magnificent 7 guitar wiring for strat type setup.

[R.J. Fulton]

Just wondering if anyone out there might have some pointers as to a small annoyance I'm having.

I have a single coil in the neck position, and humbuckers in the mid and bridge positions. Both humbuckers have mini switch coil cuts. I've just added in my rear most tone pot position a push/pull pot with a mini switch to activate my neck pickup for the combo of having use of neck and bridge together,and of course all three in unison.

When my bridge and neck are used in conjunction everything is fine my volume stays the same. When I use all three together the volume drops down about 25% or so.

Any ideas as to why? As well as how I may rectify this? I would prefer not to add a battery pack and make everything active if at all possible.

Thanks.

R.J.

[Russell Vance]

You are probably combining the pickups in question in parallel. While I suspect you have been combining the original configuration in series (thereby adding the outputs together) you may well be putting the added pickup into the mix in a parrallel wiring which will result in a volume drop. This accounts for the volume drop in the two and four positions of Strats - these positions are not out of phase (as often said incorrectly) but in parallel which accounts for the volume drop. Might not be the answer to your problem but it's a good place to start looking.
The second thing to look at is if you are out of phase - which will give you a nasal/thin tone from the selection - try reversing the output/earth leads from the neck single coil. This often happens when mixing pickup types such as Fender and Duncan which are out of phase to each other.