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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:10 pm
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Nikola Tesla wrote:
bluesky636 wrote:
I have never really liked the 2 and 4 position in a 5-way switch. It just doesn't do it for me.



I'm with you on this.. :mrgreen:


You guys never use the 2 & 4 positions?

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:15 pm
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orvilleowner wrote:
Nikola Tesla wrote:
bluesky636 wrote:
I have never really liked the 2 and 4 position in a 5-way switch. It just doesn't do it for me.



I'm with you on this.. :mrgreen:


You guys never use the 2 & 4 positions?


Very rarely. I much prefer the fatter tone of each individual pickup.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 12:18 am
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Have you tried the bridge pup and neck pup together? That gives a very tele-like sound with regular pups, but I don't know about that with noiseless pups. Maybe you could use one of your switch positions 2 or 4 for the bridge-neck combination. I always like bridge and middle (pos 2) together when playing clean, for the noise cancelling (if not using noiseless pups), but never really liked the middle-neck position (pos 4).

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:02 am
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Ceri wrote:
Hi Bill. Bridge+middle is too necessary to me for my Knopfleresque moments, so I couldn't lose that. As you say, that's a clean tone. I hadn't thought about it much before but it seems you're right: I don't believe I use 2 and 4 for more drivey sounds.

So I'd never swap a five-way for a three-way, but I absolutely get the logic of doing it. I've long felt people's desire for "versatility" from their guitar is questionable. It seems to me that in real-life playing situations what we need are two or three distinctly different sounds that can be selected with maximum ease. Anything that makes that simpler and more accurate has to be a good thing. Cheers - C

We've waxed poetic on this subject elsewhere in the past. As a dinosaur from the 'Age of the Three-Way Switch', and a charter member of 'The Order of The Sweet Spot', I still argue that, to my ear, finding that 2, 4 position the 'ancient way' yielded a different tone from the 5-way. Can't explain it. Maybe it had something to do with ancient materials. I was playing a stock '58 Strat back then. The same thing's been said for those bastard pickup windings from days of yore that purists have pursued, and which made Ybarra a legend in her own time. Quality control was not what is is these days. That might have made all the difference. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:16 am
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Ceri wrote:
I have a Strat with the S1 switch, and for a long while it seemed completely pointless to me. Eventually I grudgingly discovered I do quite like a couple of the extra sounds it gives so I guess I wouldn't ever remove it. But I can never remember everything it does without the diagram in front of me: it's utterly unintuitive. Which is useless in any playing situation. You can't ask the band to wait a minute while you work out which switching combination you're trying to find.
I felt the same way for the first little while after I installed the Kinman K9 switch in one of my Strats but after a while I got the hang of it and now I like it quite a lot. In particular I like the Tele style tone you get from the bridge/neck position and I also find running all three to be quite useful as well.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:45 am
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bluesky636 wrote:
I have physically compared the two switches. There is no difference in how the three primary positions are connected. 2/4 are achieved through a slightly different contact patch on the rotating part of the switch.

.....and the 2/4 'bastard' contact paths on the 3-way. Is there anything about the geometry of that which would attentuate the tone differently?

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:58 am
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BMW-KTM wrote:
Ceri wrote:
I have a Strat with the S1 switch, and for a long while it seemed completely pointless to me. Eventually I grudgingly discovered I do quite like a couple of the extra sounds it gives so I guess I wouldn't ever remove it. But I can never remember everything it does without the diagram in front of me: it's utterly unintuitive. Which is useless in any playing situation. You can't ask the band to wait a minute while you work out which switching combination you're trying to find.
I felt the same way for the first little while after I installed the Kinman K9 switch in one of my Strats but after a while I got the hang of it and now I like it quite a lot. In particular I like the Tele style tone you get from the bridge/neck position and I also find running all three to be quite useful as well.

Hi BMW: yep, exactly. That bridge+neck sound is one of the ones I've come to like. And the bridge+middle+neck setting as well. I think that's position 3 with the S1 on - but I'm not quite sure without checking! :lol:

However, all the series, parallel and special capacitor stuff - I just can never remember all of that without the diagram. D'oh!

***

Regarding the three-way / five-way tonality thang: I've seen sensible, respectable people saying reasonable sounding things on both sides of that debate. I just sit back and listen with interest on that one... :)

Cheers - C

PS Bill, I'm aware we keep drifting away from the original point of your thread. Apologies. Still, they're interesting and related tangents...

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:00 am
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shimmilou wrote:
Have you tried the bridge pup and neck pup together? That gives a very tele-like sound with regular pups, but I don't know about that with noiseless pups. Maybe you could use one of your switch positions 2 or 4 for the bridge-neck combination. I always like bridge and middle (pos 2) together when playing clean, for the noise cancelling (if not using noiseless pups), but never really liked the middle-neck position (pos 4).


