Switching the volume control out to a 250K linear taper pot brings about some tone control you didn't have before. No-load at all! To your ear, when you turn down a linear volume pot, you will hear the treble start to cut off a lot sooner. Like you, I want my guitar to sound true, and for each note to be savored. 10 Easy Strat Mods to Improve Primary Tone 1. But of course, your Strat doesn't have those supporting holes in the headstock. Stratocaster Wiring Diagrams. The Eric Johnson Stratocaster Wiring Mod – used by Jimmie Vaughn and Eric Johnson! 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. If you find some poor quality, made-in-the-far-east parts,... 3. Glassy all around! 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. Honestly, all that one is doing is moving wires from one lug of the 5-way switch to an adjacent lug. Even with constant play, it is very unlikely the saddles screws will ever vibrate out of place. This is sometimes known as the ‘Seven-Sound Strat’. It is a very, very common request. Fender dealer and repairer Phillip McKnight demonstrates five simple mods anyone can make to a Strat. 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. Position 3 now is true rock, and 2 and 4 have more quack! If your roller string tree set has the nubs, file them off using whatever metal file you have available. The two most-used types of string saddles used on Strats are bent steel and block. Do it by hand. This modification is so simple because it requires no rewiring of the original circuitry. Easy to install and sounds great. We only use the highest quality parts for our wiring harnesses. That's because it's a dummy pickup. 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). 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. True 90% of tone is in your fingers, yet having gear that allows your nuances to shine through is essential, IMHO. Gibson guitars typically use linear taper pots. 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. 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). This leaves the Middle pickup unfettered from any interference from said tone knob. Get a high-quality cable and... 2. Fortunately, you don't need Lace Sensor pickups for that cool no-hole look. This unbelievably simple mod will keep all of your Strat controls (switch and pots) in the very... 2. But don’t worry, you can fix this. All you do is add a tiny switch to the hardware that’s already there. The guitar at top is a Fender Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster. Orders placed now will begin building January 11, 2021. The simplicity of this qualifies this mod to make this the best easy strat wiring mod. In the article’s comments thread , several savvy readers also mention Strat wiring systems that provide the sounds of the Nashville mod … snoopdoug, Jan 29, 2020 #2. sotorrio New Member! That's actually doable, but can potentially create a weak point when the tremolo system is in use and split the wood later on. 3-Way Stratocaster A Stratocaster is, in my opinion, one of the most versatile tone machines out there. Advertisement. ToneShaper Guitar Wiring Kit, For Fender HSS Stratocaster, HSS2 (Auto-Split Wiring) 4.7 out of 5 stars 45. Notice anything different? The higher the resistance number, the greater the treble response. No. It is absolutely necessary to practice scalloping on a throwaway neck first. Wiring in a tone control for the bridge-only pickup setting. 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. Installing a preamp is a difficult mod for two main reasons. Stratocaster with Blender Pot. 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. To upgrade your electronics before doing this mod, get this 50’s Wiring Harness today! Repeat until your Stratocaster is wired according to the Eric Johnson Strat. This popular strat wiring mod allows you to play all 3 pickups sumultaneously as well as . Some Tele players add a third pickup (plus a blend knob), expanding the range of combined-pickup tones. This wiring harness will give you great service for years! 1. 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. The guitar only has a rear and front pickup, but no middle. Modified Fender Strat Wiring: Blender Pot Wiring:. All it takes is some simple work with a soldering iron. A Strat is a great guitar to mod because there are so many things you can do to it. Whenever two or more pickup coils are involved, they are either working in series or parallel. A blender pot allows you... 3. Simply look at the switch and move the wires from one place to the next. If soldering is too scary for you, any reputable guitar shop with an on-site tech will know how to do this mod. To shield your guitar, you need to cover the inside of your control cavity and the back of you… NECK-ON SWITCH. 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. Before we start, let’s do this job right. Many colors are available, including chrome, gold, green, orange, blue (shown above,) and others. Don’t we all. The HSS (which stands for humbucker-single-single) pickup configuration gained popularity in the 80s, much like everyone’s favorite haircut, the mullet. You run smack dab into pick guard screws from the other side. This product solves these problems. 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. You can just get the covers instead. 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. This wiring connection on the 5-way switch which removes the Middle pickup from your 2nd tone knob. They don't shift around like bent steel saddles do. Many punctuation errors will follow. Okay, that being all said and done, let's move on to the easy stuff. Some believe that linear volume/audio tone is the best combo you could use on any electric because it's the most usable. ToneShaper Guitar Wiring Kit, For Fender Stratocaster, SSS1 (Blender Wiring) 4.6 out of 5 stars 98. The person who posted it said it was the Craig Anderton mod . In pursuit of the holy grail of Strat tone. The guitar you already have in your hands is good enough, son! Reasons why block is better than bent steel: This one takes a bit of explanation, but it's not too difficult to understand. Most places will do it for $25 or less. 