Where would I find a switch like this?

[psiico]

What I need is a switch that can choose from two options that share a common wire and a third option that turns off the first two and turns on something else using a different wire feeding into it.  Make any sense?

I guess I'm looking for something like this:



What I want is to be able to have 1a or 2a on, they share a common wire, in my example that would be ca.  In the third position I want 1a and 2a off and 3b on instead, it uses a different common (cb) then 1a and 2a use.  3a, 1b and 2b are will be unused.

My diagram looks sort of like a tele switch but I don't think that will work.  Or will it?  Aren't the common poles connected on those switches?  Sorry, I'm not at all familiar with them.  I'd rather not use a tele switch even if it works, it's for a pedal so I want a small switch.

What do I need it for?  Well, I built an Electra distortion as my first project.  I liked it but it's not very versatile, it pretty much has one sound.  So I figured I'd add switching to choose from different pairs of diodes.  Okay, that was cool, but I wanted more.  I experimented with chaining two Electras together, each with switchable diode pairs.  The way it's setup now one Electra feeds the other and you can choose to have clipping in the first one, the second one, or both of them.  Also each has switchable diode pairs, the first has 2 ge or 2 si and the 2nd has 1 ge/1si and 2 si.  The way it is now, if the first Electra's clipping is off, turning up it's volume really cranks the 2nd Electra, sounds terrible.  Of course you can just turn down the volume but I put a resistor in series with the volume pot.  That resistor takes away some gain which is fine when the first stage of clipping is off but when the clipping is on I don't need to lose that gain, the more the better IMHO, lol.  So I want to be able to have either the 2 ge or the 2 si diodes on in the first Electra with the resistor off and when the diodes are off the resistor on.  I hope that makes sense.  I have a poorly drawn schematic at home (I'm at work now) that I can post later if I'm not making any sense.

Why make such a simple pedal so complicated?  For one thing, I want something versatile, I want a few different types of sound, and for another, to me, this is how you learn.  I only started this pedal building thing a couple of weeks ago (proof of that will be the poorly drawn schematic I mentioned earlier) and all this experimenting and combining of things is teaching me something.  If all I did was copy schematics I wouldn't learn as much as messing with them.  I also added a tone control to the Electra.  I'm thinking I might call it the Elextra.  Maybe Electra2 (ie Electra Squared since it's two in one.)

[bancika]

There you go...
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/Mustang_Duosonic_Switch.html
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/Lever-action_Pickup_Switches.html

[psiico]

That looks like what I need, the Mustang switch.  Any idea if someone makes a mini-toggle version though?

[psiico]

Okay, here's my "schematic."  Like I said, I'm new so I don't know how to draw everything properly.  That's why the 50k pot is drawn like it is and the switches like they are.  The pot is one of those types you use for stereo volumes with 6 posts.  I haven't hooked one up yet but it's planned.  There's no switches on the diodes in my build either, at the moment I have exposed wires running on top of the board and I use alligator clips to switch which ones I use.  Don't ask me why I drew the switches as DPDT's with the diodes seperated like that, I don't know what I was thinking there.

Note the switching diagram at the bottom.  Seems I'm an idiot, I don't need that switch I was asking about after all, a DPDT center off will do just fine.  I had a drawing and as I was about to post it I realized with that 4 pole switch I'd be bypassing the resistor when the diodes were off and having it used by breaking that bridge when they were on.  Doh!  I had it completely backwards.

While we're here though, see anything wrong with "my" design?  Any reason I shouldn't do it that way?  The input and output cap values may yet change and I'm not married to that 47k resistor either, any suggestions of a good value for that resistor?