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Is anyone familiar with the wiring for double necks?

On my custom build I have the octave neck wired to be on when the bottom neck switch is set to neck or middle position but not the bridge pup. Problem is, the pups are so hot they're ringing out on the bottom neck when playing the top neck. Any suggestion for wiring the top neck to be on and bypass the bottom neck pups entirely without adding an additional switch? For those of you that own or have played the early style doubleneck like I'm building, what are the switching modes?

I've never played an early one but I would make the slider switch a 3way. Top position octave neck ,mid both necks & bottom standard neck that way you have all bases covered.

Danny,
The JM65 has a mini toggle between the necks. up-Octave middle-Both down-main neck. This is also how I wire my doublenecks. - T

Hey Danny--

Yeah, the problem is always when you have both necks on at once. I've developed a series of moronic steps of muting the ringing strings on the stray neck with my palm or forearm, and that's really about the only solution.

Semie rarely had anything but a switch to turn the upper neck on or off, or the three-way toggle that had upper, both, and lower selections.

My favorite setup for this is on the 1959 TNM Custom that I play. It not only has a switch for the upper neck (which I just leave on), but it has small volume and tone controls for the upper neck, and I've just developed a quick way to roll that upper volume control on right before I'm going to start playing on the upper neck.

I suppose there might be some "trick" ways to wire the knobs and switches to minimize the problem, but I certainly couldn't tell you exactly how to do it.

The main problem is that there is an actual law of physics at work that when both necks are on, the volume will be seriously lower than if only one neck at a time is on. There's no way to get around that problem. I remember somebody told me one time about Semie trying to figure out ways to get around it but at the end of the day, if it's a law of physics, you're not going to be too successful working against it.

Deke

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll just have to live with it. I've already started trying different methods of muting as I changes necks. I thought maybe I had slipped a cog or two with volume levels dropping with both necks in the 'on' position. I guess I built in the same flaws as the original.

hey Danny,

not sure if this would help you or not, but the same reason someone would use a volume boost pedal on a pedal board to boost the signal, I think the same could possibly be done in a guitar. I don't know if this is possible for a passive pickup, but an active pickup will become louder if you add more voltage. if you were to add a switch or a volume pot to a battery on a active pickup set, you could (in theory) increase loss output from a particular setting at a flip of a switch, or turn of a knob.
never tried this before, but seems like it might work.

I guess a easy fix is to just add a volume pedal in front of your amp and switch it on when you have both necks in use.

the next idea is wiring in a noise gate inside your guitar

hey seriously... that might be your real answer

Thanks for the suggestions Aaron, however I'm trying to duplicate the guitar as it was originally built so I thought maybe I had missed something in the wiring process.

After playing my double neck for a couple of days now I realize the purpose of the flip mute on the bridge. In order to not get the six sting neck to stop resonating with the octave neck with both necks hot, simply flip up the mute when going up to play the octave neck. It mutes the standard neck enough to stop the resonating tones but yet still allows to switch back an forth between the necks rapidly. It takes a little practice to flip the mute on and off with the little finger, but that would be my guess for the logic behind Semie's flip mute. The flip mute only mutes the strings ever so lightly that even if you don't flip the mute all the way on first try it still plays sufficiently. I'd say the flip mute on the double neck was out of necessity and on the single neck guitar it was a novelty. Who would ever use it when you easily palm mute.

Danny. Use a concentric volume pot. Stewart Mac has them with Knobs though they look like the ones used on the original Jazz Basses.

I talked to Doug Brewer today and he stated that Semie told him that he would avoid using high gain pickups in these earlier model double necks because they would generate harmonics when both neck pickups were in the on position. This makes sense so I might try unwrapping some of the windings to get them down around 9K or less. The ones I have in there now are over 13K.