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. The five-way switch gives Strat players plenty of versatility in tone. $42.49. 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. 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. BLENDER MOD. Audio taper pots are also really good for volume swells, should you use that style of guitar play. We moved tone 2 to B1 (bridge) and connected a jumper between B2 and B3. 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. Because that's the way Leo Fender himself designed the Strat's electronics originally. The best way to describe this is what would be classified as difficult mods first. Series and Parallel Wiring Series and parallel wiring is also a pretty common mod. All it takes is some simple work with a soldering iron. 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. Here’s the thing about guitar cavities: most of the time they’re left defenseless against electrical interference. Mixing 250k and 500k pots is a pain. 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. 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. I also suggest doing the filing by hand. REV. I have the photos of the diagrams below this post for your perusal. This is a Strat's 5-way selector in its normal state. I totally agree. Why not behind the cavity cover? There are 7-piece sets where you can swap out every pickup cover, every knob and the switch tip with a different color. You will not be sorry you undertook this simple task! 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. Why? You’ll find that the results are amazing, no matter which pickups you have in your guitar! This is a scary mod. 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. MODEL PART NO. Fender Tex-Mex Strat Pickups These are cheap, readily available, look cool and help prevent string "kinking," but I'll give you a warning here. Now you have tone control on the bridge-only pickup setting. 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. By changing the wiring scheme, we convert the first tone pot into a blender pot, blending the pickups. Using linear taper for tone controls typically results in the sound 'mudding out' too quickly to be usable. However, some mods are good while others are not-so good. It looks like this: The reason it's there is because there is a tiny supporting hole that the nub goes into. The advantage to audio taper pots is that most of the treble is kept even as you turn the volume down. 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! Here, were looking at what you can do with a Strat with stock features. While definitely easier than scalloping a fretboard, you have to widen the holes just enough so that the tuners fit properly. Scalloping a fretboard is a difficult mod. Obviously, that would be very inconvenient, so a hole was routed out in the back instead. 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. 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. This simple mod will keep all of your Strat controls as they are and keep your stock wiring. Losing your tune? A pickup wired in series will send its signal into another pickup in … 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 a guitar’s neck is loose in its pocket, it will be less effective … Guitarburger is determined to produce a blog worthy of the bin aboput guitars, pedals, and amps. Don't use a Dremel or a power tool, because it's guaranteed you'll take off too much metal. The first Strat I ever saw with no-hole pickups was in the 1990s when Fender was using Lace Sensor pickups on certain models. The standard wiring with the squier was very jangley(not in a good way) even with the Texas specials installed. Such ingenuity is hard to come by in this age of looking for vintage, overpriced gear. Is there a USA Strat wiring diagram on this site. And I never liked the messy wiring in most guitars. The modular quality of Leo Fender’s guitars makes it possible to make your own tele or stratocaster partscaster! This is the exact same setup we offer in one of our Prewired Strat Assemblies which we refer to as “Smart Lonestar. Check the wiring of your guitar, you will often find a lot of crappy cables in there. 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. Especially the Humbucker. The simplicity of this qualifies this mod to make this the best easy strat wiring mod. Check the pots, pickup selector switch and output jack. On string installation, then don't flip over if the underside of them gets poked by the string. Let’s find out how to install Gotoh SD91 Vintage Tuners! 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. It’s amazing that in both the Jimmy Vaughn and Eric Johnson Fender Stratocasters one can find this simple wiring trick! They use 1meg linear volume pots and 1meg audio tone pots. Filed Under: Guitar Mods Tagged With: guitar, strat, wiring. Age: 46 ... Fender Stratocaster Guitar Forum. Using a blender pot is another great use for that 2nd tone control on a Strat. The only thing I might change is to allow a quick change to the tone caps. Strat single-coils typically do sound best when 250K is used, regardless if the taper is audio or linear. But it will give you seven pickup combinations instead of the standard five. Why not above the cavity cover? Shop now for Stratocaster fully loaded Dave Gilmour Style Stratocaster wiring harness, with recessed mini toggle switch.. This popular strat wiring mod allows you to play all 3 pickups sumultaneously as well as the neck and bridge in series together. This Stratocaster wiring harness is modeled after the Fender® Custom Shop “David Gilmour” (of Pink Floyd) model guitar. Some go as low as 100K, while others use 300K. An HSS Stratocaster has it's own unique wiring issues. The Blender Pot mod allows you to blend your Neck & Bridge together on a Strat. Do you have problems that no matter how much you wrap the strings, they consistently go out of tune? Variation of Blender Pot Strat:. If you ever want to install a preamp in a Strat, follow what Fender did with the Roadhouse Strat. For a list of tools that can help virtually any guitar wiring repair, Read this post. Comments all removed, tired of dealing with smart asses daily on a 2 year old video. Partscasters…why not, right? Moving a few jumper wires on the lugs of your 5-way switch has been (by far) the cheapest, easiest mod yet. If you take away too much wood, that would be bad. 