strat wiring mods

You will not really need to have a whole plethora, yet I said plethora, of other guitars. And I never liked the messy wiring in most guitars. You can just get the covers instead. There are 7-piece sets where you can swap out every pickup cover, every knob and the switch tip with a different color. Guitars with one humbucker and two single coils always seem to be a compromise. They did think it through, and where they put the battery box was the best possible place it could go. For those in the know, the Blender Pot is one of the most potent mods you can make to your Strat. Whenever two or more pickup coils are involved, they are either working in series or parallel. Don’t we all. Get a high-quality cable and... 2. Please note: although Fender Mod Shop is open and gladly accepting orders year-round, our factory floor does close over the holidays. We only use the highest quality parts for our wiring harnesses. Filed Under: Guitar Mods Tagged With: guitar, strat, wiring. Why not above the cavity cover? If your Strat headstock has two of them, it's probably true each is of a different height. It is a very, very common request. True 90% of tone is in your fingers, yet having gear that allows your nuances to shine through is essential, IMHO. Need new tuners? Do you have problems that no matter how much you wrap the strings, they consistently go out of tune? In pursuit of the holy grail of Strat tone. It’s amazing that in both the Jimmy Vaughn and Eric Johnson Fender Stratocasters one can find this simple wiring trick! Stratocaster with Blender Pot. Modified Fender Strat Wiring: Blender Pot Wiring:. Mixing 250k and 500k pots is a pain. You don’t want to mess up your wiring and then have to open up the pickguard repeatedly in order to fix a bad connection. You run smack dab into pick guard screws from the other side. The mods include installing locking tuners and a bone nut, filing fret ends (more a maintenance issue than a mod), installing a better output jack, and adding strap locks. Whether the Strat you have is made by Fender, Squier or someone else, it's pretty much guaranteed that all the knobs are 250K audio taper pots. Otherwise, the battery would have to be housed under the pick guard, meaning every time the player wanted to change the battery, the pick guard would have to come off first. Can't do that because of the two large tremolo claw screws. You’ll find that the results are amazing, no matter which pickups you have in your guitar! The Blender Pot mod allows you to blend your Neck & Bridge together on a Strat. Not only is it real easy to screw up the neck, but the moment you start taking away wood, that's the point of no return and there's no going back. To shield your guitar, you need to cover the inside of your control cavity and the back of you… 5 Easy Strat Wiring Mods. The guitar at top is a Fender Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster. Especially the Humbucker. This popular strat wiring mod allows you to play all 3 pickups sumultaneously as well as the neck and bridge in series together. But don’t worry, you can fix this. Guitarburger is determined to produce a blog worthy of the bin aboput guitars, pedals, and amps. This leaves the Middle pickup unfettered from any interference from said tone knob. Having extra “Vintage” Wire will help you with any electric guitar rewiring. The person who posted it said it was the Craig Anderton mod . An easy modification for the DIY guitarist! sku: WIRING_MOD_HB005 Humbucker/South Coil/Parallel This guitar wiring modification shows how to use a double pole-double throw (DPDT) on/on/on mini switch to get 3 modes from a humbucker: Standard series humbucker mode, coil tap mode (South coil active) and parallel mode. I have the photos of the diagrams below this post for your perusal. The wiring diagram we have posted below is based upon Fender Lonestar wiring, with the added twist of employing this mod where the humbucker sees 500K and single coils see 250K. For a list of tools that can help virtually any guitar wiring repair, Gotoh SD91 Vintage Tuners for Telecasters and Stratocasters, Sonic Secrets – Shielding an Electric Guitar, Boss DS-1 Distortion “British” Mod Kit by Guitarburger, TC Electronics Hall of Fame Reverb Switch. It looks like this: The reason it's there is because there is a tiny supporting hole that the nub goes into. Honestly, all that one is doing is moving wires from one lug of the 5-way switch to an adjacent lug. A common mod that Jazz/Jag owners do is switch out to 500K pots or even 250K to bring down the treble to a "civilized" level - however - since the volume pot is linear in the Jazz/Jag, a quick volume turn from 10 to 9 or 8 has pretty much the same effect. Such ingenuity is hard to come by in this age of looking for vintage, overpriced gear. A search