un orthodox guitar wiring

[taillie]

hey guys, I've got  two danelectros i am fixing up, Ive finished the mechanical aspects of things and am now in the electronics/wiring phase.  I have a few ideas I plan on trying out with alligator clips/ breadboard. but Its been a while since I've had a project and I am a bit rusty. perhaps you guys may have some insights that may save me some trouble. so Ive got two danos, I have a few vintage lipstick pickups and a few from re issues. I never liked the individual tone and volume pots that two pickup danos have.but I do love the series sound, and do love the hum canceling set up. I could just do a single volume and single tone and call it a day.  But I want to keep things in the dano spirit,and I ran into this wiring diagram from the 60s single pickup model.  dano wiring .  Its pretty unusual it uses a three way switch and one tone pot, gives you a high pass filter, a treble cut and a 3rd position removes the tone pot all together. I wired up the first guitar using two vintage lipsticks, like a humbucker with a series parallel switch. then followed it with this circuit. It sounded amazing super jangly but not harsh treble. problem is the way it is configured, the high pass is always in the circuit which I have read can cause impedance problems and may not work well with fuzzers. So i took it out and gave it a standard tone control.  It still sounds great but not nearly as good. for now I am going to leave it as is and try to figure something out for the other guitar.  I want to get the same sound but try to minimize the number of knobs and toggles. I cant figure out a way to take the high pass out without another toggle, so I was thinking I could probably use a push pull tone pot to do the same thing but without the third position.  it wouldn't take the tone pot out of the picture but with a 1m pot I don't see it changing the tone much. then I saw you can use a balance pot to do a treble/bass control with one pot and this seems like it may be the easiest method. Now I Intend to just try all of these methods out on a bread board. I am guessing they will all sound similar with similar values.  But you guys are a lot more well versed in the technical side of electronics than I am. am I missing anything or will I have any issues with impedance etc?

[amptramp]

I always wanted to get the switch out of the circuit and you can if you wire things this way: connect the output of each pickup to a pot and wire the two pots in series so the slider of one pot becomes the low-side connection of the other pot and pickup.  If you want to turn a pickup off, just turn its volume control down.  Then add a treble cut tone control across the series pair so the low side of the pot goes to the low side of the lower volume control and the high side of the capacitor goes to the slider of the upper pot.

The guitar itself is not a good place to put a high pass filter because the noise characteristic of subsequent stompbox and amplifier stages depends on the low impedance of the pickups and volume controls to limit the resistance to ground seen by the subsequent stages.  A high pass prevents the input resistance of the subsequent electronics from being paralleled by this except at the upper frequencies.  In this setup, if you need a high pass, it can be a capacitor that is in series with the pickup, turning it into a tuned circuit with the kind of peak you get from a presence control on an amp.

[taillie]

thanks for the response, I think I was not totally clear as to what I am trying to do.  I think I am overthinking what I am trying to do but I like to here from people with more knowledge before I begin testing things, so I can understand what is going on A bit better. I do understand how independent volume controls can be used in place of a pickup selector, In this case I just wired the pickups together in series like a humbucker. I am more focusing on the tone section of the guitar. I started with a diagram for a vintage single pickup danelectro. you can find the diagram here or there is another diagram, but less clear here .  It is probably easier to take a look but I will try to explane the circuit.  In the old single pickup danos you have one volume one tone pot and one 3 way on off on switch.there is also a small cap in series with the pickup that is always in the circuit. the center lug of the three way switch is connected to the tone pot in the off position the pot is removed from the circuit.when the switch is in bass mode it opens up a pathway to a tone cap to go to the pot in a standard tone control set up. when the switch is in treble mode you now have a resistor and pot to ground immediately after the series cap, you now have a treble control.  I really liked the sound of this but as you said a cap in series can do weird things with impedance and downstream in the signal chain. so what I am looking to do is be able to get this tone, but also have the ability to take the series cap out of the circuit when not in treble mode. without having too many pots or switches. my first idea was that I could replace the three way with a dpdt switch, and have either a bass mode or treble mode, it wouldnt take the pot out of the circuit but I don't see why that would be a problem. I could use a push pull pot so I wouldn't even need a toggle.  my second idea was I could put the series cap a crossed a pot,like in a G&l guitar, so it can be dialed in and out of the circuit. If i Used a balance pot I could still just have one pot for bass and treble. the second method would probably sound a bit different but with the right values could probably be similar. It would probably be less wiring. I was hoping that some of you with more knowledge and experience could explain the pros and cons of the different methods and if there are any electronic reasons why one method may be different from another.  thanks again.