Control Freaks
Many people write asking me what to do with the components they already have on hand.  Really, there are only a handful of components to work with, so here is a quick guide to which applications you might apply these toward.
Switches
 
SPST
 
SPDT On/On/On
  • Pickup selector switch (including working with combination magnetic and piezo signals)
 
DPDT On/On
 
DPDT On/Off/On
 
Conventional 5-way pickup selector switch
Pots
 
Single pot
(same as a variable SPST)
 
Dual-ganged (aka "stereo") pot
(same as a variable DPDT)
  • Blender between two signal sources (e.g., two pickups, magnetic vs. piezo pickups, etc.)
  • Pair of variable coil taps that work in unison
    		•
     
    Concentric pot
    • Vol/tone knobs
    Things to remember:
    • You can always use only a portion of a more complex switch as a simple one.  For instance, a DPDT can be used as a SPST or a SPDT.
      Similarly (like it says above), a potentiometer (i.e., "pot") can be treated as a SPDT (or SPST, of course), so you can use it for any of the applications you might use a switch for instead, only make the hack continuously variable instead of merely switchable.
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