for Graph Tech string saddles brings up the most options for switching out bent steel to block. The standard wiring with the squier was very jangley(not in a good way) even with the Texas specials installed. An HSS Stratocaster has it's own unique wiring issues. If your roller string tree set has the nubs, file them off using whatever metal file you have available. Tighten up your neck. On string installation, then don't flip over if the underside of them gets poked by the string. One is lack of space and the second is establishing easy access to a battery box. Large single-coil pickups like the P90 vary as to what volume pot resistance is used (it changes around depending on what company made the guitar.) This is the exact same setup we offer in one of our Prewired Strat Assemblies which we refer to as “Smart Lonestar. What happens when you install a 250K linear volume pot on a Strat? Scalloping a fretboard is a difficult mod. You will not be sorry you undertook this simple task! Moreover, the jumper was created by pushing back more of the cloth from the tone 1 lead wire so it would extend to terminal B2. ToneShaper Guitar Wiring Kit, For Fender HSS Stratocaster, HSS2 (Auto-Split Wiring) 4.7 out of 5 stars 45. HSS Strat Wiring. No-load at all! The modular quality of Leo Fender’s guitars makes it possible to make your own tele or stratocaster partscaster! To wire this up, follow the above Blender Pot wiring diagram and replace the Master... Baseplate:. The best way to describe this is what would be classified as difficult mods first. Audio taper pots are also really good for volume swells, should you use that style of guitar play. Comments all removed, tired of dealing with smart asses daily on a 2 year old video. The two most-used types of string saddles used on Strats are bent steel and block. BLENDER MOD. A Stratocaster is, in my opinion, one of the most versatile tone machines out there. The disadvantage is that linear taper pots are not good for volume swells, so if you use that style of guitar play, keep your audio taper pots. For some players, this is really convenient because it allows a super-fast way to cut off just a smidgen of treble without having to grab a tone knob. This unbelievably simple mod will keep all of your Strat controls (switch and pots) in the very... 2. Before we start, let’s do this job right. we will get a bridge+neck pickups option just like a telecaster(! 10 Easy Strat Mods to Improve Primary Tone 1. But it will give you seven pickup combinations instead of the standard five. Many colors are available, including chrome, gold, green, orange, blue (shown above,) and others. With three pickups, a five-way switch, three control potentiometers and an abundance of space under the pickguard to play with, it’s hardly surprising that there are more wiring mods for Strats than any other type of guitar. What it is: A Stratocaster version of “Nashville wiring,” a trick Telecaster mod popularized by Music City’s session cats. They use 1meg linear volume pots and 1meg audio tone pots. Notice the open terminal in the middle: Solder a small cable to that open terminal, then to the other terminal directly next to it: That's it. Don't use a Dremel or a power tool, because it's guaranteed you'll take off too much metal. It is OK to have a linear pot for volume control and audio pot for tone control... ...which is incidentally exactly how the Jaguar and Jazzmaster are set up. Standard Stratocaster wiring for Fender, Squier and pretty much any other company that makes a Strat copy dictates that the bridge-only pickup selection has no tone control wired to it. This product solves these problems. 5-Way Stratocaster (Read our step by step guide to wiring a Strat) Gilmour Strat Wiring Mod (7 Way Strat) 50s Style Stratocaster (50s Tone Pot Wiring) Super Strat HSS (Humbucker, Single Coil, Single Coil) Stratocaster with 1 Master Volume and Master Tone. Block is called as such because it looks like a block, as shown above. If soldering is too scary for you, any reputable guitar shop with an on-site tech will know how to do this mod. This is sometimes known as the ‘Seven-Sound Strat’. Wokka-wokka – All the tone, but none of the suck, the Vox Wah True Bypass mod! The Seven-Sound Strat Modification is an easy mod that you can make to your guitar to give you more tone versatility, and despite its name, you can make this mod on any type of guitar that has three pickups and a five-way switch. Advertisement. In the article’s comments thread , several savvy readers also mention Strat wiring systems that provide the sounds of the Nashville mod … Shop now for Stratocaster fully loaded Dave Gilmour Style Stratocaster wiring harness, with recessed mini toggle switch.. 