I have an AVRI 52 Tele that I love so I see no need to have my Strat sound like a Tele. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:06 am
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ZZDoc wrote:
bluesky636 wrote:
I have physically compared the two switches. There is no difference in how the three primary positions are connected. 2/4 are achieved through a slightly different contact patch on the rotating part of the switch.

.....and the 2/4 'bastard' contact paths on the 3-way. Is there anything about the geometry of that which would attentuate the tone differently?


The only possible reason I can think of that the 2/4 position of a 5-way would sound different from sticking a 3-way in between positions would be due to the amount of material in the rotating part of the switch that is making contact. Maybe if there is better contact with the bridge terminal than with the middle terminal, the sound might be different but that would be almost impossible to tell without extensive experimentation and double blind testing. Not worth the effort in my opinion unless you are really anal about such things. :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:18 am
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Maybe someone could correct me, but there very well could be a different tone with the old Strats and a 3-way switch. At some point Fender started doing a reverse wound middle pickup and also the 3-way in the forces 2 & 4 positions actually saddled the contact lugs to put the pickups in an out-of-phase circuit. At least it seems like my old 70s Strat had more of a sweet tone on #4.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:08 am
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Xhefri wrote:
Maybe someone could correct me, but there very well could be a different tone with the old Strats and a 3-way switch. At some point Fender started doing a reverse wound middle pickup and also the 3-way in the forces 2 & 4 positions actually saddled the contact lugs to put the pickups in an out-of-phase circuit. At least it seems like my old 70s Strat had more of a sweet tone on #4.


I suggest that you physically compare a 5-way and 3-way switch as I have. You will see that the only difference is the metal contact area on the moving part of the switch that connects the lugs. There is no difference between the two in how the pickups themselves are wired to the switches, other than tone control connections. In my opinion, any differences in tone that you heard are due to the types of pickups used and the tone control configuration and not due to the switch itself.

http://support.fender.com/service_diagr ... A_SISD.pdf

By the way, the three pickups in a Strat are all in phase with each other. The reverse wound/reverse polarity pickup puts the noise component out of phase, but the signal component is in phase. The "quack" is created because of the different positions on the strings that each pickup is sensing which creates minor phase cancellations at different frequencies but not an over all 180 degree phase shift.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:12 am
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Xhefri wrote:
Maybe someone could correct me, but there very well could be a different tone with the old Strats and a 3-way switch. At some point Fender started doing a reverse wound middle pickup and also the 3-way in the forces 2 & 4 positions actually saddled the contact lugs to put the pickups in an out-of-phase circuit. At least it seems like my old 70s Strat had more of a sweet tone on #4.

....you recall my observations have always been addressed to my experience working with a stock '58 Strat run first through a Danelectro Centurion and later a '61 Fender Concert during the decade '58-'68.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:50 pm
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Xhefri wrote:
Maybe someone could correct me, but there very well could be a different tone with the old Strats and a 3-way switch. At some point Fender started doing a reverse wound middle pickup and also the 3-way in the forces 2 & 4 positions actually saddled the contact lugs to put the pickups in an out-of-phase circuit. At least it seems like my old 70s Strat had more of a sweet tone on #4.



I dont think our old 70s had a reverse wound middle pickups. I remember mine had a 5 way but I got it used in 1980 so if it was stock or installed I will never know. I think they were very simular to the custom shop 69s but were not staggered.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 2:54 pm
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donnycraven wrote:
Xhefri wrote:
Maybe someone could correct me, but there very well could be a different tone with the old Strats and a 3-way switch. At some point Fender started doing a reverse wound middle pickup and also the 3-way in the forces 2 & 4 positions actually saddled the contact lugs to put the pickups in an out-of-phase circuit. At least it seems like my old 70s Strat had more of a sweet tone on #4.



I dont think our old 70s had a reverse wound middle pickups. I remember mine had a 5 way but I got it used in 1980 so if it was stock or installed I will never know. I think they were very simular to the custom shop 69s but were not staggered.

That was what I was thinking Donny. That the old Strats has 3 regular wound pickups and then later, after the introduction of the 5-way switch they started RW the middle pickup to cut on hum in 2 & 4. At least I think that is what happened. I don't think that would have change the tone too much, if so.

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Post subject: Re: 5-way to 3-way Switch Change
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 3:42 pm
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Xhefri wrote:
That the old Strats has 3 regular wound pickups and then later, after the introduction of the 5-way switch they started RW the middle pickup to cut on hum in 2 & 4. At least I think that is what happened. I don't think that would have change the tone too much, if so.

However, if memory serves, when I set the 2 or 4 position using the 3-way switch, it cut the hum. :shock: :wink:

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