Just another pickup line...

I haven't had a chance to go figured maple shopping yet, though I have a really good lead on a stash somewhere here in town by our shop.

I wanted to add just a little to my discussion on my choice of pickups and how they will be configured in my guitar.  Remember that I am going to put in two Seymour Duncan P-Rail Humbuckers.  Also, remember that each humbucker has six possible configurations of single coil or in and out of phase double coils.  Well, that is not quite true.  Each pickup really has seven configurations.  In addition to the six configurations I have already talked about, there is also the possibility that both coils can be off.  In other words, the entire P-Rail could be off.  I can either turn off the entire Neck pickup, or I can turn off the entire Bridge pickup or I can have both pickups on. (Both pickups off too, which just means that the guitar is completely off.)  So, there are three combinations of pickup selection.  1- Neck on, Bridge on.  2- Neck on, Bridge off.  3- Neck off, Bridge on.  (4- Neck off, Bridge off.).  For a two pickup guitar like mine, this is normally configured with a three-way switch.

3-way Switch

With a three pickup guitar like an H-H-H, or S-S-S, or S-H-S, etc, a five-way switch is often used for all the pickups - 1- Neck on, Middle on, Bridge on.  2- Neck on, Middle on, Bridge off.  3-Neck on, Middle off, Bridge off.  4-Neck off, Middle on, Bridge on.  5-Neck off, Middle on, Bridge off.  Or something like that...
Anyway, with my two pickups, I have only three combinations.

But yes, you guessed it; I want my two pickups to be even more configurable.  What if I want my Neck pickup to be only 50% on and my Bridge pickup to be 100% on?  Well, I am going to use a pan/balance knob just like the one on your stereo that chooses between the left and right speaker (A "stereo" is an ancient device like an mp3 player or mp3 file equipped smart phone, but only bigger and it doesn't play mp3s.).  It's called a blend potentiometer or blend pot.  This is the one I'm going to buy:

Blend Pot - $5.35, Ultimate Configurability - Priceless!

This one is somewhat special in that it lets me go from 100% Neck, 0% Bridge to 0% Neck, 100% Bridge with both pickups at 100% when it is centred (not 50% each).  This is important to me since pickups don't sound the same when they are not at full volume and I didn't want my only option of using both pickups to entail only having them at half volume.

Any questions...?