3-Way Stratocaster Orders placed now will begin building January 11, 2021. One can put a brass plate on the underside of the bridge pickup to get a Telecaster tone, and the neck pickup can emulate a Les Paul’s tone quite well. The advantage to audio taper pots is that most of the treble is kept even as you turn the volume down. Here, were looking at what you can do with a Strat with stock features. Check the wiring of your guitar, you will often find a lot of crappy cables in there. ToneShaper Guitar Wiring Kit, For Fender Stratocaster, SSS1 (Blender Wiring) 4.6 out of 5 stars 98. The decision to place the battery box area below the cover and edged to the front to avoid running into other installed electronics was the right thing to do - if not the only way to get it in there. Some believe that linear volume/audio tone is the best combo you could use on any electric because it's the most usable. I also suggest doing the filing by hand. Why not behind the cavity cover? Obviously, that would be very inconvenient, so a hole was routed out in the back instead. It is absolutely necessary to practice scalloping on a throwaway neck first. You're able to cut off a small amount of treble while keeping most of the signal just from turning the volume pot from 10 to 9 or 8. $29.99. The first Strat I ever saw with no-hole pickups was in the 1990s when Fender was using Lace Sensor pickups on certain models. A Strat is a great guitar to mod because there are so many things you can do to it. The GuitarNuts schematic suggests wiring up the 5-way switch in a completely different way than the usual: you isolate the two halves of the switch (and for this reason they emphasize that this mod is only possible with a true 2-pole switch—I got mine from Stewart MacDonald). It looked cool, and still does. Instrument service diagrams include parts layout diagrams, wiring diagrams, parts lists and switch/control function diagrams. NECK-ON SWITCH. The idea is to get that chimey, jangly, quack from the neck and the middle single coils and the rock and roll from the humbucker in the bridge position. We wanted to go through a few variations of the Stratocaster wiring, as well as some mods you can make to your Strat to super-charge it. All you want to do here is just shave it flat. Like you, I want my guitar to sound true, and for each note to be savored. Do it by hand. Interference can rob you of sound! Even with constant play, it is very unlikely the saddles screws will ever vibrate out of place. For a list of tools that can help virtually any guitar wiring repair, Read this post. Moving a few jumper wires on the lugs of your 5-way switch has been (by far) the cheapest, easiest mod yet. The simplicity of this qualifies this mod to make this the best easy strat wiring mod. Here’s the thing about guitar cavities: most of the time they’re left defenseless against electrical interference. From what I understand, the Eric Johnson Stratocaster has a similar wiring setup. There are many players who consider the fact the Strat has no tone control on the bridge-only pickup setting to be totally stupid. Wiring in a tone control for the bridge-only pickup setting. SSS configuration stratocaster with blender pot ( 7 sound options strat) Some say this is the oldest mods for strat, and i would say this is the best one. Some Tele players add a third pickup (plus a blend knob), expanding the range of combined-pickup tones. Blackmore doesn't favor the middle pickup, so in the way Fender designed his signature guitar, they simply removed it. Honestly, all that one is doing is moving wires from one lug of the 5-way switch to an adjacent lug. REV. Stratocaster Wiring Diagrams. Standard Stratocaster wiring for Fender, … $42.49. ", Guitars with humbuckers, such as the Les Paul, use 500K pots because the dual-coil by nature has less treble response than the Strat single-coil does; the 500K increases treble level so the pickup doesn't "sound like mud.". Quick info on volume pot resistance for those not in the know. By changing the wiring scheme, we convert the first tone pot into a blender pot, blending the pickups. If you are like me, you are always looking for a way to enhance your tone. Not to launch a protracted Strat-vs.