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Blending magnetic and piezo pickups

Posted by Johannes Eriksson on May 20, 2012 at 1:04pm in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

Hi all

I'm sure this has been covered at length already but is there a simplish way to blend a piezo and magnetic pickup in a single output jack? I was thinking that some kind of blend pot rather than a selector switch would make it easier to compensate for the different signal strengths of the different pickups, but really I don't know anything about electronics... If it makes a difference the magnetic pickup I have is a humbucker type that I'd like to add options for split, parallel and series but that seems straightforward enough to do...

Thanks

Johannes

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Replies

  • Johannes Eriksson May 21, 2012 at 5:29pm

    Thanks everyone for your help, I was expecting it to be less straightforward than that but if the only difficulty would be that one pickup would be louder than the other then the blend pot should be able to take care of that...

  • The Phrygian Kid May 21, 2012 at 3:07am
    Yes it is. That is exactly what a balance pot is btw, just the two are stacked. In the centre both are on ten. As you roll forward one is rolled of, backward the other. I use em all the time. I'd much prefer a blender and a master volume than two volumes personally.
    Make sure you get a balance pot, they got a special taper otherwise witha regular stacked pot in the centre both pups are on less than ten
    • Rouxdy Blues > The Phrygian Kid June 2, 2012 at 9:10am

      I'm thinking this is what I want to do on one of my current builds.  This is all pretty new to me so my question is this... can I use a 250K pot for volume with my 500k Bourns Blend pot?  And is there a schematic somewhere!? 

      Thanks in advance!

  • BenBob May 21, 2012 at 2:41am

    Is it possible to use two volume pots and run them in parallel?

  • The Phrygian Kid May 21, 2012 at 1:11am

    in my experience that circuit (that David put up) works better when you leave the earth off..

    otherwise at each extreme you get nothing..

    i also buy plenty of balance pots from ebay, i use em for two in one tone controls too

  • David L. May 20, 2012 at 2:20pm

    you can use a blend pot

    305815814?profile=original

    I have used these off ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-Dual-B250K-Blend-Balance-Pot-Potentiome... they take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

    On my next build (whenever I get around to it) I want to give this idea a try where you use 1N5817  diodes on the pot so you can use then direct without the need of an extra blend pot. http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/13405... I don't know if it will work okay with a piezo but cannot see any reason why it shouldn't.

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