Disconnect tone pots for Holydiver?

[nkay]

Anyone tried this at all? I have a Fender American Special HSS strat in which I installed the Holydiver. I switched out the 250k volume pot for a 500k, but for the 250k tone pots, I decided to just disconnect them altogether because I don't really use them anyway.

I found it really opened up the diver, and gave it a slightly more aggressive edge to it that I really liked, although it did take away a smidgeon of warmth. I might try to replace the bridge tone with a no-load tone pot so I can try it both ways to see the real difference. Just wondered if anyone else tried this and liked the tone.

[darkbluemurder]

When I had my strat set up for just one bridge humbucker (the Holydiver) and one single coil at the neck I wired the tone pot to the neck pickup only. Bridge was warm enough, and the neck pickup could be easily controlled for the desired brightness.

Another option in a set up with three pots would be to give the bridge pickup a separate tone control with a smaller capacitor.

Cheers Stephan

[nkay]

I think I actually removed both the tone pot connections, I can't remember now. I have the middle pickup screwed all the way down flush (like Blackmore, Yngwie) because I never use it. I occasionally use the texas special neck pickup.
I will check the next time I open it up. Is the first tone pot (middle knob) used for neck and middle, and the last 2nd tone knob for bridge?

[darkbluemurder]

I will check the next time I open it up. Is the first tone pot (middle knob) used for neck and middle, and the last 2nd tone knob for bridge?

Yeah, that was the set up I was talking about. It's not the classic strat set up though - that would be the middle knob for the neck pickup and the 2nd tone knob for the middle pickup. The bridge pickup originally was not connected to a tone pot - Fender wanted a bright tone on the bridge because his customers wanted that way back then - not very useful for today IMHO.

Cheers Stephan