-Tele battle, but I love the whole notion of “Tele-fying” a Strat via wiring, control layout, and pickup choice. Okay, that being all said and done, let's move on to the easy stuff. This simple mod will keep all of your Strat controls as they are and keep your stock wiring. Fender Tex-Mex Strat Pickups First, take a look and compare this diagram for an American Standard Strat and this diagram for a Jimmie Vaughn/Eric Johnson Strat from Fender. One last thing on the trees. If you ever want to install a preamp in a Strat, follow what Fender did with the Roadhouse Strat. This modification is so simple because it requires no rewiring of the original circuitry. Glassy all around! Notice anything different? Variation of Blender Pot Strat:. (try this search on Amazon for something like the above,many color options will show up, including white,cream, green, orange, pink, etc.). Why can't the box be in front of the rear cavity cover? Easy to install and sounds great. In essence, you get all of your traditional Strat tones, plus the ability to get Neck + Bridge (a la Telecaster) and Neck + Middle +Bridge (all pickups at once). Fender dealer and repairer Phillip McKnight demonstrates five simple mods anyone can make to a Strat. Because that's the way Leo Fender himself designed the Strat's electronics originally. The only thing I might change is to allow a quick change to the tone caps. All it takes is some simple work with a soldering iron. This is a scary mod. Many punctuation errors will follow. Reasons why block is better than bent steel: This one takes a bit of explanation, but it's not too difficult to understand. All it takes is some simple work with a soldering iron. But it should be said that if you want to put in a set of Lace Sensors, that's actually a very good pickup upgrade. Switching the volume control out to a 250K linear taper pot brings about some tone control you didn't have before. A pickup wired in series will send its signal into another pickup in … It may be an old adage, but the truth of the matter is that the guitar you hold in your hands is capable of so many tones. Why? But of course, your Strat doesn't have those supporting holes in the headstock. It's not a new idea. This means that instead of hearing your own unadulterated musical genius come through your amp, you may also hear stray signals from the electronics around you. The simplicity of this qualifies this mod to make this the best easy strat wiring mod. Age: 46 ... Fender Stratocaster Guitar Forum. Is there a USA Strat wiring diagram on this site. Pay attention to the 5-way switch, that’s where the de-soldering and re-soldering will be taking place. DATE SERVICE DIAGRAMS '50s Stratocaster® 013-1002: 06/18/99: Download '60s Stratocaster® 013-1000: 11/01/99: Download '70s Stratocaster® The same wiring performs brilliantly in a Strat—without the cost and hassle of installing a third pickup. If you have an modern American Standard Strat (anywhere from the 1990s to present,) you already have these roller trees, so anyone who installs these will do so on a Mexico Strat or Squier. Once you have the parts in place the wiring diagram in Fig 1 should be pretty easy to follow — just a few solder joints and your Nashville Style wiring modification will be complete. Partscasters…why not, right? This is a mod I absolutely would not do because I do use the middle pickup quite a bit. 1. sku: WIRING_MOD_HB005 Humbucker/South Coil/Parallel This guitar wiring modification shows how to use a double pole-double throw (DPDT) on/on/on mini switch to get 3 modes from a humbucker: Standard series humbucker mode, coil tap mode (South coil active) and parallel mode. This is a Strat's 5-way selector in its normal state. However, some mods are good while others are not-so good. Using a blender pot is another great use for that 2nd tone control on a Strat. For the sake of brevity, we are only going to be focusing on Fender Strats with three Single Coil pickups, or, ‘SSS’ Strats, but this wiring also can apply to HSS strats as well! 1meg pots, are used in Fender/Squier Jazzmaster and Fender/Squier Jaguar guitars, hence their "ice pick" like sound when the volume pot is turned all the way up. if you have a typical 3 single coil strat (REAL single coils, not "noiseless"), with either a middle RWRP pup or "vintage wired" with all three pups of the same wind and polarity, a fairly simple set of wiring mods will give you increased functional versatility and lots less noise while still retaining that smoky sweet single coil tone we all love. Repeat until your Stratocaster is wired according to the Eric Johnson Strat. This is the easiest guitar to play with your fingers, For the guy who can't decide between a Strat and a Tele - Fender Deluxe Nashville Telecaster, Help with guitar setup (it's more than just adjustments), Nickel plated vs pure nickel guitar strings, Three things I've learned from driving around DFW. The five-way switch gives Strat players plenty of versatility in tone. Some go as low as 100K, while others use 300K. Gibson guitars typically use linear taper pots. No. Moving a few jumper wires on the lugs of your 5-way switch has been (by far) the cheapest, easiest mod yet. But if you ever wished, "Gee, I wish I could just take off a small amount of treble without 'mudding' out and still keep my gain up," install that 250K linear pot for a volume control and you'll get it. If a guitar’s neck is loose in its pocket, it will be less effective … The HSS (which stands for humbucker-single-single) pickup configuration gained popularity in the 80s, much like everyone’s favorite haircut, the mullet. If you find some poor quality, made-in-the-far-east parts,... 