Guitar wiring as stompbox: possible?

[telperionflower]

Hi guys. I'm new here, in fact I'm new to pedal building; right now I'm just gathering information.

I had an idea that a good first build (and something that would be eminently useful to me) would be putting my volume and tone controls in pedal form. For example, I'd like to remove the volume and tone wiring from one of my guitars (both pickups go into the same volume and tone controls), and run the guitar after the pickup switch to a pedal with two sets of volume and tone that I can switch between for solos and rhythm, or whatever. I'm only really interested in doing something like this if I can get the controls do the exact thing they would in a guitar. Ideally I'd control one of the volume pots with a volume pedal kind of setup instead of a knob. Right now, I'm just curious if this is possible, or if there's some reason why it can't work. I know a lot of guitar players just ride the knobs (i'm with you from a tone perspective), so this might seem silly to you, but it would make the fast song transitions in my band a lot easier. If you feel so inclined to post diagrams, I wouldn't mind that at all. Thanks!  

[Transmogrifox]

Very easy project from an electronics point of view -- and I don't see any reason it would make an appreciable difference in the sound unless you run a 50-ft cable or something hideous like that.   All you're doing is taking the same parts and putting them into a different enclosure.  It all works the same.

The mechanical part is more challenging, but not too bad if you have some wah or volume pedal parts to cannibalize.  This sounds to me like more of a mechanical project than an electronics project.

If you have a wah wah shell, then you can install a volume pots in place of the wah wah pot (typically a 250k or 500k pot instead of the usual wah wah 100k pot).  For volume, you would be done.   Really it's easier said than done because you have to remove the sprocket from the existing pot and secure it to the new pot, and make sure you can mount the new pot in the right place with the gear contacting and riding smoothly.

For tone you drill a hole to mount it in the wah shell, solder on the capacitor, connect some wires and that's all she wrote.

I would recommend you don't remove the electronics from your guitar.  Just dial them wide open and use your pedal as a secondary set.  If you're concerned about the knobs on your guitar getting bumped then you could leave them in place but just disconnect only the things you need to disconnect to take them out of the circuit (it pains me to think of a guitar with open holes on the front letting dust come inside).

[GibsonGM]

This absolutely is possible, and is EASY!  When you turn the volume and tones "UP" all the way, you are just removing them from the circuit, so your pickups are going right out unchanged.    If the appropriate circuitry were housed in a stomp box, it would be the same thing.   Just need your pots and caps, and 2 stomp switches (bypass/engage, and select between 2 sets of controls) to have 2 full vol/tone control setups.

Now, this sure is do-able, but you DO realize there are tons and tons of active filter circuits out there that will do the same job but, as many feel, "better"?   You're not just stuck with the inherent limitations of the passive tone controls.  But, maybe that's just what you want!

If you need some ideas, keep posting and I or someone else will help out.  Gotta run, tv time with the wife, LOL.  

[mremic01]

This absolutely is possible, and is EASY!  When you turn the volume and tones "UP" all the way, you are just removing them from the circuit, so your pickups are going right out unchanged.    If the appropriate circuitry were housed in a stomp box, it would be the same thing.   Just need your pots and caps, and 2 stomp switches (bypass/engage, and select between 2 sets of controls) to have 2 full vol/tone control setups.

Now, this sure is do-able, but you DO realize there are tons and tons of active filter circuits out there that will do the same job but, as many feel, "better"?   You're not just stuck with the inherent limitations of the passive tone controls.  But, maybe that's just what you want!

If you need some ideas, keep posting and I or someone else will help out.  Gotta run, tv time with the wife, LOL.  

Actually, with the volume and tone pots on 10, there is still loading. For example, if you've got a 500k vol pot turned up all the way, you effectively have a 500k resistor between your signal and ground. Turning the pot down decreases the resistance until your signal is pretty much sent to ground entirely. Each pot factors into the total resistance, unless you use no-load pots. Some guys use 1M pots, which don't have any audible effect on the tone circuit.

What this means is that if you have one set of tone controls in the guitar, and one set in the pedal, you're going to get the additional load on your signal when you have the pedal engaged. But since you'd be setting the controls in the pedal by ear, and switching them on and off, I wouldn't worry as much about the loading. It's much more of a concern regarding what it's doing to your signal when the controls are supposed to be on 10.

