Strat wiring mods series

Upgrading your pots and wiring can have as dramatic an impact on tone as swapping out pickups. Now its almost a completely new guitar, because of all the modding ive done. This time ill go over adding 1 switch to your guitar to gain three different series parallel combinations to. Ungroundreground the metal cover troubleshooting techniques how can i test this mess. Seriesparallel stratocaster wiring mod series parallel. Assuming you start with strat style 5way switching, this simple mod adds two new pickup combos to the stock five, including the popular tele. Will these ukwired harnesses lend your les paul a new lease of life. Back in 2011, fender custom shop released a david gilmour model that used his 7way wiring and a recessed mini switch positioned between the volume and tone controls of the guitar. The series sound will only work if the 5 way pickup switch is in positions 1, 3 or 5. For service diagrams for instruments currently in production, please visit the instrument listing on, scroll down a little and click on the support tab. If you start researching your guitars wiring mod options, youll quickly find yourself down the rabbit hole. How to get bridge pickup tone control on a stratocaster.

It performs brilliantly in a strat, and imho its benefits vastly more blendedpickup options plus a musical and intuitive control layout for outweigh the costs loss of the middlepickupalone setting, cost of a 3way switch. Moving a few jumper wires on the lugs of your 5way switch has been by far the cheapest, easiest mod yet. Makes the middle tone a master and lower tone becomes a fader with some interesting series parallel combos. Strat with volume, tone, passive midrange and neckon switch aka rothstein guitars voodoo tone plus wiring 5 way switch with master volume, master tone, master passive midrange and neck on switch.

Strat mod for a youtube video of this mod, click here. Squier by fender affinity series stratocaster electric guitar laurel fingerboard surf green. What is quack, anyway before you do a series or phase mod on a tele. Tone 2 is a pushpull pot and functions as a master bass cut. Of p90 pickups, les pauls, and treblebleed circuit mods. The signal, having to travel a greater distance, experiences more resistance, thus getting bigger and beefier as a result. The most popular use of the pushpull pot is for coil splitting, and for good reason. Although ive got tons of ideas for greatsounding mods that can be fairly complex just check out. Neck and middle in parallel ran in series with bridge position 1. For the ultimate in tone and reliability you need quality components.

What are your favoritemust have wiring schemes for strats and why. Electronics free delivery possible on eligible purchases. All in all you get a total of 9 pickup combinations. Or, if you adding series switching to your strat by dirk wacker dont want to alter the stock appearance of your strat, you can use a pushpull or push push pot of your choice. It has a series parallel switch, neckon switch and passive midrange control. Below you will find our voodoo tone monster strat wiring that combines several of the aforementioned mods. Oct 04, 2014 you want normal 5way strat switching with the option for either series or parallel wiring in positions 2 and 4. This means that the super strat switching will be somewhat more expensive, require much more wiring and take up a lot more space. One minor downside with stock stratocaster wiring is that the bridge pickup has no tone control.

Or maybe 4way for the extra series option and just bringing in the b hb via. The squier bullet strat seen above, while cheap, is the best lowcost traditional strat you can buy. So for our build we changed the tone pot from 250 to 500k, which was fine and as shown in the sketch. A strat is a great guitar to mod because there are so many things you can do to it. In the vast majority of guitars, including strats when pickups are connected together.

Strat diagrams serious tone for the serious player. Just like the mod above only without the series connection. The control knob looks and works the same as ever, but pushpulling it operates the switch. This explains why all humbuckers sound big, bold, and beefy.

Hello and welcome to this expanded take on my usual mod garage madness. All it takes is some simple work with a soldering iron. I have a mini toggle switch on my strat, which makes me get this bridgemiddle series tone. Guitars with one humbucker and two single coils always seem to be a compromise. My guitar tech passed on a wiring diagram to me today and im wondering if anyone has tried it. The guitar has a 5 way switch like a strat, a pushpull volume control, and the tone control is now a 5 way rotary switch.

This simple mod will keep all of your strat controls as they are and keep your stock wiring. The first one shows the specific wiring and soldering points to be done. The first tone pot is a low pass filter, like you will find on just about any guitar. You get lots of new wiring possibilities by adding the switch, but you dont have to drill a hole or rout new space in the wiring cavity. In this video we walk you through from start to finish the process of changing a passive set of guitar pickups. Heres a way to get those 3 additions plus 1 more by adding a single toggle switch to the standard 5way strat wiring total of 9 choices. Here is a completed and tested version of the modcon, a mod with a series buckerish pushpull switch and a telecasterparallel sounds blender knob. Guitar wiring, guitar rewiring, treble bleed capacitor, electric guitar, guitar pickups, guitar volume control, guitar tone control. Wiring diagram fender strat 5 way switch unique wiring possible with switch fender stratocaster guitar forum wiring diagram guitar, you might wish to select a lower or greater value because after all, its your guitar. Buy 920d custom s5wkit 5way wiring kit for sstyle guitars. Jul 19, 20 moving a few jumper wires on the lugs of your 5way switch has been by far the cheapest, easiest mod yet.