3. Should you use linear taper for all your pots, including the tone controls? This wiring connection on the 5-way switch which removes the Middle pickup from your 2nd tone knob. Got some hum there buddy? Scalloping has to be done right the first time or you pretty much lose the neck. Position 3 now is true rock, and 2 and 4 have more quack! This weekend, quiet the 60-cycle beast – try Shielding a Guitar w/ Step-by-step Instructions! Strat single-coils typically do sound best when 250K is used, regardless if the taper is audio or linear. Acoustasonic ® Get Started. That's actually doable, but can potentially create a weak point when the tremolo system is in use and split the wood later on. MODEL PART NO. They don't shift around like bent steel saddles do. Installing tuners that don't fit into the existing pegboard/headstock holes is a difficult mod because, again, wood removal is required, and again, once you start taking away wood, there's no going back. Let’s find out how to install Gotoh SD91 Vintage Tuners! But bear in mind the roller string tree is small, so you must use a small file to do the work, and do it slowly because it's almost too easy to shave off too much. This wiring harness will give you great service for years! Extra vertical height adjustment because of the greater mass of the saddle. Watch out for the "nub". Didn’t even need an extra wire! Series and Parallel Wiring Series and parallel wiring is also a pretty common mod. While definitely easier than scalloping a fretboard, you have to widen the holes just enough so that the tuners fit properly. Using linear taper for tone controls typically results in the sound 'mudding out' too quickly to be usable. That's because it's a dummy pickup. Next let’s take a look at Fig 1B. Fortunately, you don't need Lace Sensor pickups for that cool no-hole look. Simply look at the switch and move the wires from one place to the next. I totally agree. To upgrade your electronics before doing this mod, get this 50’s Wiring Harness today! Installing a preamp is a difficult mod for two main reasons. If you take away too much wood, that would be bad. This Stratocaster wiring harness is modeled after the Fender® Custom Shop “David Gilmour” (of Pink Floyd) model guitar. To give further explanation on how difficult installing a preamp in a Strat is, this is the back of a Fender Roadhouse Stratocaster (a guitar I just recently reviewed that does have a preamp in it): What Fender had to do in order to make the 9-volt battery accessible to the player was literally cut a hole in the back of the guitar for the battery box. The Eric Johnson Stratocaster Wiring Mod – used by Jimmie Vaughn and Eric Johnson! 1000K pots, a.k.a. To your ear, when you turn down a linear volume pot, you will hear the treble start to cut off a lot sooner. A blender pot allows you... 3. The higher the resistance number, the greater the treble response. The David Gilmour mod is a DPDT switch (or a push-pull pot) that adds the neck position. If you do any modifications of your guitar, any at all, please read the post below in order to get the right tools for the job. These are cheap, readily available, look cool and help prevent string "kinking," but I'll give you a warning here. Here's the thing to know: On the bottom side of some roller trees, there is a metal nub on the underside. (you can find cover sets in various colors here). This popular strat wiring mod allows you to play all 3 pickups sumultaneously as well as . Losing your tune? If so, specifically buy a pair that has those staggered heights to them so your strings rest proper after they're installed. This opens up the tone of the instrument to another degree, to be sure. The guitar you already have in your hands is good enough, son! Now you have tone control on the bridge-only pickup setting. Strats use 250K because the skinny single-coils it uses have a high treble response, and 250K keeps the tone civilized without being "screechy. Try this yourself! Because there is more mass touching each saddle, bad vibration (as in the kind that's annoying) pretty much completely goes away. snoopdoug, Jan 29, 2020 #2. sotorrio New Member! We moved tone 2 to B1 (bridge) and connected a jumper between B2 and B3. This is a Stratocaster wiring solution built with high quality parts and crafted by hand. The first thing you'll notice is that the middle pickup looks weird. Most places will do it for $25 or less. All you do is add a tiny switch to the hardware that’s already there. The guitar only has a rear and front pickup, but no middle. Check the pots, pickup selector switch and output jack.

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