How Mustang switches work

The original shortscale guitars; Mustangs, Duo-Sonics, Musicmasters, Jaguars, Broncos, Jag-stang, Jagmaster, Super-Sonic, Cyclone, and Toronados.

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James
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How Mustang switches work

Post by James »

I've been thinking about wiring up a mustang switch for a standard three-way toggle purpose. Neck/Middle/Bridge style. I realised I didn't know how they work so I wouldn't know how to do it. A little thinking and a previous look inside had me come up with this as the most likely way...

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With the green poles the ones being connected in that position.

I then came up with this..

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That would have the correct things being connected in the right positions, but there's no way to take the signal to the jack.

Now I'm left thinking - is this even possible? I've been playing around with other ideas in my head, and get things that seem promising but dont quite add up.
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Post by rodvonbon »

I'm trying to visualize it in my head and can't think of a way. When I get home today I can meter out a switch for you.
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Post by MaMo »

I've thought about the same mod, too. By the way - tried your switch lowering idea, James. Works wonderfully.
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Post by James »

rodvonbon wrote:I'm trying to visualize it in my head and can't think of a way. When I get home today I can meter out a switch for you.
I've taken one apart and I'm fairly confident that's how they connect up. And it fits the way the stock wiring goes. Tyring to use the available poles to do this is difficult if not impossible - to me anyway, it might be easy for someone else.

There's probably a 3 way switch with 6 poles where the centre two are common that will do the job perfectly, but it would be nice to be able to use what I already have.
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Post by rodvonbon »

After looking at yer last picture, you are close if you want neck only/neck bridge together/bridge only..

I think something like this is what you want.
0's represent switch terminals......

neck- 0....neck- out to jack 0....bridge- out to jack 0....bridge- 0
neck+ 0....neck+out to jack 0....bridge+out to jack 0....bridge+0

Does this make any sense??????
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Post by James »

rodvonbon wrote:After looking at yer last picture, you are close if you want neck only/neck bridge together/bridge only..

I think something like this is what you want.
0's represent switch terminals......

neck- 0....neck- out to jack 0....bridge- out to jack 0....bridge- 0
neck+ 0....neck+out to jack 0....bridge+out to jack 0....bridge+0

Does this make any sense??????
I think I get what you mean, I was considering something like that but I think that leaves the whole lot connected all of the time. Do you mean like this with the grey being jack ground and the green jack hot...

Image

Interestingly the first page I found when searching to see if anyone has a site detailing this sort of thing gave a brief paragraph then linked direct to the shortscale wiki.

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Post by rodvonbon »

Yeah, it would mean no off position.
Only the two middle terminals would need to be jumpered together.
Is it for a Mustang?
If so this could be the neck position switch and the bridge position could be an on/off with 2 extra positions...
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Post by James »

this site promises the goods and then has a dead link for the schematic.
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Post by rodvonbon »

Code: Select all

                   jack -
neck- -------0     0--0     0-------bridge-
neck+--------0     0--0     0-------bridge+
                   jack+
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Post by James »

Yeah for a Mustang. I think that one with the green jack wire leaves both pickups connected no matter which position youre in. I'm not great at this stuff so I could be wrong.
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Post by rodvonbon »

After looking again this gives:
switch left = neck
switch middle = off
switch right = bridge


rodvonbon wrote:

Code: Select all

                   jack -
neck- -------0     0--0     0-------bridge-
neck+--------0     0--0     0-------bridge+
                   jack+
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Post by blacktaxi »

check this out:
Image

i was thinking about doing this mod, but i like the out of phase mode.
would be cool if you could wire it so that one switch selects pickups combination and another allows to turn on out-of-phase mode.
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Post by James »

**happy**

Very clever. I didn't think about using the a point off the switch for the grounding.

I've just wired my neck pickup direct to the jack to check it works ok (no bass and very quiet). I think the problem is with the volume and tone pots and not the pickup but I'll find out for sure in a minute. If it works ok I'm going to wire the whole thing up as in that diagram.

I quite like being able to switch the guitar off, but that's nothing the volume control cant do, and using that bypass thing having the volume rolled down will make it a kill switch anyway. This looks much more useful than the stock wiring. The out of phase sound does nothing for me.
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Post by Mike »

James wrote:**happy**

Very clever. I didn't think about using the a point off the switch for the grounding.
Yeah that's where people fall down, remember when I solved riotshields Effects Order swapper problem with one 3DPT switch? It works because you just chain the grounds off the switch. It's fine.
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Post by euan »

I was going to do this mod tonight. But maybe next time.
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