Dano weirdness

I looked long and hard for suitable pickups for my ESB-4. Love the filtertrons in DearthDamo's ESB-4, but was not sure I could get everything to line up on my bass, which has been having lining-up-issues...a story for elsewhere. So after a long process of elimination, I got some Dano-style alnico pickups. After a bit of surfing to figure out how to wire them, up I got to this page:

http://dennysguitars.homestead.com/D...hematics1.html

It was very helpful, but this is a really odd way to wire up pickups (at least it looks that way to me). At the moment I am planning to wire this like the "modern" Danos...

Attachment 12921

I struggled quite a bit to understand this...and would not have gotten yet probably if it had not been for this note:

• Front' position grounds out the rear pickup's output, and provides ground for the off side of the front volume pot.
• 'Rear' position connects it's volume pot output to the output jack while the front pickup's leads are looped back onto each other to kill the front pickup.
• 'Both' position removes the switch from the circuit and allows both pickups wired in series to function.

This still seems quite odd to me, from the way it selects the pickups to the pot values. I know the pickups were the same on guitars and basses. Guessing that the pots and caps were the same too? I have not found anything to confirm or deny this...so will go with those values.

Would be really interested in the experience of anyone who has tried something similar...

The key component in that circuit is the special Dano switch, it won't work with standard 3-way toggle.

The standard import or Switchcraft style 3-way toggle switches we normally use are On-Both-On, which we wire as Pickup 1-Both-Pickup 2. This works because the in the middle position the switch links to both contacts, in the up or down position it breaks one of the conacts.

The Dano switch is an On-None-On type, where in the middle position it makes no contacts and then the up and down positions it makes a contact.

So, in the above circuit, in the middle position the switch does nothing. The bridge pup runs through the bridge volume which links to the neck negative at the neck volume then the neck pup runs through the neck volume and to output. This links the pickups in series, instead of the more common parallel layout. In the front postion the switch links the ground to the neck volume's lug which grounds out the the bridge pup. In the rear position the switch links the neck volume's neck negative lug with its output lug, thus bypassing it.

That was driving me nuts. As usual, your explanation cleared it up completely.

Do the values make sense to you? They seem common for Danos. Best sense I've been able to make of it is that the 100K pots take the edge off the jangly highs. I also *think* I understand the mismatched caps to balance treble in the two different positions. I am pretty sure I don't get why the 1 Meg tone pots. My G&L bass has one too and I've never understood it either...

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The higher the value of the pot, the less high frequencies are sent to ground, giving a little more tonal range out of the pickup.

Buckers are a bit darker than singles, hence the 500k pots vs 250k for singles, but the rules aren't in stone. Some people like 1meg pots on Les Paul's which brightens them up a bit

Yeah, I get that. It's the mix of 100K and 1000K pots in he same tone circuit that seemed odd to me. The 100K pot makes sense to me since lipstick tube rend to be so naturally bright. It's really the 1M pot that seems odd. Is the logic that the 100K pot has already shunted so much high frequency to ground that the tone pot doesn't need to add to it? Or does the higher value pot roll off a greater tonal range?

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I think the 100s are volume and the 1M are tone. On a Dano the volume and tone are stacked. The brown discs are volume, the cream knobs are tone. So the values are probably dictated by the dual pots that were available.
http://www.mainstreetvintageco.com/c...Bass_1_002.jpg

The way the volume pots work in that circuit vary based on switch position, so I'm guessing the values make sense for those pickups in that particular layout.

Normally, volume pots work by dividing the signal between output and ground, the more you turn down the volume the more signal goes to ground. In the Dano circuit this is how the volumes work in the front and rear positions. But, in the middle position things change as the pickups are linked in series and the volumes work differently. Instead of dividing the signal between output and ground they now work more like bypasses or faders and control how much of the signal goes through the pickup and how much bypasses it.

So, at a guess, the 1M tones and 100K volumes provide the best balance for sounds across the different pot and pickup interactions in the different positions.

this has been very educational, thanks Weirdy

So glad you sorted out the dano weirdness...
Only dano would have 100k volume and 1 meg tone..... no one else could ever dream that level of weird up :D
Normal folk havev1 meg vol, 100k tone

So, I guess the answer is that it sounded best to Nat Daniel ;-) Thanks! Really helpful explanation!

As the owner of a Dano U2 re-issue I can confirm that you keep the switch in the middle position and use the volume knobs to adjust the sound.

Do you have the U2 bass or guitar? Tell me you like the sound...now that I am committed ;-)

56 U2 re-issue guitar with an aquaburst finish. Yes I love the sound. It's great for clean or overdriven sounds but it doesn't like distortion. Perfect for rock rhythm guitar. It has the wooden bridge which gives it an acoustic guitar feel (along with the light resonance of the masonite body. Danos are notorious for not staying in tune though, almost as bad as Les Pauls.

Nice! So far I have built a mount for my dano pickups and a pickup ring out of 1/4" balsa wood to test my router template and get a rough idea how it will look. So far it's looking like I will be able to use standard sized Dano pickups in the HB routs with no additional routing.

Attachment 12995

Not a very good pic, but you get the idea what it will look like. Of course there are I still need to make the "real" rings out of maple, fit them, drill for the screws to hold them down, finish everything... But I am starting to feel very committed to the Danos ;-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WeirdBits

So, in the above circuit, in the middle position the switch does nothing. The bridge pup runs through the bridge volume which links to the neck negative at the neck volume then the neck pup runs through the neck volume and to output. This links the pickups in series, instead of the more common parallel layout. In the front postion the switch links the ground to the neck volume's lug which grounds out the the bridge pup. In the rear position the switch links the neck volume's neck negative lug with its output lug, thus bypassing it.

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Every time I think I'm about to understand this, I don't... but I think (hope?) I am on the verge. So this means the neck volume will also work as a sort of master volume, right?

Not quite. As you would expect, in the bridge/rear position the bridge volume is in charge, in the neck/front position it's the neck volume. In the middle position things are a little different... each volume controls how much of the signal goes through its respective pickup and how much bypasses it, sort of like blend pots.

So, in the middle position, if the bridge volume is at zero the bridge pickup is fully bypassed, if the neck volume is at zero the neck is fully bypassed. At non-zero settings each volume contributes to the overall volume and sound, so there's no 'master' as such. They both interact with each other affecting the output level and tone.

I think what is confusing to me is how signal gets to the "blue" wire from the bridge pickup if the neck pickup volume is turned off?

I do truly appreciate your patience!

In the middle position the neck volume doesn't have a ground connection on its right lug, just the neck pickup negative (red) and the bridge pickup positive (white) from the bridge volume.

When the neck volume is at zero its middle lug (wiper) shorts the bridge connection direct to the output.

When the neck volume is at 10 it shorts the wiper to the left lug which sends the bridge fully through the neck pup at full volume, giving a full series output.

When the neck volume is anywhere between 1<->9 you get some resistance each side of the wiper which divides the signal, so some of it goes through the neck pup and some goes straight to output. This essentially allows you to control how much of each pickup is in the series mix at output (sort of).

Thanks for the explanation! So switch in the middle position, at neck volume 0 you have bridge only. All other neck volume settings are both pups in series, right?