I had a very interesting idea while watching a movie with my roommate. What if you took a two pickup guitar (like a telecaster) and installed a stereo output jack. Instead of running the output pickups signals into a switch then to the amp you could output both the signals at the same time using the stereo jack and a stereo cable. Then at the stompbox level you could use the two signals and process them separately and mix them together or really do lots of interesting/creative things. The things I would love to hear are maybe a pan between the two signals, maybe a phase shift of one signal and mixing back with the other. Lots of cool stuff. 8)
From experience, that's pretty awesome Paul.
I have a Parker P44 that has a stereo output for the mag pickups and a piezo bridge pickup. What I would do is install a switch to be an on-on-on switch that allows you to have neck/both/bridge, because then you could do something like a rhythm pedal chain on the neck, and lead pedal chain on the bridge, and even mix them.
Super cool idea paul.
Jacob
some cool options--though I've never tried it, it's one thing that came to mind when I was thinking about building an ultimate guitar. I think Rickenbacker's have a stereo out...This idea is not as sexy as your ideas you could even use a A/B/Y box in reverse as a footswitchable pickup selector switch
You could do all sorts of interesting parallel effects with delay, dist/OD, compression with some kind of mixer
One of the main reasons I got into pedal building was I was looking for interesting ways to use the stereo out on my Rickenbacker.
I've done some neat things that make it sound as if it's multi tracking several guitars when I play. It can be a very thick sound. I'm still working out my ideal pedalboard, which would have two totally discrete channels.
Ideally, I'd love to find a way to get a 12-string sound out of one side and a mild overdrive 6-string sound out of the other. I hate digital effects, though, and right now the best option I have is to use the EH micro POG.
If you want to wire your guitar up like a Ric, with separate outputs for each pickup, you can take a look at the wiring schematic here:
http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/19502.pdf (http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/19502.pdf)
EDIT: The Ric design has 5 knobs. Four are like the standard Les Paul with separate volume/tone knobs. The fifth is a blend knob, which works like an on board panner between the two. Pretty cool stuff.
2nd Edit: Fixed the link.
Awesome. I love the idea of having switching options at my feet. I didn't know Ricks and Parkers had stereo outputs. I really want to wire up one of my guitars like this, initially I am just going to preserve the original wiring and just pull off the neck pickup onto the ring lug. I saw a Hendrix concert vid where he was flipping the pickup selector really quick and it made almost a wah type of sound, I think that would be a good simple starting point. I think the two signals are similar in phase and little fluctuations so I think the best harmonic type effects would accentuate their differences. I really like the neck pickup going through a tubescreamer type circuit and the bridge to go through a fuzz face, it would be interesting to see what those two signals would sound like mixed together after separate processing.
The Blend knob is interesting. I sorta wish I had that to play with. Perhaps I'll look into modding this parker.
jacob