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. we will get a bridge+neck pickups option just like a telecaster(! 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. Next let’s take a look at Fig 1B. Try this yourself! Moving a few jumper wires on the lugs of your 5-way switch has been (by far) the cheapest, easiest mod yet. If your Strat headstock has two of them, it's probably true each is of a different height. Scalloping has to be done right the first time or you pretty much lose the neck. Here's the thing to know: On the bottom side of some roller trees, there is a metal nub on the underside. 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. 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. 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. Didn’t even need an extra wire! (you can find cover sets in various colors here). If you are like me, you are always looking for a way to enhance your tone. Watch out for the "nub". Interference can rob you of sound! Should you use linear taper for all your pots, including the tone controls? One is lack of space and the second is establishing easy access to a battery box. Strats use 250K because the skinny single-coils it uses have a high treble response, and 250K keeps the tone civilized without being "screechy. Honestly, all that one is doing is moving wires from one lug of the 5-way switch to an adjacent lug. Standard Stratocaster wiring for Fender, … 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. If so, specifically buy a pair that has those staggered heights to them so your strings rest proper after they're installed. Got some hum there buddy? There are many players who consider the fact the Strat has no tone control on the bridge-only pickup setting to be totally stupid. 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. The same wiring performs brilliantly in a Strat—without the cost and hassle of installing a third pickup. This weekend, quiet the 60-cycle beast – try Shielding a Guitar w/ Step-by-step Instructions! 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. They did think it through, and where they put the battery box was the best possible place it could go. Wokka-wokka – All the tone, but none of the suck, the Vox Wah True Bypass mod! DATE SERVICE DIAGRAMS '50s Stratocaster® 013-1002: 06/18/99: Download '60s Stratocaster® 013-1000: 11/01/99: Download '70s Stratocaster® The first thing you'll notice is that the middle pickup looks weird. HSS Strat Wiring. You will not really need to have a whole plethora, yet I said plethora, of other guitars. From what I understand, the Eric Johnson Stratocaster has a similar wiring setup. 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. Block is called as such because it looks like a block, as shown above. A search for Graph Tech string saddles brings up the most options for switching out bent steel to block. Tighten up your neck. 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. Need new tuners? Instrument service diagrams include parts layout diagrams, wiring diagrams, parts lists and switch/control function diagrams. ", 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.". Acoustasonic ® Get Started. Can't do that because of the two large tremolo claw screws. 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.) What happens when you install a 250K linear volume pot on a Strat? $29.99. Please note: although Fender Mod Shop is open and gladly accepting orders year-round, our factory floor does close over the holidays. 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. Guitars with one humbucker and two single coils always seem to be a compromise. 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. Why can't the box be in front of the rear cavity cover? The David Gilmour mod is a DPDT switch (or a push-pull pot) that adds the neck position. This is a Stratocaster wiring solution built with high quality parts and crafted by hand. An easy modification for the DIY guitarist! Having extra “Vintage” Wire will help you with any electric guitar rewiring. Because there is more mass touching each saddle, bad vibration (as in the kind that's annoying) pretty much completely goes away. To wire this up, follow the above Blender Pot wiring diagram and replace the Master... Baseplate:. 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. 5 Easy Strat Wiring Mods. Quick info on volume pot resistance for those not in the know. One last thing on the trees. It looked cool, and still does. 1000K pots, a.k.a. Pay attention to the 5-way switch, that’s where the de-soldering and re-soldering will be taking place. This opens up the tone of the instrument to another degree, to be sure. Blackmore doesn't favor the middle pickup, so in the way Fender designed his signature guitar, they simply removed it. (try this search on Amazon for something like the above,many color options will show up, including white,cream, green, orange, pink, etc.). All you want to do here is just shave it flat. Extra vertical height adjustment because of the greater mass of the saddle. This is a mod I absolutely would not do because I do use the middle pickup quite a bit. 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. For those in the know, the Blender Pot is one of the most potent mods you can make to your Strat. It's not a new idea.
2020 strat wiring mods