Need your help.

[the older brother]

...you beat me to it, Ben! 

[k o y l]

I was thinking it would just replace the 3-way, so no drilling, no custom pickguard, no need to remove the rhythm circuit.

And you would replace the rhythm switch by a Mustang like 3 way ??  It would suit me well... but maybe it would be a problem for people who use to hit the rhythm switch while playing..
Another solution would be to use the roller holes to put 2 on/off switch, one per pickup..  You could still put an inside boost and use the rhythm circuit switch as an on/off switch for it.. (Tell me... when did I got mental with wiring options and mods...  )

[guitar-mod]

It does 4 different sounds, right?

Hey, this is Andy (who worked on this with Curt).

Although a rotary switch is a very good idea, this particular setup here actually gets way more than 4 sounds, so the rotary would short change it.

If we label each coil in Curt's pickup A, B, C and D, here are the total sound combinations (although I only sampled 4 of them).

You will count a total of 15 combinations

A
B
C
D
A + B
A + C
A + D
B + C
B + D
C + D
A + B  + C
A + B  + D
A + C + D
B + C + D
A + B + C + D

Thanks,

Andy

[the older brother]

there are rotarys with up to 20 something positions, but that would maybe be hard to memorize what each pos stands for 

[OffYourFace]

It does 4 different sounds, right?

Hey, this is Andy (who worked on this with Curt).

Although a rotary switch is a very good idea, this particular setup here actually gets way more than 4 sounds, so the rotary would short change it.

If we label each coil in Curt's pickup A, B, C and D, here are the total sound combinations (although I only sampled 4 of them).

You will count a total of 15 combinations

A
B
C
D
A + B
A + C
A + D
B + C
B + D
C + D
A + B  + C
A + B  + D
A + C + D
B + C + D
A + B + C + D

Thanks,

Andy

Oh, okay.  Hmmm...  that's a lot of options...  A four switch plate, like on a '63 Bass VI, would be the best idea.  Not sure what you would do for the neck pickup & rhythm ckt. 

[CurtisNovak]

Yeah Andy and I have been batting this one around for a while, and we too felt that a rot w/ that many options was too complicated.
The 4 switches seems to be the simplest mod w/ the most options.
  The way we saw this working is the Jazzmaster would function as it is w/ the lower 3 way flip switch, and the upper rhythm circuit in tact.
  The 4 slide combo selection would tie into 1 pickup most likely the bridge and the output from the 4 switches would tie into the the 3 way flip switch.
  This way you could decide what type of tone you want for the bridge and middle positions

We do greatly appreciate your thoughts on this.

Here is a Dressing room of the way we see it looking.

[mynameisjonas]

i'm intrigued... the pickup has four coils? how does that work, are they layered from the inside out (like an onion)..? stacked..?

anyway, it seems really cool

[CurtisNovak]

Sorry I am not prepared to discuss how I achieve this at this time....  I do hope you understand.

In further thinking on this if one was to really want a mind boggling number of options, you could install one for the Neck too it could look like this.
I could also easily do this in a JM-V style pickup.

[mjet]

Curtis,

We need to pull you over to the Marauder project pages with all of those crazy switches!!

[OffYourFace]

Here is a Dressing room of the way we see it looking.

I like that idea ^^^  it looks tasteful.  The absence of the jag-style plate makes it look natural for a JM, like a lost Leo prototype.  I'd play that... minus the fiesta red 

[Hellion]

I wouldn't even know what to do with all those!

[mjet]

I like that idea ^^^  it looks tasteful.  The absence of the jag-style plate makes it look natural for a JM, like a lost Leo prototype.  I'd play that... minus the fiesta red 

Like the top control panel on this one (which is on a separate plate but it seems to be of tortoiseshell, so maybe the plan was to have it as one piece)...

[k o y l]

I wouldn't even know what to do with all those!

That's more of less what I think actually... I mean it would be great for studio work but having so much options is way to complicated if you play live or even in rehearsal...
I guess that would be nice to find a way to make people figure what are the sounds they like the most among all the sounds possible (Quality soundclips maybe ?) so they can choose them and wire the pickup only to have their 4 or 6 favourite sounds..
Or even if it's not possible to make people choose what they want, it would be good to propose some simpler configuration options (4 sounds, 6 and 8 sounds whatever is possible).. I personnaly be already very happy if I had only the 4 sounds that we hear in the soundclip.. 

And I can't tell for sure because I didn't heard all the sounds that are possible but there's good chances that some of the sounds are very close to each other, they only differ a tiny bit from one another.. and maybe it's just me but I wouldn't like having 2 options that sounds too much alike with complicated to manage switches.. (even on a strat, I like the Neck+Middle position but find that the Middle + Bridge position is only a poor, diminished Neck+Middle position so I never use it and always use the N+M instead)

my 2 cents..

[mynameisjonas]

Sorry I am not prepared to discuss how I achieve this at this time....  I do hope you understand.

yeah i totally understand

[theworkoffire]

I wouldn't even know what to do with all those!

That's more of less what I think actually... I mean it would be great for studio work but having so much options is way to complicated if you play live or even in rehearsal...
I guess that would be nice to find a way to make people figure what are the sounds they like the most among all the sounds possible (Quality soundclips maybe ?) so they can choose them and wire the pickup only to have their 4 or 6 favourite sounds..
Or even if it's not possible to make people choose what they want, it would be good to propose some simpler configuration options (4 sounds, 6 and 8 sounds whatever is possible).. I personnaly be already very happy if I had only the 4 sounds that we hear in the soundclip.. 

And I can't tell for sure because I didn't heard all the sounds that are possible but there's good chances that some of the sounds are very close to each other, they only differ a tiny bit from one another.. and maybe it's just me but I wouldn't like having 2 options that sounds too much alike with complicated to manage switches.. (even on a strat, I like the Neck+Middle position but find that the Middle + Bridge position is only a poor, diminished Neck+Middle position so I never use it and always use the N+M instead)

my 2 cents..

That's exactly what I was thinking. With just one of these in the bridge there will be 31 options, and with two there would be 255 options - too much for anyone to properly get to grips with I'd imagine. I think some judicious editing of the options would be useful.  I'd be much more interested in a rotary with 5 or 6 positions, or a pair of rotary switches , including an off position so you could do away with the 3-way. Rotaries would be much more discreet, too - those four switches there on the pickguard look really exposed and vulnerable to me.

Which makes it 4 cents...