treblebooster.com/brian_may_pickup_mod.htm.

Though the Red Special has about 16 different tonal options, the man himself uses bridge+middle in phase about 85% of the time. So do the math if you think you need HHH with all possible combinations . I think most of us would tend to gravitate towards just a few tones which complement our rigs/are pleasing to the ear. As Zakk Wylde said: "Dude, there are only two sounds: crap and good".

It would be an interesting exercise though; but you probably wouldn't want this amount of switcheroo on the guitar you're playing live - better for studio experimentation.

[blueman335]

I think most of us would tend to gravitate towards just a few tones which complement our rigs/are pleasing to the ear. As Zakk Wylde said: "Dude, there are only two sounds: crap and good".

It would be an interesting exercise though; but you probably wouldn't want this amount of switcheroo on the guitar you're playing live - better for studio experimentation.

Zakk certainly is to the point. Not one for flowery talk. Ha!

+1. You wouldn't last long in a band if your guitar has 500 tone options, and they have to wait while you flip through a notebook & flip switches and turn dials for 5 minutes. It's got to manageable.

Give me some options so I can fine-tune my sound to fit the room I'm playing in. But the crowd is there to listen to some good music and guitar-work, not watch a mad scientist fiddle with stuff all night. The boys drinking at the bar will put up with just so much of that before the beer bottles start flying at the stage.

[wanmei1]

+1. You wouldn't last long in a band if your guitar has 500 tone options, and they have to wait while you flip through a notebook & flip switches and turn dials for 5 minutes. It's got to manageable.

Give me some options so I can fine-tune my sound to fit the room I'm playing in. But the crowd is there to listen to some good music and guitar-work, not watch a mad scientist fiddle with stuff all night. The boys drinking at the bar will put up with just so much of that before the beer bottles start flying at the stage.

LOL !!!!...Brilliant !
Zak Wylde has some serious competiton!

Your absolutely right of course !

However I think these guys are looking at it from a purely techincal point of view which may or may not ultimately have a useful spin off .

Looks like were up to 15,000 plus combinations according to Hermetico and if these guys have the patience and or can stay sane long enough to record (let's say a couple of hundred of these combinations) and then cull the selections down to say 15 "best sounding, must have combos"....then it's possible they might find some previously unheard and delicious tones.

On the other hand they might not. ....nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Either way it will have been a fascinating technical feat / exercise and a first in the world of pickup wiring exploration.

So before the beer bottles start flying at the stage let's raise our glasses to our mad scientist friends who are about to embark on a pioneering journey and bravely go where no man has gone before!

Duck !.....starboard incoming beer bottle !

[amplexus]

I realize some of the combinations are undesirable but some of the odd combinations may be nice and I like odd guitar sounds. Moreover just because you dont like a particular tone dosen't me I won't. the idea here is to check out ALL the possibilities and pick the ones I like. Also I'm not exactly new at this, I have been wiring on guitars and building custom amps and stompboxes for upwards of 50 years but this is crazy enough to tax my hardware hacking skill. just building the truth table for the various possibilities is no small task. I have done several designs in isis (an electronics cad program with simulation capabilities) my switches are phase reversal, coil cut, series and parallel but all my designs have had some crosstalk issues. 1to1 isolation transformers may solve some of this. I have not kept up with bilateral audio switches and data selector chips. if anyone knows of any useful application notes it would be helpful.
if anyone has a useful schematic please post it or email me directly
amplexus

[amplexus]

a bit from the maxim website , does anyone have and experience with audio cross-point switches. they may be just the thing to avoid switch clutter.

Multiplexers
In addition to switches, Maxim makes a number of multiplexers (muxes). A mux is a special version of a switch in which two or more inputs are selectively connected to a single output. A mux can be as simple as an SPDT switch or come in 4:1, 8:1, 16:1, or even dual 4:1 and 8:1 combinations. The digital control for these higher order muxes is similar to a binary decoder with three digital inputs required to select the appropriate channel.

A demultiplexer is basically a mux used backwards. That is, one input connects to two or more outputs based on the decoded address data.

There are, finally, cross-point switches. A cross-point switch is usually an M x N device, whereby any or all of M inputs may be connected to any or all of N outputs (and vice versa).

[wanmei1]

I've been following this thread with some interest and I think your idea for making these 150 + different tones happen is really different......
.......maybe not all that practical but it sure is an interesting exercise.

However you just lost me completely at this point :

"The digital control for these higher order muxes is similar to a binary decoder with three digital inputs required to select the appropriate channel."

Digital control ?

3 digital inputs required to select the appropriate channel ?

I really can't get my head around this so I was hoping you could elaborate in simple language.

[MikeS]

I think we're looking at thousands, not hundreds, of permutations. Far too complicated for practical use, and pushing the limits (if not beyond them) of what can be done with analog switches.

