Jazzmaster coil-split: no idea what I'm doing.

DickPresto

Let me begin by saying I've never built a guitar before--my first a humbuckered Jazzmaster--and every step of this has been a learning process. Diving in head first. I know nothing. That said...

I can find push-pull diagrams for humbuckered Strats and LPs, which I could find useful if I understood the wiring of a Jazzmaster. So I've got a few questions. My first assumption (and correct me here if I am--and I just might be--wrong) is that the top v/t rollers are for the neck, and the standard 1M/1M volume and tone knobs are for the bridge.

So the first question: do all (or which) pots need to be push/pull?

Second: What's the difference between linear and audio pots? Other than one is preferably (or only?) used for volume, other for tone.

Third: For coil splitting, will I want to use something different than 1M pots and that 50k pot (500k, 250k? 2M?)

Fourth: Can just skip the top rollers and just wire them to the lower volume / tone pots? If so, what sort of pots should I use?

Fifth: Anything else I'm not thinking of?

I hope someone can make heads or tales of this.

Thank you!

Nate

robertoriginal

man, if you want to make your jazzy coil splitable you need to start by basically ripping everything out of it.

you can. really put a push pull on the rollers(which control the rythm or neck pup)

i guess you would have to use the bridge volume and tone for the push pulls of both of them. each one would be a wolume, and then your tones would be at the top bout(rythm section for the neck)

the switch would become obsolete so i guess you could make it an in phase out of phase switch, thats about al lyou could do with it.

linear and audio pots, man, you are diving in hard.

i think you probly get a very clear idea of exactly what you want to do.

and then go from there.

Bob_the_godly_dude

I've never wired a Jazzy, so I can't help, and Rob has probably said most of it anyway, but to explain Linear and Audio (Log) taper pots:

Basically, liniar pots have a constant, liniar change in resistance, great for making bulbs lighter or darker, etc etc.

However, the dynamic range of the human ear isn't linear, it's logarhythmic (I may have spelt that wrong), that means, something may, on paper be twice as loud as something else, but to us it won't sound that way, it'll sound louder, but not twice as loud. This means we can hear both really quiet things and really loud things without being deafend by the loud things.

Essentially, Audio/Log pots are designed to be used as volume controlls in audio devices as they are closer to the way the human ear works and so sound more liniar to us.

Both will work in a guitar, but you will find that with a audio/log pot will be much easier to use.

I've probably explained that really badly but hopefully it'll shed some light.

DickPresto

Bob_the_godly_dude said: Basically, liniar pots...

I don't know what that means. I was never sure why that switch needed to be there in addition to the 3-way.

The bass player in my band is an electronics engineer, I'll bring some of what you suggested up with him. He doesn't really know guitars (though he built an incredible synth housed in an old NES), but I think he can illuminate some more for me.

Thanks.

Cool!

spaceghost

Bob_the_godly_dude said: Both will work in a guitar, but you will find that with a audio/log pot will be much easier to use.

an in-phase/out-of-phase switch/toggle is just a switch between running the coils in series or parallel

the third switch as it exists on a stock jag/jazzy is basically a switch between two independent circuits.

Make sure you caught this:

jellybelly

If you're building from scratch, sod the rhythm circuit, just get a diagram from a les paul or fat strat and go from there, the rhythm circut isnt all that important unless the way a jaguar or jazzmaster is wired is of specific importance to your playing style. Would love to see a few pics of what youve got so far though!

Bob_the_godly_dude

jellybelly said: If you're building from scratch, sod the rhythm circuit, just get a diagram from a les paul or fat strat and go from there, the rhythm circut isnt all that important unless the way a jaguar or jazzmaster is wired is of specific importance to your playing style. Would love to see a few pics of what youve got so far though!

I'm planning to put those controlls in a future project to controll an onboard active clean boost. Should be fun!

DickPresto

Okay, I'm beginning to make more sense of this.

Question at the moment: what difference will it make using a 1 meg tone pot vs. say the 50k one in a jazz/jag. Or 250k? Or?

I am doing this from scratch. I've got a blank jazz body, pickups, neck, trem, bridge, some electronics, bunch of parts laying around I haven't done anything with. I'll try and get some pictures when there's something to show.