Strat style guitar with a single master tone control. Its a hss strat with the standard wiring in it, 5way switch and 250k pots volume and 2 tone controls. At fralin pickups, nobody loves tinkering with wiring options more than lindy himself. If you are thinking of replacing the pickups to get more sounds from your guitar, there is another, less costly solution. A standard fender stratocaster, the black strat, as its affectionately known, came from the fender factory finished in. Series parallel stratocaster wiring mod heres another breja toneworks diy wiring mod.

I get tons of questions and emails about strat tone mods. There is also a ssh version which splits the hb coils. However, some mods are good while others are notso good. For many players the wonderful sound of the strat is defined by the sound of the neck and middle single coils, and that quacky sound of them both played together, in parallel. Of course, not all strats are equal, and some of us have probably thought about upgrading the parts on our nonu. With the s1 switch up, the 5 pickup selection choices are standard strat switching. Dan armstrong devised a parallelseries wiring mod for strats that uses the middle tone control as a blendermixer.

Strat mods 2 vol 1 tone, seriesparallel guitarnutz 2. For those who want to tinker, even more, our halfblender wiring. Feb 16, 2015 tone 1 is set up as a master tone knob. This is a common modification used to free up the second tone pot location for an additional switch or optional control. Youll need a 4conductor pickup if youre going to try this mod.

Modifications to an existing fender instrument currently under warranty, or service performed on a fender instrument currently under warranty by any person other than. Therefore, if you plug into your guitar and you receive absolut. Wiring looks a bit complex around the volume pot but i think we will manage. The simplicity of this qualifies this mod to make this the best easy strat wiring mod. But it will give you seven pickup combinations instead of the standard five. Almost all electric guitars with more than one pickup produced today use parallel wiring in other words, both pickups have their own path to ground and path to the hot output, interupted or connected through the pickup selector switch in a series setup, the hot output of one pickup is the other pickups path to ground so the signal must flow through both pickups, one after the. Here is the control function, followed by the complete diagram. Hsh wiring mod to hhsss the fender stratocaster and the gibson les paul are two guitars that never have and never will fall out of favour. Typical standard fender stratocaster guitar wiring with master volume plus 1 neck tone control and one middle pickup tone control. Dec 20, 2011 as always, you can use an additional mini toggle dpdt switch for this mod. A 4conductor humbucking pickup consists of two pickup coils connected by a series link. Strat diagrams rothstein guitars serious tone for the. Im just about to rewire my strat and i would like something with something more functional than my current stock wiring. Strat bridge tone control wiring mod six string supplies.

A pushpull pot is a standard control pot with an onon mini switch added to it. The simplicity of this qualifies this mod to make this the best easy strat wiring. Ive encountered other strat mod schematic designs that incorporate a middle pickup blend both in series and in parallel. Johnhs dual sound strat does series parallel with blending in series, and with some oop capabilities. My versatile hss wiring scheme posted on march 8, 2014 by dave eichenberger. For those in the know, the blender pot is one of the most potent mods you can make to your strat. I find the stock wiring gives me a lot of tonal options, but i dont need all that switching. I dont know if this is a common mod or not since im new to the strat world. Rothstein guitars serious tone for the serious player. The palladium gain stage effects pedal is the first. Im just going to cover a couple options that will impact two big pools of guitarists. Although all the wiring may look daunting, modding your strat or other singlecoil guitar to give a wider range of tonal options is really quite simple. May mod of the month series parallel humbucker wiring.

Mar 08, 2014 guitars with one humbucker and two single coils always seem to be a compromise. This time ill go over adding 1 switch to your guitar to gain three different seriesparallel. This mod enables you to add the bridge pickup in parallel to the neck pickup or the neckmiddle combo. Im thinking of going with a variation of the memphis wiring scheme but came across your video. I just want a good solo tone, and a good rhythm tone. Heavily modified and experimented on since he first spotted it at mannys music in new york city in may 1970, david gilmours black stratocaster has become the stuff of legend among guitarists and diehard pink floyd fans. Wiring diagram fender strat 5 way switch new hsh wiring. A pickup wired in series will send its signal into another pickup in the signal chain, affecting the overall tone and output. May mod of the month series parallel humbucker wiring all of our humbuckers are wired in series which means, the output of one coil is going into the input of another. With the installation of a liberator, youll be able to effortlessly change pickups using only a screwdriver. How to do this mod is to solder in one small wire from the open terminal on the 5way selector to the terminal right next to it. Pure vintage 250k split shaft potentiometer volume or tone fender tone saver 250k. Mar 08, 2009 a couple of years back, i bought a new fender highway 1 hss strat. Hey fellow guitarists, its time for another cool mod.

