and are going a bit further than a piezo connected to a jack, Artec have some really handy documentation on their site.
Not piezo-specific, but worth a look if you are stuck.
You can download all sorts of things here:
http://www.artecsound.com/pickups/electronics/wiringbook.html
But this one is probably the most useful as the rest deals with active electronics I think:
http://www.artecsound.com/wiring/wiring_book01.pdf
Not big on description, but some of the pictures are very helpful.
I hadn't come across it before, so figured somebody else might not have either..
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I went through the scematics links and some have the capacitor soldered to the middle prong of the tone pot and some have the capacitor soldered to the left prong. Is there any difference? Thanks for all who posted the links. Very useful. JOhn
"The Most Common Capacitor Values are as follows -
.022 mf
Our person favourite Cap size. Allowing a good balance between Bass, Middle and Treble, Plenty of mid range without compromising on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Absolutely perfect on single coils. Also, a standard on Gibson Humbuckers.
.033 mf
These are the standard in most single Coil Strat style guitars, they cut out a small amount of brights, but boast a very strong mid range that carries through in the mix. Giving a slightly fuller sound than the 0.022s, great if your getting drowned out by the rest of a band.
.047 mf
These are as far as your really want to go with your guitar (or bass). Nearly all of the bright top end is gone, leaving behind plenty of bass and middle. Great for full blown distortion. We prefer to use these with humbuckers, as we preffer the slightly dark tones, but its not a hard and fast rule (as Gibson prove very well)."
One thought is - what type of pot have you used for tone? - I usually use logarithmic because although you can use linear pots if you do you don't get much response until the end which is what you are describing.
great discussion guys thanks. I was very surprised how so many of these discussions failed to list the ratings on the capacitors and pot switches. Glad you added them. After collecting a lot of information, I've assembled this diagram and BOM (bill of materials) for a more advanced CBG pickup with 2 piezos, a selector switch for either piezo (or none) and a tone control.
Well this is my plan. My questions are:
1) is it a good plan?
2) whats the difference between the A500k and the B500k?
3) is the tone control the same as "gain" ?
4) Most of these circuits show the use of a .047mfd capacitor bridge on the tone control, what is
the difference between the .047mfd and the .02mfd that I see referenced sometimes?
5) I read an article where a resistor was put in-in or in parallel to the capictor, what is
the resistor for, what's the difference between inline or paprallel with respect to the sound, and
Hi Ted, yeah i did. Well at least in the wiring department, i can do mostly anything i want to wood but those darn wires got me beat!! I'm in kind of an impass with the switches though, i'm broke as hell so i wanted to use the strat switch but found out thats near to impossible so if i need a new switch i anyway i might aswell go with the tele 5 way superswitch mod since miniswitches are more expensive cause i need at least 4 or 5 for the switching and one for the stereo/mono option (mini 3 way, left out-both-right out). The pup's i have should be able to be wired in series, its a common mod for tele's and strat's and they have 2 wires comming out so they should be reversable.
Yes i can imagine a moving taking up time and attention, i recently moved myself so i know the chaos too, it suck's but it will be worth it eventualy, take your time on the diagram if you want i still have a week or two before it needs to be finished so i'm not in that much of a rush. Cant call though, i live in Holland and like i said i'm broke as hell so the long distance costs are a bit to high but we could try doing that with pm's here on the nation :)
Ted Crocker said:
Hi Bluesdog, bit off a little more than you can chew, huh? I would be able to draw up a wiring diagram for a circuit that does what you need. Instead of a 5 way switch it would have mini switches. One problem I see is that the 2 pickups you have might not be able to be wired for humbucking - the magnets & wiring direction need to be opposite each other to accomplish this.
Here's the second problem. I'm right in the middle of moving my shop. I have until monday to vacate the old building and I'm up to my eyeballs constructing and setting up the new space. As you can imagine it's chaos in both places. Once I'm up to speed I have to scramble to get caught up to orders I have.
It might take me a couple of weeks until I have the time and my addled brain is clear enough to figure out your circuit and post the diagram. If you call me at the shop at 856 404 0411 before then I may be able to walk you through some of the concepts you need to cover so maybe you can understand enough to wire it yourself.
Sorry I can't solve your dilemma right now but if you are somewhat versed in guitar electronics we might be able to work together to get your project done.
haven't grounded the bridge but i will try that next. everything else looks pretty much like the diagram. cheers for the help
David Lloyd said:
Hi,
From the Seymour Duncan website a single pick up with volume and tone can be wired like this;
I cannot tell from the picture but have you grounded the bridge?
Regards,
David
c merle said:
Hit a bit of a big hitch with my new cbg. the magnetic pickup seems wired up correctly but no output from the pickup unless i touch the jack with a finger.
Some grounding issue perhaps? My small resevrvior of knowledge of electrics has definitley run dry.
Hi, From the Seymour Duncan website a single pick up with volume and tone can be wired like this;
I cannot tell from the picture but have you grounded the bridge? Regards, David c merle said:
Hit a bit of a big hitch with my new cbg. the magnetic pickup seems wired up correctly but no output from the pickup unless i touch the jack with a finger.
