Fri Aug 08, 2014 10:35 am
Fri Aug 08, 2014 11:44 am
xg5a wrote:A few weeks ago I played one of the new Ibanez artist reissue guitars with the tri-tone switches, that let you set up their humbuckers with the coils in series (standard), but also in parallel, and I thought it was a great system. The humbucker in parallel sounds like the in-between position on a strat: chimey and bright.
So that got me thinking, my Comanche lets me select adjacent pickups to be switched on together in the normal parallel but not in series. Series/parallel switching would allow me to turn two single coils into a humbucker, the opposite of how the Ibanez turns the humbucker into two single coils. I found this article, and it seems pretty doable wiring-wise:
http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Adding_Series_Switching_To_Your_Strat
I'm guessing it would be really punchy and a little warmer than a single Z-coil, but would still retain some of those wonderful MFD highs, so I really want to try it.
I was wondering two things:
Does anyone have experience making this modification - Do you think it sounds good? For what it's worth, I've removed the treble bleed cap from my volume control (I never play with the treble tone on 10, so it doesn't matter and I like the added bass without it), and I've also removed the fixed capacitor to balance things out and retain some highs, although I'm thinking of putting it back since the guitar is a little too shrill. I want to evaluate the pickups in series first, though.
Also, are the brass base plates of the Z-coils grounded? And if so, what do I need to do to set them up with their own ground leads? I'd like to avoid removing the covers, if possible, for fear of destroying the windings.
My guitar is actually in for a warranty repair right now, so I won't be able to try out this modification for a few weeks. But I wanted to get my plan together and see what everyone thinks about the sound plus possible pitfalls. Thanks for the help!
Fri Aug 08, 2014 2:15 pm
Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:53 pm