E.V.E. Custom 13 Stratocaster Switch

bennyg85

Anyone ever seen one of these? It's in place of the normal pickup selector on a Strat and each toggle switch has 3 positions.



A Google search found this - https://www.electrohill.co.uk/oshop/EVE-Custom-13-switching-kit but even they don't seem to know much about them. They sent me this document (one page):



Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Ben

Funkfingers

Vaguely.

I am certainly old enough to recall the product being reviewed in a British music magazine. (Best guess, International Musician & Recording World.) Forum hoarders might possibly have a copy of the actual edition. 

Last year, I worked on a modified Gordon-Smith guitar that had an odd-looking, epoxy-sealed, box of passive electronic trickery. (Probably, involving an inductive coil.) It is possible that the eVe13 does something similar to passively filter the pickup signals.

SteveRobinson

I suspect it's just 3 on/off/reverse phase switches?

I think the Gordon Smith device (I discussed it with John years ago) was akin to the Villex "passive boost" http://www.villex.com/boosters.html

ICBM

Quite a lot of people modified Strats with three mini-switches in the 1980s, usually giving on/off/out of phase for each pickup.

Unless you really like out of phase sounds - NB, the standard Strat 2 and 4 positions are *not* out of phase despite often being called that - then it’s really not very useful... fiddly to use and giving a lot of duplicated sounds.

I suspect that’s what this is since that switching - although there are 27 possible switch positions - gives only 13 different sounds:

Any individual pickup (3)
Any two pickups in phase (3)
Any two pickups out of phase (3)
All three pickups in phase (1)
All three pickups with any one out of phase (3)

There are no others because reversing the phase of all selected pickups doesn’t change the sound.

What would make it more interesting is if the pickups are wired in series not parallel - still only 13 sounds, but the differences both in tone and output are more dramatic. That’s how Brian May’s guitar is wired. Unfortunately you then lose the two classic Strat parallel-in-phase sounds.


Edit - ah, I couldn't see the chart earlier! It is basically as I expected, and sounds like the pickups are in parallel.

Funkfingers

SteveRobinson said:

I think the Gordon Smith device (I discussed it with John years ago) was akin to the Villex "passive boost"

Well remembered, sir. That is exactly what the mystery device was. I did not realise that it might have been a factory fitment option.

phil_b

I belive the switching is based on Brian May's guitar 

Funkfingers

The May Red Special circuit can be recreated with just three DP3T on/on/on switches. (It is the jumper connections that create the centre “off” positions.) 

The difference is that the original BMRS circuit has the pickups interconnected in series. Parallel is not an option without one of two modifications.

The eVe13 blurb indicates that its first seven permutations are the same as a Stratocaster with a five-way lever plus a Gilmour-style seven sounds mod.

The “up” sounds involve “filtering of the waveform”. That suggests either simple notch filtering by phase reversal or the introduction of a Villex type black box to the circuit.

SteveRobinson

Funkfingers said:

The “up” sounds involve “filtering of the waveform”. 

I suspect that's marketing bollocks for "out of phase"

Funkfingers

LOL + Wiz = Wow! 

GSPBASSES

I've got one of those switches if you want it, donate £10 to the tFB, send me your address and you can have it.

bennyg85

I'll likely have one to sell myself. It came installed on a partsocaster I bought and I couldn't find any info on it. FB came to the rescue once again.

Thanks