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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: switching Am. Std. Strat

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11/5/1997 10:14 AM
Doc	Re: switching Am. Std. Strat Steve: I actually did think of this pot modification on my own, but Ive recently dicovered (in Gerald Weber's latest book) that Ken Fischer of Trainwreck fame states that he's been doing this for ten years. I guess it's just what one discovers in thinking about how a pot works & how it's built. Doc

11/6/1997 1:49 AM

Doc:
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What is that saying: "Great minds think alike"? I don't think that is necessarily true with the more philosophical issues in life, but with pots and coils and switches there are only so many ways to hook them up, and sooner or later a creative tech would figure out all of these tricks independently (but a few hints now and then can be helpful in getting one pointed in a new or different direction!) Of course, the terms "creative tech" and "design by committee" seem to be mutually exclusive which could explain why Fender and Gibson are so far behind what you guitar techs have been doing out there for so many years.
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Steve Ahola

11/5/1997 4:36 AM

Doc,

What is the historical reason for the Strat having no tone control over the bridge pickup ? It is more than bright enough for me with a tone control connected and set to "10". The trouble with the standard wiring is that as well as no tone control on the bridge pu there are two tone controls on the neck/middle setting which is 125k to the cap which reduces the treble even with both tones set to "10".

I wire my Strats with the top tone working on all pickups (like a Tele) and the bottom tone wired between the neck pu and selector switch wiper as a pu blend control. This blends the neck pu into the bridge and bridge/middle settings. It has the track cut at the "10" end so the guitar works as standard with the pot on "10" but with the pot on "1" you get neck/bridge or neck/middle/bridge. It is like a different sort of bridge pu tone control as it only works when this pu is selected.

Are you called Doc. because you specialise in potentiometer surgery ? It is good to know there is a fellow professional out there.

Dave.

11/5/1997 10:38 AM

Dave:

Pretty clever wiring scheme! It's hard to come up with much utilizing the standard 2-pole make-before-break switch standard on Strats.

Have you tried one of those 4-pole, 5-way switches yet? These things have separate single contacts for every position. The fender switch has overlapping contacts which can't be separated, so your'e stuck with a limited number of wiring scemes. With the 4-pole switch use separate (& different) capacitors, dedicated to a particular tone pot. Switch whatever into/out of circuit. With 3 pickups, 2 tone pots, & 4 switch wafers you can do a lot.

Back to your first question about the bridge pickup, I guess it was just a Leo thing. -- If you use separate .01 uf cap on the third control, jumper the mid-bridge selector lugs,then use a separate .02 or .03 uf cap on the second control to the neck selector lug you can get some nice tonal variations with the stock switch.

Doc

11/6/1997 4:39 AM
Dave	I haven’t tried a 4 pole 5 way. I just used the stock 2 pole with 1 pole for pu select and the other pole to switch in the blend pot when the bridge pu was selected.

11/6/1997 1:29 AM

Dave:
. What you say makes so much sense that I wonder why Fender didn't figure all of this out in the middle 60's after surf music ceased to be popular!
. Have you checked out hooking up your neck and bridge pickups in series? It makes for a very strong and powerful lead sound (hence the name: "Power Lead" linkage). Assuming that your middle pickup is RWRP, if you switch the neck and middle pickups, the neck/bridge linkages in series and in parallel will be hum-cancelling, as will the neck/middle notch position. (You do lose the hum-cancelling effect of the bridge/neck notch position, but 2 for 1 sounds like a good swap to me!)
. The Power Lead linkage with one of the pickups RWRP is similar to what PRS does with their rotary switch guitars by splitting the humbuckers and then linking the two coils together in series to create a giant humbucker with a window that senses a wide portion of the guitar string for a fuller, cleaner sound than your typical humbucker. The parallel hum-cancelling linkage is similar to the "Dual Sound" wiring DiMarzio introduced 20 years ago (but usually sounded like crap when you did it with an individual humbucker). PRS got that one right by linking the split coils of two humbucker together in parallel with a hum-cancelling effect.
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Steve Ahola

11/6/1997 5:08 AM

Steve,

My spare guitar is a Tele type but with Strat neck and middle pickups, a 5 way and a min toggle between the tone and vol pots. It sounds thin compared to my Strat so the "power lead" mod could be just what it needs. I could have the 5 Strat sounds with the min toggle in one position and switch to "Power Lead" in the other position. That way my spare guitar could have a different sound and not just be a thinner sounding copy of my Strat. It will be just a quick mod to the control plate as it is a Tele so I will try it out tonight.

Dave

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