Twin Humbucker Guitars with Flexible Switching Systems.

jaymenon

Perhaps the most famous and beautifully designed system is the one on Ibanez guitars with the five way switch.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/ZE7DRFx.jpg)

Positions one, three, and five are obvious.
1. Bridge Humbucker
3. Both Humbuckers
5. Neck Humbucker

Positions 2 and 4 involve splitting the coils.
2:  The inside coil of each pick up (a bit like position 2 on the Stratocaster)
4.  Both coils of the neck pick up in paralle (a bit like the neck pick up on a Strat)

Both of these do a decent impression of what they are trying to mimic but there is a significant volume drop in positions 2 dan 4. I suppose you can use this creatively to 'clean up' the sound...

There is however, another single coil emulation technique which involves installing a 0.1uf capacitor along the humbucker's shunted series connection’s path to ground.
This is not a new thing - but I first saw it on a Guthrie Govan Charvel I used to have...

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/JHsEMcn.jpg)

1. Not quite so impeccable hum-cancellation

2. A superior single coil sound (with preserved mids if you add a resistor)

3. Much less volume drop

In conjunction with a three way switch and push-push pots you can render each (or both) humbuckers in 'single coil mode' so allows you 5 extra sounds (for a total of 8 sounds)

Bridge single coil

Neck single coil

Both single coils

Bridge Humbucker + Neck Single Coil

Neck Humbucker + Bridge Single Coil

I think I prefer this configuration - will post some audio files soon...

Funkfingers

I always wanted to try the early PRS “power-out-of-phase” sound. When I got fed up with the five-way rotary selector (and two of its coil permutations), I elected to rewire via a Freeway 3x3-03 six-way toggle. 

I configured my switch to offer the obvious neck, both, bridge on one side. The second side was power-out-of-phase, inside coils in phase in parallel and split bridge HB.

I don’t much rate the split HFS. If I ever think of anything better, I shall rewire the Freeway.

jaymenon

 I particularly like the both pickups on position when one of the pickups is in full humbucker mode and the other one is in Single coil mode.

You get the fatness of a humbucker with  A little single coil sparkle on top :-)

Bolters

I had a 2H Suhr modern with Aldrich humbuckers and a 5 way. no idea how it was wired up but the 2 and 4 positions were lovely. Extremely usable and no significant volume drop. I remember position 2 was my favorite.

Not a fan of push/pull pots personally. 

jaymenon

Push-Push pots Bolters - very easy to use 

Push-Pull are a pain...

stimpsonslostson

The Fender Blacktops have a nice system

1-Bridge HB
2-outer coils of both HB's
3- both HBs
4 Inner coils both HBs
5 neck HB

I found it really usable.

Bennyboy-UK

Theres this one - which is very flexible - and almost all good.

Got get Master Volume, 3 way toggle, Master Tone (treble roll off), Preamp level knob
The three switches are independent splits for the pickups, and phase reversal.
The last mini switch is preamp on or off - nice onboard selectable and tweakable boost)
The chicken head knob is a Varitone with different selectable loads of filters or something.

All of these are really good and useful...apart from the Varitone, which makes the entire guitar sound progressively shitter as you go through the settings. So it stays in the off position.

jaymenon

Bennyboy-UK said:

Theres this one - which is very flexible - and almost all good.

...apart from the Varitone, which makes the entire guitar sound progressively shitter as you go through the settings. So it stays in the off position.

Nicely put...!!!