Series and parallel wiring is also a pretty common mod. Or do you want series wiring instead of parallel wiring in positions 2 and 4. Do you have a guitar with 3 single coils, sometimes referred to as a strat type guitar. Stock strat pickups are balanced, but the stock circuit isnt, as only the neck and middle pickups bleed treble through the tone circuit. In this and next months column, well explore parallel series pickup switching schemes for the singlecoil pickups in your strat. Changing to a master tone arrangement is a simple modification that balances the treble response of the pickups and frees up the second tone control for trick wiring. My discussion is a bit different, as it primarily is about p90 equiped guitars, i do not recomend. Dan armstrong wiring mod fender stratocaster guitar forum. Strat style guitar wiring diagram with three single coils, 5way lever switch, 1 volume, 2 tones. Whenever two or more pickup coils are involved, they are either working in series or parallel.

Now, a strat is an easy thing to tinker with, and so i set about changing the pickups. Upgrade your strat or similar model with this high quality wiring kit. Much of my wiring mod relies on the doublepole switch, which isolates the circuits on both sides normal 3day wiring doesnt really take advantage of the switch in the same way. Unlike in stock strat wiring where both tone pots are low pass filters, but they each affect different switch positions, the ptb systems two tone controls each function as amaster tone control. A friend has just bought a second hand usa strat for a good price. This is an easy mod and can be done by soldering a few wires, will take about an hour from start to finish. Series wiring is one of the supreme challenges in strat modding, but you can do it. Most pushpull and pushpush pots include a dpdt switch, so this shouldnt be a problem. Most guitarists have a fender strat, whether its a u. The contents of this diagram in whole or part are ed and published for. Over the past 30 years, hes developed quite a few mods that take the strat to the next level, without getting too technical and crazy. And you can modify your strat to get the same tones. Here is the control function b bridge pup, m middle pup, n neck pup. There are many switching modifications for 3 coil guitars.

This is not an oversight this was was deliberately designed this way by leo fender himself. A lot of players like to engage the series connection for guitar solos. How to beef up your strat tone a simple wiring mod tutorial discussion in stratocaster discussion forum started by vguitars, aug 19, 2012. Wiring an import 5 way switch with images stratocaster. Ive talked about strat mods before but i figured it was time to talk about mods for this very specific guitar.

But the pickups that came with ita pair of hot alnico3 single coils and a highoutput atomic ii humbuckerdidnt inspire me. With series wiring its best to use pots that can apply less load, in order to keep high frequencies. Strat ssm3 seriesparallel for sss, with one new switch. Here are 25 ways to make your fender stratocaster play and sound better than ever before and some of them wont cost you a penny. Series wiring gives the signal a much greater distance to travel. Series wiring in pos 2 and 4 on a strat telecaster guitar forum. I also revisited the strat version of the nashvillestyle tele wiring popularized by brent mason and other music city cats. I normally stay in position 3 in the middle, which is all 3 pickups in series, ie. Looking for the coolest, simplest mods for your strat, tele, les paul, or super strat. Here were going to tackle my favorite mods for the four most common electric guitarsthe fender stratocaster and telecaster, the gibson les paul, and hardrock and metalfriendly super strats of various makes. Extra tones from single coil guitars sound on sound.

We also plan to fit a mini onoff switch between the hot wires of the neck and bridge pup the so called gilmore mod. The two new pickup combinations are 1 neckbridge and 2 all three pickups engaged simultaneously in parallel. Two tone controls and the one furthest away from me does not follow logic and does not control the bridge pickup. Modcon strat wiring mod telecasterishparallel sounds. Jun 16, 2019 back in 2011, fender custom shop released a david gilmour model that used his 7way wiring and a recessed mini switch positioned between the volume and tone controls of the guitar. How to beef up your strat tone a simple wiring mod tutorial. They cover very different ground in terms of tone, the strat reigns supreme for crisp, bright, clear tones while the les paul has a heavier, fatter, punchier sound. Strat style wiring diagram with three single coils, 5way lever switch, 1 volume and 1 tone. This popular strat wiring mod allows you to play all 3 pickups sumultaneously as well as the neck and bridge in series together. The first thing youll notice is that the middle pickup looks weird. This is part 1 of a 2part series on reversing pickup polarity. The guitar at top is a fender ritchie blackmore stratocaster. Guitar wiring, guitar rewiring, electric guitar, guitar pickups, 3 single coils wired in series parallel. The hss which stands for humbuckersinglesingle pickup configuration gained popularity in the 80s, much like everyones favorite haircut, the mullet.

Adding series switching to your strat premier guitar. Not all guitar and bass electronics are created equal. Then look no further premier guitars mod garage columnist dirk wacker walks us through the tastiest tone tweaks for the most popular guitars on the planet. Very simple setup with lots of different combinations. He is not that keen on the stock noiseless pups so has splashed out on some bareknuclke apaches which we are about to wire in. As always, you can use an additional mini toggle dpdt switch for this mod. Give your fender stratocaster the gilmour mod with 7way. Five great fender strat mods anyone can make guitar world. Have you ever wanted to make a les paul sound like a strat.