I think you're better off splitting things up and building multiple test beds, unless you're really that curious about the tone you get when you combine the neck screw coil in series and out of phase with the parallel combination of the middle slug coil and bridge screw coil, or the neck screw coil in series with the neck slug coil and in series with the combination of the middle screw coil in parallel and out of phase with the middle slug coil.

[blueman335]

I think we're looking at thousands, not hundreds, of permutations. Far too complicated for practical use, and pushing the limits (if not beyond them) of what can be done with analog switches.

If this can be done, the thing that makes any conclusions of questionable use to the rest of the world is that each piece of wood has a different tone (grain, density, water content, mineral content, etc), and you've got a different amp, speaker, & effects than most of us. So what wiring combinations sound good in the PU's you select, with their magnets & pots, in your wood, amp, & speakers, may sound like crap in ours, and vice versa. All these other components effect the tone. That's why "laboratory" sound tests don't work for guitars. We can't even be sure of what any given PU will sound like thru our guitar & amp.

Now if this is for your own personal education, or a Guiness Book record, go for it. You'll end up knowing more then we do. But because of the myraid of variables in your rig, that few of us can match, your conclusions may not be valid for anyone else. If you get a nice sound with a certain PU, thru your rig, with 10 things going on at once in your wiring, we may not be able to duplicate it because we're using a different PU or our wood has a different EQ or we have different tubes or speakers in our amp. As long as you know that going into this.

[amplexus]

wanmei, the mux's and many other data selector chips work by having a series of binary coded decimal or similar rotaty switches that will give you various digital words that control the input, inputs could also be contrlled by a embeded microprocessor which is more typical. If you have ever used a multipedal stompbox they use this technology to switch between 200 modelled stompboxes. Basically they are programable switches. see the maxim, analog devices ,intersil or other analog chipmaker for more details, datasheets, application notes etc. Maxim and Analog Devices have always been good about providing free engineering samples but please do not abuse their genorosity and give them some business if you build anything comercially useful. don't second source some off shore chip. you may also want to download a copy of the proteus isis aries cad package which has very powerful modeling and trace routing capabilities. Andre Lamont includes a copy with his book the black art of video console design and there are always torrents if you are so inclined. Altium protel is similar but much more powerful and too complex for beginners. My boolian algebra is pretty rusty but one of these nights I will set up a truth tabel in excel and see just how many possibilities there really are.
Amplexus

[wanmei1]

wanmei, the mux's and many other data selector chips work by having a series of binary coded decimal or similar rotaty switches that will give you various digital words that control the input, inputs could also be contrlled by a embeded microprocessor which is more typical. If you have ever used a multipedal stompbox they use this technology to switch between 200 modelled stompboxes. Basically they are programable switches. see the maxim, analog devices ,intersil or other analog chipmaker for more details, datasheets, application notes etc. Maxim and Analog Devices have always been good about providing free engineering samples but please do not abuse their genorosity and give them some business if you build anything comercially useful. don't second source some off shore chip. you may also want to download a copy of the proteus isis aries cad package which has very powerful modeling and trace routing capabilities. Andre Lamont includes a copy with his book the black art of video console design and there are always torrents if you are so inclined. Altium protel is similar but much more powerful and too complex for beginners. My boolian algebra is pretty rusty but one of these nights I will set up a truth tabel in excel and see just how many possibilities there really are.
Amplexus

Yeah I knew that !!!!
(had no idea.....thanks for the explanation.)

Promise me you'll hang around here for a while.
I don't understand half of what you say.... but I enjoy reading about it.
I'm actually picking up a bit.

I can offer you no expertise for your adventure but I'd like to encourage you to continue as I for one find this genuinely fascinating.

I'd be interested to know the number of possible combinations so if you do get time to do some calculations that'd be great.

Set up a truth table in excel using boolian algebra huh ?

[amplexus]

zakk is to the point but you totally miss it, this is not about building a guitar to perform with, I have several other guitars that are fine for that including a prs hollowbody 1 and old sg and a strat modified into a fernandes sustainer along with others that come and go. this is about exploring odd pickup combinations that no one has tried before

amplexus

[amplexus]

Thank you Hermetico i will try this probably with six scatterwound strat pickups to start with and possibly post some of the better sounds with that many possibilities I bet there will be a few surprizes both good and bad. I may model it in isis before actually wiring it it has pretty good virtual circuit simulation capabilities. I like the 3pdt switch idea.
Amplexus

[uOpt]

Literally all combinations of series? That's pretty much undoable.

Let's say you don' say humbucker 1 to 3, you say single coil 1 to 6.

What if you want single coils 1, 4 and 6 in series with 2, 3 and 5 in a parallel package?

The rest of the stuff (OOP, split etc.) is pretty much doable with a bus design, but the series things kills it pretty good.

Myself, I use one series switch that puts the bridge pickup in series with the pickup selector switch.