Push/pull knobs

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Author Message   79batmobile Username: 79batmobile Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 2:13 pm:    To start I have an 82 Artist. It has humbuckers (super 58's?) and two tone/two volume and of course a pickup selector. Pretty standard really. It is alpine or arctic white or something like that, even though it looks like a light yellow. I'm not sure what ARxxx it is, maybe someone will know. So the question is can I install the push/pull knobs that were availble on the 83 on mine for coil tapping purposes? Will my humbuckers have the requisite 4 wires? Has anyone done this before? The reason I ask is because the guitar, while having a great low end sound, has no high end sound. I would rather find a way to make the current setup sound better than replace the pickups. I like the look I guess. I have a coil tap on an lp knock off I have. I can get the whiniest sound out of it for soloing but I had to replace the el cheapo bridge pickup with a seymour duncan pickup. I would like a better sound from the bridge pickup because its kinda weak now. Any help will be greatly appreciated, Daniel   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 2:44 pm:    Dan, If your fret inlays are dots, then you have an AR100. I don't believe the 100s shipped with 4 wire pickups nor was trisound switch(series/tapped/parallel)configuration dependent upon the year. Rather, it was the model. AR 300 and AR500 had one for each p-up. Not sure '80-'85 ARs had Push/Pull, but others out here know more about the various permutations than I. If you want 4-wire capability, you'll have to swap out pups.   Michaelkaufman Username: Michaelkaufman Registered: 11-2002 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 3:45 pm:    Just to be sure, take out the pups and check for the number of wires. It there are 4, you're all set. If there are 2, you cannot tap them. mk   Yogi Username: Yogi Registered: 04-2003 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 5:28 pm:    Just take a look in the electric cavity at the volume pots and you'll see how many wires they have. But since the Duo Sound option with the Push/Push Pots was introduced first in 1983, I doubt that the Super58s have 4 wires. So you would have either to replace or modify the PUs. Juergen   79batmobile Username: 79batmobile Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 5:34 pm:    How much modifying must be done to make them ready for the Duo Sound setup? Are there knobs available or will aftermarket knobs have to used? By the way it is the model with dot inlays, so AR100 I guess. Thanks for all the help so far   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 1:25 am:    There are push/pull pots fe from DiMarzio that work a bit differently than the push/push brought familiar by the Roadstar series. The name should explain the difference in action. I like push-pull better, since I can see which setting is on at the moment. I have modified more than 6 pups to have multi-wiring. It is not easy, and has a lot of risks. I haven't found a ready 4-wire cable that would fit, so the best bet has been to use two 2-wire (or 3-wire) cables. The process includes removing the tape around the coil, cutting the jumper wire between the coils, and soldering a lead from both ends of the cut wire. There are a lot of gimmicks that has to be taken care of, which can only be learned from experience. Do NOT try this first with a quality pickup, something will most likely go wrong. I'll be happy to give more precise instructions if You decide to try this.   Bluesmeister Username: Bluesmeister Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 2:55 am:    My 1983 catalogue shows an AR105AV with push/pull pots for coil tapping   Fox Username: Fox Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 7:36 pm:    Aki, you can readily use Tasker small-diameter coaxial wire, it has 4 + braided screen. I guess it is available from any computer repair or similar shop.. It is rather cheap, but reliable, easy to solder-wire. btw. for coil-tap only, you would need 3 + wire, but if you want to go "all the way" then 4 + -wire makes all variations possible.   Bluesmeister Username: Bluesmeister Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 10:00 pm:    I think I should have read through all of 79batmobile's post before I responded! Yours is probably an AR100PW (Polar White) Of course, I now realise you were perfectly well aware of the coil-taps on '83 onwards Artists. If I can get PhotoShop to behave, I'll post a scan from my 1983 Australis Music Ibanez catalogue.   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 7:34 am:    Fox: Finland is a small, small country when it comes to these kind of things. I bought the thinnest 4+ground that the biggest electronics supplier have, and I'm having big trouble fitting it anywhere. No 3+ground available.   Bobzilla Username: Bobzilla Registered: 02-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 9:08 am:    why not just purchase another Artist, that is setup how you want it? You can always sell the one you have now, if you want to get some of your money back. I am sure you're attached to your axe, but... you may find another that you like just as well.   Fox Username: Fox Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 11:04 am:    Aki, try Elektrolinna in H�meenlinna.. Bought 8 metres aforementioned cable, goes through holes of all "known" humbucker bottom plates.. True about that 3 + -wire.. I have still 60 cm left from "good old guitar repair-days".. It is not a great distance from Turku to Hml...   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 1:45 pm:    Fox, I didn't know You were from Finland! Cool! Thanks for the resource! I'll give them a call tomorrow. Seems like YleisElektroniikka is really losing their touch.   