Any other ideas?

[marnold***]

Well, it seems that I've basically decided to do the following to my Floyd DST-3:
1) Replace the pups with Lace Hot Golds (6k singles and a 6k/13k dually)
2) Replace the pot with a push-pull to add the bridge pup, regardless of what the five-way switch is set at
3) Add an on/off/on switch to make the dually 6k, 13k, or 19k

Since I'm going crazy here, I was wondering if there were any other bright ideas people might have. This wiring scheme would give me a TON of options. My main thought was to replace the five-way too. My reasons are two-fold.
1) It is one of those "circuit board" switches and I'm not sure how good those are.
2) I could yank all of the existing wiring out and keep it together (except for the ground and the leads to the jack). That way if I ever wanted to sell the guitar, I could easily replace the original pups and wiring and keep my Laces.

The "problem" with this is that I'd need to get a switch and wire it up. Not the end of the world, but it would mean more work and slightly more money. Thoughts?

[Spudman***]

Play the stock switch until it gives out or starts being a problem. It's paid for.

Otherwise, be sure to keep an open mind after the new pickups are installed. If you'll just accept them as they are then you'll love them, but if you keep thinking they don't sound anything like Custom Shop pickups then you'll never be satisfied.

For setting them up - I ran mine really close to the strings and then started backing them down until I got more of that vintage glassy clear sound like regular single coils. You can put them right up to the string because they don't have the magnetics of regular pickups. They'll be ok there but I think they improve when they get a bit away from the strings.

[Bloozcat]

Uh...how about a tele-prompter screen with all of the options listed so you don't forget them in the middle of a show...

Sorry marnold...I guess I'm just in a silly mood this morning...

[duhvoodooman***]

Well, you could consider adding a second push/pull to allow you to add in the bridge pickup in series with the others, rather than just the usual parallel arrangement. The concept is described in some detail in THIS previous posting. You'd have to modify the wiring to accommodate your coil-splitting switch plans, but it should be reasonably straightforward. Definitely would give you some additional tones, esp. in combination with the different coil-split settings. I'd certainly do it, as long as I was going to be "under the hood" anyway. Then again, I'm a schizo-bipolar delusional paranoid about this stuff....

[marnold***]

Well, you could consider adding a second push/pull to allow you to add in the bridge pickup in series with the others, rather than just the usual parallel arrangement. The concept is described in some detail in THIS previous posting. You'd have to modify the wiring to accommodate your coil-splitting switch plans, but it should be reasonably straightforward. Definitely would give you some additional tones, esp. in combination with the different coil-split settings. I'd certainly do it, as long as I was going to be "under the hood" anyway. Then again, I'm a schizo-bipolar delusional paranoid about this stuff....

The only "issue" with this is that I only have one pot on my Floyd. I'd prefer not to have to drill another hole in this bad-boy.

Having said that, I did ask a question that pertains to this in the other thread but it went unanswered. With all three pups on in parallel, won't that be an incredibly weak signal since all three pups are acting as a load on each other? I know that the formula for two pickups is p1 x p2/(p1 + p2), meaning that two 6k pups in parallel would have 3k output. I'm not sure what a formula for three pups would be but I'd imagine the output would have to be around 1.5k given three 6k pups, right?

[marnold***]

Oh yeah, I should add that I still haven't decided if I'm getting black or white pups (to match my red guitar with white pearloid pickguard). I'm leaning towards black to give it a little more snarl.