The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi,

Anybody every hear of (or done) this: Rewire (or, reconfigure) a double neck guitar to play both E9 and C7 at the same time. As I understand it, there is a toggle switch that switches between pickups on double neck guitars?

*I have never seen a double neck irl - I own a S-10.

I can imagine it could be blasphemous (and even painful) to modify a $3500 guitar in this way...but I wonder how complicated this could be?

Just curious,

D.

A lot, if not most, double neck steels have a 3 way toggle that will let you do exactly that.
Doug Jernigan has a wonderful instrumental where he plays both necks - E9 & C6 - at the same time.

My first guitar had a broken switch that was stuck in the middle, so for a long time I knew nothing else!

An on/on/on switch is the most common wiring.
Total output volume is reduced in the both-on setting and sympathetically vibrating strings on the neck you are not playing can cause problems. So the middle position is selected when that is exactly what you mean to be doing (neck-hopping or tone-dialing). Otherwise, you select the active neck.

I've never seen a D10 that did not have the toggle switch, unless someone took it out.

However keep in mind. If you have both pickups on at the same time, it changes the pickup load and will change your tone drastically. It will become thin.

Usually the 2 pickups would be connected in opposing polarity to cancel noise. While not as good as humbucking pickups, this can provide significant hum reduction.

I was thinking the same as Ernest. I don't believe the two pickups would normally come with reverse polarity. What would need to be done is to flip the magnets over in one pick up and rewind it. The hum canceling would be awesome and you'd never want to switch out of that position. You could also wire in the option of series or parallel wiring for the option of a big fat sound or a thinner Fender (Bakersfield) sound. BTW, this all refers to single coil pickups.👍

Ron Pruter wrote:What would need to be done is to flip the magnets over in one pick up and rewind it.

No, just connect the wires opposite. To make sure, listen with both pickups on in a noisy environment, and connect them in the way that sounds quieter.