79batmobile Username: 79batmobile Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 2:37 pm:    So the options are: Get a new a guitar with the setup I want- I had a hard enough time finding one I liked in my price range. Buy new pickups that are already setup to be coil tapped- expensinve and I like the factory look on this guitar. Though if someone says these pickups from the factory are inferior then maybe this needs to be explored further. Lastly modify my pickups so that they can be coil tapped and buy some push/pull knobs and have my local guitar shop do a little wiring. Done deal. Now I just need a little more info. The pickups in my guitar now are covered(the faux gold plate covers) how would I go about removing these covers to get to the wire inside that needs to be split? Next up whats this 3+ 4+ wire business? Once split how will the 3 way toggle and the volume/tone knobs work? I enjoy modifying guitars. It takes something that was mass produced and personlizes it. You can work for a long time to get just the right sound too.   79batmobile Username: 79batmobile Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 2:39 pm:    the finnish are hijacking this thread just kidding guys, it's on my list of places to see.   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 3:27 pm:    AHHH, Bat, I don't think you'd find many folks that would tell you the Super 58 is an inferior pup, perhaps not a shredders pup, but definitely not inferior PAF type.   Fox Username: Fox Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 3:50 pm:    Bat, the Finns are on the rise.. I did a lot of guitar electronics setup, hot-rodding and general guitar tech-stuff in the 80s, and believe me, I find Super58s a very good PAF-type pickup.. I even have installed them once in "A real one Big G.." Try to find Donald Brosnacs book "Guitar Electronics for Musician", it is quite good handbook of all kinds of guitar electronics.. I could of course babble almost endlessly about tri-sound switching eg. and of those different wires.. 3 + is normally humbucker with coil tap, hot output, coil junction and gnd out (earth) plus shield, that is the ( + ), 4 + -wiring has humbuckers both coils individually wiret, this feature makes possible the series-parallel AND single-coil switching.. Of course we can connect the pickup also out-of phase electrically.... etc..etc.. Feel free to ask directly via e-mail..   Bluesmeister Username: Bluesmeister Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 11:53 pm:    Page taken from my 1983 catalogue...   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 6:01 am:    Explaining the different sounds a bit: -Series = normal humbucker, thick and powerful. -SingleCoil = split, thin and bright, hums. -Parallel = thin, quite bright, doesn't hum. Parallel mode has less dynamics, which is why I use SingleCoil mode (front coil) in my neck humbucker. I use bridge pup mostly for driven sounds, where I'm not that picky, so the hum-free parallel mode will do for bridge. When splitting a bridge humbucker, the rear coil is a bit more stratty.   79batmobile Username: 79batmobile Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 3:48 pm:    I've heard all those before (those being series, parallel, etc) What I want to know is what they actually mean in terms of what part of the pickup is being used? Such as, series means the two coils of one humbucker being used...in series, weird. Split coil is also self explanatory meaning it is just one of the coils in a single pickup, for the "stratty" sound. So is parallel like two split coils being used simultaneously? What about a phase switch? Would there be any need to coil tap a neck pickup? As you all can tell I'm a little fuzzy on the details of all these setups. Fox, I'm gonna go look up that book you mentioned. And anyone else who has some literature that might be useful please pipe in. Thanks   Ibanezfreak1960 Username: Ibanezfreak1960 Registered: 03-2004 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 8:07 pm:    That catalog scan above shows the duo sound and its push/push. For the record I have one of the 1st if not the very 1st Ibanez with this feature on my June 1982 ST prototype.   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 4:23 pm:    Batmobile, let me try to enlighten the techonlogies: What I want to know is what they actually mean in terms of what part of the pickup is being used? Parallel and series both use two coils. The difference is, in parallel mode both coils' starts are connected together, and both ends together. This lowers the impedance, and the sound of individual coils are combined, mixed together. This is how two coils (pickups) work together in a Strat. In series configuration the first coil's end is connected at the other coil's start. This is the way one puts batteries in a boombox, after one another. This sums the impedance, and the sounds of the coils are added together. This makes the output a lot higher. What about a phase switch? Would there be any need to coil tap a neck pickup? Phase switch inverts the + and - for one coil. The difference comes audible when the coil is combined with another coil. It does the same to the sound, what humbucker pickup does to hum: The signals from two coils or pups cancel eachother, up to a point that is. It might be funny, but rather unusable in my opinion. The sound has no bottom end at all, and is a lot more silent than a single coil.   79batmobile Username: 79batmobile Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 11:04 am:    So I took the guitar over to a reputable guitar shop around here and had one of the guys there look at it. I had him adjust the neck and action on a strat I had first (which he did for free...nice guy). He took the back cover off the artist to see if the pups were going to be tappable. Surprise surprise. The pups aren't original. He thinks they are seymour duncans. And on top of that they aren't even wired right. So the reason for the poor sound quality from the bridge pickup has been figured out. So he said he will coil tap the pups and put in my knobs AND completely rewire it all for 80 bucks (including parts) Not bad. So seymour duncan....is this bad news? Should I go try and dig up a set of super 58s or other pups?   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 11:16 am:    Relative to Super58s...IMNSHO...yup, not great news. Although, it may have had V-2s stock, and , in that case, I can't say - no experience with those

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