Where to get good quality pots, pickguard, etc here?

[sepultura]

Hi guys, I'm going to Chicago next week on work and will be picking up some seymour duncan pickups, as a replacement to my strat single coil stock pups. I want to do a completely clean reinstall, i.e., remove the entire pickguard and put in a new one with new pups, pots, switches, etc.

Is there a good place to get good quality 500k/250k pots, 5-way selector switch, pick guard, etc? If not, I will need to order and get them in the US.

I still haven't decided how to wire the pickups in. All three are humbuckers which support coil split. It's going to be a hot rails (bridge), a cool rails (mid) and a little 59 (neck). I'm thinking of installing toggle switches or maybe some other mechanism to switch from humbucker to single coil mode. Or maybe I should just go with :

Bridge : Humbucker
Bridge + mid : coil split on each
Mid : humbucker
Mid + neck : coil split on each
Neck : humbucker.

Ideally, I was going to go with a toggle switch for each pickup to choose between humbucker and single coil mode. What would you do?

 

[Mew]

you could get those pots and such from guitar connection, they do carry allparts switches and so on if i remember correctly

 

[livideye]

GEtting Stuffs in the Us is a bitch. I was over there last year and i had no driving license. Cab fare's cost a bomb which has a meter in it. Advisable to get your own car, then you'll be able to drive to any guitar shops you want to. Anyway, I saw alot of adds in the yellow pages, displaying guitar shops. All seems damn huge but in my experience, it was very very far away. The guitar shops from my hotel was like probably Johor to KL. That bad. So it really depends. Cd's and dvd's are super cheap.

The advise is find out all the guitar shops before you head down to Chigaco. Try to get the distance from your hotel or something.

 

[mikemann]

And plenty of guys over here are still bitching on how inconvenient it is to get their stuffs.

In view on the geographical advantage we have here, and the advance transport system. We are all already spoonfed like babies already.

Furthermore to further simplify matters, there are only 3 major hubs to get musical stuffs anyway. They are Seleige (parklane), Bras Basah and Penisular. Which is practically within walking distance of each other.

If you can't find what you want here, you either find alternative or order and wait. What make you think that other country situation will be better.

The above is just a general view on the observation made by comments of some forum users, not targetin any person or group in particular.

 

[sepultura]

Thanks, but I don't plan to drive around much in Chicago if I can help it. I'm ordering the stuff from musician's friend and having them delivered to our office in Chicago from where I'll be picking them up.

Yah it would be good to look around if I stay over the weekend, let's see.

 

[ShredCow]

Ideally, I was going to go with a toggle switch for each pickup to choose between humbucker and single coil mode. What would you do?

Hmmm... this might be redundant if you are going for a 5 way switch. IMO, since you want a 5-way, and you'll be doing the above wiring, then just throw in a toggle switch to toggle split coil on positions 1, 3 and 5.

In that way, you will get.

Bridge : Humbucker OR split
Bridge + mid : coil split on each
Mid : humbucker OR split
Mid + neck : coil split on each
Neck : humbucker. OR split

Then if you want more tone options, you could do the following.

1) A toggle switch that bypasses all your tone pots (your strat has 2 right?) for a brighter, more cutting tone. (I have this on my guitar, there's quite a big difference)

2) A Varitone switch to replace your tone pot and then if you find your remaining tone pot redundance, you can take it out and put a toggle switch there for something else.

3) Install a switch for phasing your pups.

I have all the above so yeap, if you want some audio samples, just pm me.

 

[popeye]

Mid : humbucker OR split

Which mid pickup is humbucker? is it H-H-H config guitar? :lol:

 

[shouheng]

its an SSS strat style config...if you noticed the humbuckers mentioned are all single coil sized

 

[popeye]

my bad.... Just realize all the 3 pickup are humbuckers :lol:

 

[sepultura]

Yah they are all Humbuckers, the little '59 and cool rails sound great for bluesy stuff. The hot rails is really hot and would do well for Iron Maiden

 

[sepultura]

Hmmm I looked at the SD website and from the looks of their wiring schematic here:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/support/schematics/3lil_hb_vol_2tones_5way.html

when the selector switch is in pos 2 and 4, it appears as if both pickups are in humbucking mode and both in parallel.

ShredCow, you've worked with this before, you probably need to keep in mind the way you connect the pickups when in pos 2 and 4 in order to retain the hum canceling properties? I mean, if you connect the north side of the bridge pickup and the north side of the mid pickup, would you still retain hum cancellation?

I was thinking of replacing all the pots with push/pull pots with DPDT switches to allow toggling single coil vs humbucker mode for each pickup.

Oh and before I forget, I never use the tone pots, they are always on max as far as I can remember... may as well do without them.

 

[ShredCow]

ShredCow, you've worked with this before, you probably need to keep in mind the way you connect the pickups when in pos 2 and 4 in order to retain the hum canceling properties? I mean, if you connect the north side of the bridge pickup and the north side of the mid pickup, would you still retain hum cancellation?

I was thinking of replacing all the pots with push/pull pots with DPDT switches to allow toggling single coil vs humbucker mode for each pickup.

Oh and before I forget, I never use the tone pots, they are always on max as far as I can remember... may as well do without them.

Well, I don't know what to wire where lah, but I do know that on positions 2 and 4 of the wiring above, it is hum cancelling because the 2 split pups are wired in parallel. And they usually don't take north and north, its more like the inner coils, one north and one south. Like what I said, I don't know abt the wiring but I know that Dimarzio has the wiring diagrams for the above wiring.

Hmmm... for what you are abt to do to your tone pots, I suggest you think it over carefully. You'll never know when you'll need it... get older, mellow and so on... heh...

 

[thor666]

sepultra - if u're looking for very advanced wirings, I would recommend u the Seymour Duncan forums. They've quite a few experts there and should be able to answer your questions on the H-H-H with push pull wirings.

there's a high chance u'll need to get a megaswitch instead of a normal 5way selector... u might not be able to fit that in... also consider that.

in any case, there's also a high chance of u finding ur answers to these questions via a search on the SD forums. 8)

 

[thor666]

http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHHH5L1101

here's a diagram u can refer to btw. =)

 

[Mew]

sepultra - if u're looking for very advanced wirings, I would recommend u the Seymour Duncan forums. They've quite a few experts there and should be able to answer your questions on the H-H-H with push pull wirings.

yea, ask artietoo there , he's our resident wiring expert .

 

[edder]

I still have some brand new CTS500k pots around. Cheep cheep... :lol:

 

[sepultura]

Wow, thanks guys for the responses. I had looked at guitarelectronics.com's wiring specs, and was wondering about the super/mega switches. I intend to completely replace the pickguard with a new one, new pots, new switch etc so it shouldn't be a problem (I guess) fitting in a super/mega switch.

Anyway, I will update this once my pickups have arrived. Thanks.

 

[sepultura]

Yum... I just picked up my package, one hot rails (bridge), cool rails and little '59 (neck). Musician's friend delivered them in 2 days flat. I guess I will drop down to Guitar Center #334 to check out their stuff, maybe pick up a pick guard, switches, etc for the strat. Can't wait to get back to see how it sounds.