Pickup Simulator layout

[slowpogo]

I made this vero layout for a passive "pickup simulator." This allows you to place impedance-sensitive pedals like a Fuzz Face anywhere you want on your board (with this device directly before it). It's based on this schematic:

http://www.muzique.com/lab/pickups.htm

The first schematic in the link includes a resistor to simulate pickup series resistance; the second, more advanced version leaves that resistor out for some reason, but I included it in my layout. The values are meant to reflect typical single coil/humbucker resistance and can be adjusted.

I chose 1M Linear for the "guitar" pots, the idea being you could set them at 0% for Jazzmaster pots, 50% for Les Paul, 75% for Tele/Strat, or mix and match them. The film cap could be any common tone cap value. The ceramic cap simulates cable capacitance and can be adjusted or removed. I made this layout with a 1590B enclosure in mind.

This is pretty basic, but it's actually the first layout I've attempted myself. If anyone notes any glaring flaws or improvements to the layout, please let me know (gently!)

[FSFX]

For those interested in making these types of pickup simulators, I measured the inductance of a 42TM018 transformer with the windings connected in various combinations.
The inductance was measured at 1kHz using a Peak LCR45 tester.

[slowpogo]

For those interested in making these types of pickup simulators, I measured the inductance of a 42TM018 transformer with the windings connected in various combinations.
The inductance was measured at 1kHz using a Peak LCR45 tester.

It looks like the 42TM019 used in my layout has slightly more primary windings than your 42TM018 (600 ohms vs 550). So I'd expect the inductance to be slightly greater as well.

Single coil pickups seem to start around 2H inductance. Which means the center-tapped M019 (around 1.3H) is equal to a very anemic single coil. But the full primary winding (around 5.5H) is right on the money for a hot humbucker.

Close enough I'd say? There may be a mini-transformer that gets even closer to single coil inductance but it's probably not worth the effort to find it.

[slowpogo]

Nobody's engaging with this design directly but for posterity's sake, I wanted to post an updated layout and share my learning process. I have realized the above layout, while functional and correct to the original schematic, does not do exactly what I intended...

In the first layout, the pots will act just like functional guitar tone and volume pots (except the orientation is reversed, oops). Nothing wrong with that, and they don't need to be 1M, they can be whatever value you want.

However I did not actually want the Volume knob to control volume. I wanted it to simulate the load and high frequency loss of various wide-open guitar volume pots.

As I understand it, even when a guitar's volume pot is maxed at "10," leg 3 is still shorted to ground so some signal (mostly high frequencies) will be lost to ground. Which is why 1M pots are "brighter" than 250k pots; the greater value means more resistance to ground, and thus less high frequency loss.

So what I should have done is configure the Volume pot as a simple variable resistor shorting to ground. I think that's what the new layout accomplishes. Now, leaving volume at 0% should mimic a wide open Jazzmaster volume pot (1M), 50% will mimic Gibson (500k), 75% will mimic Strat/Tele (250k)...as I originally wrote and intended.