Some grounding issue perhaps? My small resevrvior of knowledge of electrics has definitley run dry.
Blimey - I'll have to draw that out.. You don't do things by halves though, I'll give you that ;o)
If you could that would be nice thank you!!!
Hhahaha yeah i was drunk when i said yes to this project, i seem to have said:"Play it for a few weeks, figure out what you think its worth and pay me half of that" So i figured i'd make it as versitile as i could so i still get a decent pay for it. Not that it costed me much to build this thing (actualy it didnt cost me anything so far) but it took me quite a while to build it using mostly hand tool's exept for the pick up holes, i used a drill for those.
I was lucky that Bodywood was an old mockchimney mantle made out of a nice piece of quartersawn Merantiwood used to hang in the house i recently moved to for the last 40 years , it and was hung there by my neighbour who is now 86 (that's how i know how old the wood is) and someone found me a Concorde strat in the trash that was in horrible condition but still had good electric's i could use.... anyway i digress.
If you could draw me out a diagram on what i wanted to do i would sure appriciate that ;)
Hit a bit of a big hitch with my new cbg. the magnetic pickup seems wired up correctly but no output from the pickup unless i touch the jack with a finger. Some grounding issue perhaps? My small resevrvior of knowledge of electrics has definitley run dry.
Replies
Good reference material indeed Erik. Thanks for the share !!
I went through the scematics links and some have the capacitor soldered to the middle prong of the tone pot and some have the capacitor soldered to the left prong. Is there any difference? Thanks for all who posted the links. Very useful. JOhn
found this as well:
"The Most Common Capacitor Values are as follows -
.022 mf
Our person favourite Cap size. Allowing a good balance between Bass, Middle and Treble, Plenty of mid range without compromising on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Absolutely perfect on single coils. Also, a standard on Gibson Humbuckers.
.033 mf
These are the standard in most single Coil Strat style guitars, they cut out a small amount of brights, but boast a very strong mid range that carries through in the mix. Giving a slightly fuller sound than the 0.022s, great if your getting drowned out by the rest of a band.
.047 mf
These are as far as your really want to go with your guitar (or bass). Nearly all of the bright top end is gone, leaving behind plenty of bass and middle. Great for full blown distortion. We prefer to use these with humbuckers, as we preffer the slightly dark tones, but its not a hard and fast rule (as Gibson prove very well)."
One thought is - what type of pot have you used for tone? - I usually use logarithmic because although you can use linear pots if you do you don't get much response until the end which is what you are describing.
Again from the axes r us site there is a nice summary http://www.axesrus.com/axeElectronicsPots.htm (the right hand column.)
One good thing about caps is with a couple of crocodile clip leads you can give them a try before you solder to see which sound you prefer.
great discussion guys thanks. I was very surprised how so many of these discussions failed to list the ratings on the capacitors and pot switches. Glad you added them. After collecting a lot of information, I've assembled this diagram and BOM (bill of materials) for a more advanced CBG pickup with 2 piezos, a selector switch for either piezo (or none) and a tone control.
Well this is my plan. My questions are:
1) is it a good plan?
2) whats the difference between the A500k and the B500k?
3) is the tone control the same as "gain" ?
4) Most of these circuits show the use of a .047mfd capacitor bridge on the tone control, what is
the difference between the .047mfd and the .02mfd that I see referenced sometimes?
5) I read an article where a resistor was put in-in or in parallel to the capictor, what is
the resistor for, what's the difference between inline or paprallel with respect to the sound, and
what value resistor is appropriate?
I have been using another which may seem useful for some....
http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/wiringresources/
Yes i can imagine a moving taking up time and attention, i recently moved myself so i know the chaos too, it suck's but it will be worth it eventualy, take your time on the diagram if you want i still have a week or two before it needs to be finished so i'm not in that much of a rush. Cant call though, i live in Holland and like i said i'm broke as hell so the long distance costs are a bit to high but we could try doing that with pm's here on the nation :)
Ted Crocker said:
David Lloyd said:
I cannot tell from the picture but have you grounded the bridge? Regards, David c merle said:If you could that would be nice thank you!!!
Hhahaha yeah i was drunk when i said yes to this project, i seem to have said:"Play it for a few weeks, figure out what you think its worth and pay me half of that" So i figured i'd make it as versitile as i could so i still get a decent pay for it. Not that it costed me much to build this thing (actualy it didnt cost me anything so far) but it took me quite a while to build it using mostly hand tool's exept for the pick up holes, i used a drill for those.
I was lucky that Bodywood was an old mockchimney mantle made out of a nice piece of quartersawn Merantiwood used to hang in the house i recently moved to for the last 40 years , it and was hung there by my neighbour who is now 86 (that's how i know how old the wood is) and someone found me a Concorde strat in the trash that was in horrible condition but still had good electric's i could use.... anyway i digress.
If you could draw me out a diagram on what i wanted to do i would sure appriciate that ;)
seems wired up correctly but no output from the pickup
unless i touch the jack with a finger. Some grounding issue perhaps? My small resevrvior of knowledge of electrics has definitley run dry.
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