Dano weirdness

[Fretworn]

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.

[fender3x]

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

[Fretworn]

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.

[fender3x]

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.



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 ;-)

[fender3x]

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.

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?

[WeirdBits]

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.

[fender3x]

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!

[WeirdBits]

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).

[fender3x]

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?