Strat wiring

[Ian Price]

Morning all,

Quick question about strat wiring (hence the thread title  :?).

The bridge pickup on mine is not wired to the tone pot - is there any easy way of doing this? I'm assuming there is but wouldn't want to do it without having some guidance from people in the know. I'm a fearless wielder of a soldering iron - I just need to know what to do!

Cheers

[Twinfan]

A common mod is to wire the tone pot to the bridge instead of the middle - leaving the middle then without a tone pot.  I tried that on my strat but ended up with too zingy a middle pickup due to the reduced load on the pickup.

I think you can add a wire to make the tone pot work on both middle and bridge pickups, or this way which makes it work on the neck/middle, leaving the bridge to work on its own tone pot...

http://soundlogic-usa.com/c38.html

[Afghan Dave]

It's EASY (and that's ME talking!)

Simply unsolder the wire leading from the lower tone pot from the lug on the 5 way.

Resolder to the lug for the bridge pickup on the same side..

This will give you all sorts of insight...

The Anatomy of the Stratocaster 5-way Switch - https://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2009/Mar/The_Anatomy_of_the_Stratocaster_5_way_Switch_Part_II.aspx

[Afghan Dave]

Dave beat me to it...

The point he makes about the middle pickup being "zingy" is 1000% spot on...

I don't like it on my Maple/Ash strat - Like an ice pick...

So I recommend you use a jumper (as found in Dave's post) to share a tone across both neck & middle.

[Philly Q]

Just adding to what's already been said, I think what you're after is basically the American Standard Strat wiring - note the jumper between two lugs on the switch, so bridge and middle share the second tone control.

http://www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdf_temp1/stratocaster/0107400_02C/SD0107400_02CPg2.pdf

(The Fender site is really good for wiring diagrams - and if you want one that's not listed they'll email it to you!)

[gwEm]

I like to wire it so the middle tone control works on the middle+bridge, leaving a separate one for the neck.

You can also wire it for a master tone, and leave the 3rd pot unused, or use that the blend in the neck pickup in the bridge and bridge+middle positions.

Just putting these suggestions out there :)

[Prawnik]

If you are wired for a three-way switch, a popular mod is the so-called "Hendrix Mod" (although AFAIK, Hendrix never used it).

Basically, you wire the guitar so the three-way switches between neck, neck and middle and middle pickups. Volume controls neck/bridge volume and a master tone control. The third pot controls bridge pickup volume.

The idea is that by switching the three-way and the bridge volume, you can then get any combination of pickups and get a tone control to tame any ice-pick in the bridge.

I have never tried it, but I keep planning to wire up a guitar this way.

Diagrams readily available on the internets.

[AndyR]

I go the "master tone and leave the 3rd pot unused" route.

Everytime I get a new strat with vintage wiring, I spend some time experimenting on the neck, neck/middle, and middle, selections to see what I'm missing by losing the separate tone controls... but each time I try it, it turns out it's not much as far as I'm concerned.

It's not that difficult to do - I figure it out anew each time.

I pretty much do the following:

a) disconnect one tone pot completely
b) disconnect the other from its current position on the "way in" to the switch
c) reconnect it "after" the switch

You need to look at how the switch is built to figure out where "in" and "out" are at on the guitar you're hacking.

It's a five minute job - hardest part is getting the frigging scratchplate off (especially if you don't want to restring) :lol:

[Ian Price]

Cheers for the comemnts all. Will be changing the strings in the next few days so will open her up and do some minor surgery.

Thanks!