Rewiring with a silent circuit - advice please. (Axis Sport HSS)

[I like Rush]

I bought a used AS/HSS. Unfortunately the original pickups had been removed and some other modifications had been made so I'm going to put some new pickups in and rewire the guitar. I"m going to be using Vineham pickups and am going to have the following switching configuration:

1- bridge
2- bridge middle
3- bridge neck
4- neck middle
5 - neck

Bridge humbucker will be connected to push push volume pot for series parallel, in case it affects anything.

My question is how to assign the blue, violet and yellow wires from the silent circuit.

I have the origial wiring diagram, which has the violet wire going to the middle single coil's ground, the blue wire going to the neck single's ground and the yellow wire going to terminals 1-4 on one side of the superswitch.

Considering that I am not going to be using DiMarzio pickups, and I am not going to be using the same switching, I am not sure how to assign the violet, blue and yellow wires from the SS.

Does it matter which single goes with which wire? Do I even need to use the yellow wire/should I just tape it off?

Thanks.

 

[DrKev]

Unless the Vineham pickups have opposite magnetic polarity to DiMarzio's, or if you are not using a RWRP middle pickup, you should do it the same way. Blue is for standard polarity, ie neck pickups. If you had a SSS setup, you would connect blue to both the neck and bridge pickups. Violet is reverse polarity for RWRP, usually the middle pickup. If you get it wrong, you'll be adding noise to the circuit, rather than taking it away.

The yellow wire is a defeat so you can switch the silent circuit on and off as required. If you are using a RWRP middle pickup, you won't need it in position 4 (neck middle) which will be naturally hum cancelling without the silent circuit but it won't matter if you do either because the blue and violet effectively cancel each other out too. you could also defeat it in position 1 for the humbucker position, but you are not even connected to the humbucker on it's own so no problem. The silent circuit is powered on when the cable is plugged into the guitar so you gain no battery life by defeating it.

 

[I like Rush]

Unless the Vineham pickups have opposite magnetic polarity to DiMarzio's, or if you are not using a RWRP middle pickup, you should do it the same way. Blue is for standard polarity, ie neck pickups. If you had a SSS setup, you would connect blue to both the neck and bridge pickups. Violet is reverse polarity for RWRP, usually the middle pickup. If you get it wrong, you'll be adding noise to the circuit, rather than taking it away.

The yellow wire is a defeat so you can switch the silent circuit on and off as required. If you are using a RWRP middle pickup, you won't need it in position 4 (neck middle) which will be naturally hum cancelling without the silent circuit but it won't matter if you do either because the blue and violet effectively cancel each other out too. you could also defeat it in position 1 for the humbucker position, but you are not even connected to the humbucker on it's own so no problem. The silent circuit is powered on when the cable is plugged into the guitar so you gain no battery life by defeating it.

Thanks DrKev. This is very helpful.

So it sounds like maybe the yellow would still be useful in position 2 then, since it would be single-humbucker. In order to hook this up properly, should I just wire the yellow to an open position 2 terminal on the superswitch?

Thanks.

 

[DrKev]

When yellow is connected to ground the silent circuit is defeated. One entire pole (set of 5 terminals and their common output) of the super switch is used for this. The positions you won't need the silent circuit will be position 1 (humbucker on its own) and position 4 (neck/middle). So, wire yellow to 1, jumper 1 to 4, and connect the common output of that pole to ground.

But you can also just ignore yellow entirely, leaving the silent circuit on in all positions. It does not matter if it's on in position 1 (because it's not connected to the humbucker) and it self-cancels in position (because both single coils are together).

 

[I like Rush]

When yellow is connected to ground the silent circuit is defeated. One entire pole (set of 5 terminals and their common output) of the super switch is used for this. The positions you won't need the silent circuit will be position 1 (humbucker on its own) and position 4 (neck/middle). So, wire yellow to 1, jumper 1 to 4, and connect the common output of that pole to ground.

But you can also just ignore yellow entirely, leaving the silent circuit on in all positions. It does not matter if it's on in position 1 (because it's not connected to the humbucker) and it self-cancels in position (because both single coils are together).

Right, I can see I wasn't thinking about that properly. This clarifies nicely. Also helps me to understand the original wiring scheme a bit better. What was even more confusing about it was that the original switch looks like it might have been uniquely constructed for this guitar. Not a standard super switch. I am going to replace with a standard one though. Super helpful. Thanks.

 

[DrKev]

Right, there were slightly different versions of the superswitch. The earliest one had terminal 5 of two of the poles next to the common terminal and before terminal 1, which is just weird. A standard switch where they all just go from 1 thru 5 in a line makes layout less confusing!