[Transmogrifox]

... there are tons and tons of active filter circuits out there ...

Tempting the new guy to jump into the deep end

[telperionflower]

Seek and you shall find, eh?  

Thanks for the help, guys.

I would recommend you don't remove the electronics from your guitar.  

That's a good point. I might wire a push pull pot or something to just bypass them when I use the pedal (This would also avoid changing the load when the controls are on 10).

You're not just stuck with the inherent limitations of the passive tone controls.  But, maybe that's just what you want!

True. You know, I actually have another guitar with some mods I did.. Adjustable treble bleed, no load tone, parallel, split coil, and virtual 3rd humbucker wiring. I have an active parametric eq as well. But, I'm kind of on a traditional kick at the moment, and I thought it'd be cool to have the traditional sound of guitar into amp, but controllable with your feet. I'm pretty excited about this now! haha

[GibsonGM]

Hey, it's your sound, and you gotta set it up the way you like it    Just pointing out that for your next trick, you might consider some buffering, a little more complex tone shaping...you can always switch back and forth between them!   This is a disease, and it's easy to get hooked...

Mremic is correct, I sort of mis-spoke about 'removing' the controls from the circuit....they are still there, kind of like 'pulldown resistors' for lack of a better term.   Switching them out guarantees you have ONLY your signal being output, with no loading.  Keeping them in would interact with an external pot and maybe create some odd impedance issues you'd have to correct for.

[Ice-9]

If your reason for putting the controls in a stompbox is so that you don't damage the guitar by drilling extra holes for pots and switches, you could consider replacing the tone and volume pots in the guitar with dual concentric ones with one of them also having a push/pull spdt switch, that way you could have all the controls still on the guitar without having to drill extra holes thus keeping the guitar undamaged and able to return it to standard.

If you are wanting the controls at your feet then ignore everything I said   

[Fender3D]

...tone and volume pots in the guitar with dual concentric ones...

Lol rephrasing what Mike said

...there are tons and tons...

so you'll get volumes and volumes too

[Ice-9]

...tone and volume pots in the guitar with dual concentric ones...

Lol rephrasing what Mike said

I skip read the replies so didn't really see what Mike said, but I have re read all the replies now and I don't see anything resembling what I suggested. So I believe my answer still applies. Or maybe I have misunderstood the reply 

[telperionflower]

...replacing the tone and volume pots in the guitar with dual concentric ones...

That's a neat idea too. It's not really about not wanting to modify the guitar though, I just don't want to have to stop playing to adjust controls, even for a split second. For whatever reason, the way I usually write my guitar parts, I don't have pauses between sections, and it's always a struggle for me. The other thing is that my guitar has a single coil and a humbucker, and if I'm feeling ambitious, I might do a pair of 250k vol/tone, and a pair of 500k. Also, I like doing volume swells with a pedal, but don't like the changed tone I get when I put one in my signal path. It's all pretty nit-picky, I know, but that's the beauty of building something yourself - you can focus on the details if you like, right? 

[Fender3D]

I skip read the replies so didn't really see what Mike said, but I have re read all the replies now and I don't see anything resembling what I suggested. So I believe my answer still applies. Or maybe I have misunderstood the reply  

lol

I should have elided the "e" in words volumes...

...there are tons and tons...
so you'll get volum(e)s and volum(e)s too

ok I'll take my coat...

[ashcat_lt]

I went down this road and very quickly ran into the issue that the pot on a Crybaby type wah pedal is not actually meant to go all the way in either direction.  There are things that you can do to get a bit wider sweep, and you can physically reposition things so that you can get either all the way up or all the way down, but I could never actually get it to go from 0 - 10 without active intervention.  I even tried painting the ends of the track with conductive paint.  Other means of "tapping" the pot might work, but I was done with it by then.

[telperionflower]

I went down this road and very quickly ran into the issue that the pot on a Crybaby type wah pedal is not actually meant to go all the way in either direction.  There are things that you can do to get a bit wider sweep, and you can physically reposition things so that you can get either all the way up or all the way down, but I could never actually get it to go from 0 - 10 without active intervention.  I even tried painting the ends of the track with conductive paint.  Other means of "tapping" the pot might work, but I was done with it by then.

Thanks; I had read about this, and I know it's an issue. Maybe a volume pedal is really what's needed.