CV DUOSONIC - Wiring ideas / simple mods

[phantasmagorovich]

Hey there buddys,


I have a CV Duosonic that i dearly love. And what do you do with something that you love when it is a piece of gear and you are a nerd? Exactly - you start altering it! Love and affection through modding, that's what it should be called. After a first foray into that world last year I ended up with a guitar i don't like any more because I took modding too far and lost patience on the way. That's why I am going to take it easy on Daphne. (Yes, that's her name, even though she's not blue.)

I have ordered new Pickups at The Creamery (Red '79) and I have very high hopes for them. But it is hard to stop once you get going, so I am thinking about replacing the gold anodized Pickguard with a black one. That would go better with the look of the pickups as well.

BUT if I start cutting a new pickguard I might as well think about wiring shenanigans and replace the pots and caps and whatnot. I am considering any of the following:

- series wiring for the pickups
- out of phase wiring
- killswitch
- maybe something similar to the Eldred Esquire Mod

I don't use my tone knob much, so maybe that could be done away with in favor of a switch. It might be either the Eldred Mod or a killswitch or both on a three-way switch. Eldred, if I got that right, is a mod to one of the Esquire switch settings. The original Esquire bypassed its tone pot and had a cap in there to make it sound bassy. People then changed this cap value and found some good sounds with that. I might want that or just forget about the whole tone control.
Another thing I don't use is the neck PU on it's own. So I thought I might rather put something interesting in that position. Like for example both PUs in series. Or both out of phase (even though I don't even know what that really means, but it always sounded interesting to me.

All of this is in a very speculative stage as you might notice, but maybe you guys want to share experiences or ideas. Maybe I'm just getting carried away, if you think so, please tell me so too.

[Nelson Instruments]

Out of phase might be an interesting sound when being used with crazy effects. BUT there is a drop in output when out of phase so it may not work as well with effects.
what if you turned the selector switch into a kill switch?
Also since you say you don't use the neck pickup on its own (which gets rid of the need for the selector switch) you could wire the bridge pickup to always be on. Then you would wire the neck pickup to a volume pot. Heck you could even use a push-pull pot so that you could switch between in and out of phase.
Since we have one more pot location not being used... maybe instead of wiring the bridge pickup to be always on you could use either a concentric pot for volume and tone, or another push pull pot and do series/parallel?

[phantasmagorovich]

Alright. I just went ahead and tried it with the old pickups so that I know what I like. I screwed on the wiring a little so now I have two kill switches but I already figured out where to put the jumper wire. I am underwhelmed by the sound of this in series. I thought it would make a bigger difference. How about in and out of phase. (What does that even mean?)

[lapsteel]

The difference between series and parallel is only really relevent at high volume levels and it is dependant on the pickups you are using too. A phase switch is a little more noticible it produces more quack and if you got single coils it only works when both pickups are on... Maybe you could add some onboard dirt? Maybe a great destroyer? Stereo outs? a piezo pickup with a blend?

[WeHuntKings]

The difference between series and parallel is only really relevent at high volume levels and it is dependant on the pickups you are using too. A phase switch is a little more noticible it produces more quack and if you got single coils it only works when both pickups are on... Maybe you could add some onboard dirt? Maybe a great destroyer? Stereo outs? a piezo pickup with a blend?

ffffffffffuuuuuu

[phantasmagorovich]

This is strange. I had it working so that my normal pickup selector switch had me going in between either pickup or series in the middle position. I have done away with the Tone Control, that wasn't anything I used much anyway. Apparently I have fucked up copying the way it was wired with my old pickups when I dropped in the new ones. HERE is a link to a drawing of it.
Can someone look at that and tell me what's wrong, please?
(Red= hot, Green= other wire, N for neck, B for bridge PU, arrow goes to volume pot.)
I can't seem to wrap my head around it. Sometimes I'm just stupid like that.

I have tried to come up with a way to wire this to be bridge / series / parallel but either I'm too stupid again, or it's just not possible. If it were possible I could use the empty hole for the tone knob for a phase switch on the neck PU, that would double as a kill switch in series mode, wouldn't it?

[phantasmagorovich]

Alright. I had the ground wires confused, just like in the drawing. Everything works fine now.

Is there a way to have bridge / parallel / series on one switch? That would be perfect for me.

[lapsteel]

That is totally doable. Check out the Seymor Duncan site for wiring diagrams... it is a great reference and can inspire other ideas for unique wiring.

If I may suggest an idea try a normal three way switch for standard pickup selection set up, dump the tone pot, setup a push/pull pot for volume and series/parallel switching (or better yet in/out phase)....stealthy one knob one switch setup. Then you can put a fake tone knob with a push pull pot to engage a dirt circuit or special eq setting. You would have to instal a secret battery compartment, but even if it something simple you can hit it to boost your signal and melt face.