Anyone else wired their Strat like this?

chromatuna

The 70s Strat thread combined with listening to a lot of Garcia and Robbie Robertson of late prompted me to get mine out of its case where it has been for a couple of years whilst I have played various humbucker and P90 equipped guitars. First thought, ooh I had forgotten how much I like this, second thought, what's going on with the pickups? Then I remembered that I had wired the bridge pickup to the mid position so I could get bridge and neck together in a Tele kind of way which sounds rather good I think. So I can't get middle and neck which was the setting I raraely used but still have the all important bridge and middle which I do use quite a lot plus that bridge and neck sound.

Anyone else tried this?

Also has anyone tried one of those Seymour Duncan Twang Bangers which are supposed to give a bit more of a Tele ish bridge sound?

ICBM

I have thought of doing more or less the same, but opposite - losing the bridge+middle, which I don't like, in favour of the bridge+neck. But it would confuse me otherwise .

I had a Twang Banger once - it was good, but it still sounded more like a fatter Strat than a Tele. The key to the Tele sound is the bridge, not the pickup.

Strat54

I always fit a blend to mine which does the same job so I can add the bridge to the neck and vice versa I put it the lower tone pot position and just have a master tone. The neck and bridge are a great combination.

Octafish

chromatuna said:

The 70s Strat thread combined with listening to a lot of Garcia and Robbie Robertson of late prompted me to get mine out of its case where it has been for a couple of years whilst I have played various humbucker and P90 equipped guitars. First thought, ooh I had forgotten how much I like this, second thought, what's going in with the pickups? Then I remembered that I had wired the bridge pickup to the mid position so I could get bridge and neck together in a Tele kind of way which sounds rather good I think. So I can't get middle and neck which was the setting I raraely used but still have the all important bridge and middle which I do use quite a lot plus that bridge and neck sound.

Anyone else tried this?

Also has anyone tried one of those Seymour Duncan Twang Bangers which are supposed to give a bit more of a Tele ish bridge sound?

Yeah I've got 3 Strats with the bridge/neck pickup combination, its a great sound and somewhat Tele. I've wired mine all using a superswitch which means I can have the bridge/neck combination in place of the bridge/mid position and everything else stays in the same place.

I've also got a Twangbanger in one of my Strats and yes it sounds a bit Tele. It's a bit hotter, has a bit more growl and a bit more mid than a Standard Strat pickup, also a little less top. It doesn't have quite the fullness of a Tele bridge pickup, but is  great pickup in it's own right particularly to beef up the bridge position sound.

Plectrum

I accidentally mixed up the neck and middle pickups on my HSS Berlin when I swapped out the 5-way switch last week. So I'd got neck/middle and neck/bridge as the intermediate sounds. Neck/bridge was interesting but I prefer the bridge humbucker/middle single coil sound. But that's just me

NPP

mine was wired with push-pull pot that added the neck PU to whatever else was on (thus adding bridge + neck and all three PUs options) but I now changed it. The new setup has a 2-way switch in place of one of the tone pots. It switches between normal Strat wiring and a Tele setting that gives me n, n+b, b, b, b in the five positions of the PU selector. With a Tele bridge PU and the trem decked, it is quite Tele-like

chromatuna

Thanks for the replies. I understand that a Strat is not going to be a Tele but a lot of folks seem to say that the TwnagBanger does add *something* to the bridge position which sounds like it might be useful to me. Lookout for a WTB in the classifieds. The Superswitch is a new one to me too so I'll have to check out what can't be done with that. 

Philly_Q

Octafish said:

Yeah I've got 3 Strats with the bridge/neck pickup combination, its a great sound and somewhat Tele. I've wired mine all using a superswitch which means I can have the bridge/neck combination in place of the bridge/mid position and everything else stays in the same place.

I think that was the wiring scheme on the (now discontinued?) '50s Classic Player Strat.  And it's fairly easily modified to decide which of the standard positions 2 or 4 you lose in favour of bridge/neck.

Strange that this should come up and also mention the TwangBanger, I have one of those and a pair of Alnico IIs I intend to use in this wiring scheme... eventually.  Not sure which guitar they'll go in though.

crunchman

I've got a push-push switch on a tone pot that allows me to add neck pickup to any of the other combinations (as @NPP ;; said he used to above).

I've also get a baseplate on the bridge pickup, which beefs it up slightly and might put it a bit more into Tele territory.  A baseplate would be cheaper than getting a new bridge pickup.  The twangbanger isn't just a Strat pickup with a baseplate, but it has a baseplate for a reason because that is part of sound of the Tele bridge pickup.

Having said that, a large part of the Tele sound is the way the pickup is mounted in the bridge itself.  You will never replicate that on a Strat unless you go for something like this:


Edited to get picture to show and for clarity

ChuckManual

Is there anyway of getting bridge + neck in addition to the five normal sounds?

I saw a six-way blade switch that promised to do exactly that being advertised in the pages of Guitarist magazine about a hundred years ago, but I've never actually seen or heard one in the wild...

crunchman

ChuckManual said:

Is there anyway of getting bridge + neck in addition to the five normal sounds?

I saw a six-way blade switch that promised to do exactly that being advertised in the pages of Guitarist magazine about a hundred years ago, but I've never actually seen or heard one in the wild...

Push-pull or push-push switch on a tone pot.

NPP

crunchman said:

I've got a push-push switch on a tone pot that allows me to add neck pickup to any of the other combinations (as @NPP ;; said he used to above).

...

Having said that, a large part of the Tele sound is the way the pickup is mounted in the bridge itself.  

mine (Oil City Honky Tonk Angel) is mounted into the body rather than on the pickguard (largely because the latter had already been butchered to accommodate various larger pickups in the past)

And, @ChuckManual, replacing one tone pot with a push-pull to add the neck (or bridge, depending on taste) directly to the output lug of the switch would indeed be the easiest option to achieve what you want.

Octafish

chromatuna said:

Thanks for the replies. I understand that a Strat is not going to be a Tele but a lot of folks seem to say that the TwnagBanger does add *something* to the bridge position which sounds like it might be useful to me. Lookout for a WTB in the classifieds. The Superswitch is a new one to me too so I'll have to check out what can't be done with that. 

Twangbanger definitely sounds noticably different to a vintage output Strat bridge pickup and takes OD really well. Think of it more as a hot Strat pickup with a bit of Tele falvour to it. I got one because I wanted something a bit more punchy in the bridge and had tried the SSL5, but found it a bit too lacking in top end and didn't balance well with my other vintage output pickups.

Last time I looked they were only £60 on HotRox's website. Afraid i'm not intending to get rid of mine

Octafish

Philly_Q said:

Octafish said:

Yeah I've got 3 Strats with the bridge/neck pickup combination, its a great sound and somewhat Tele. I've wired mine all using a superswitch which means I can have the bridge/neck combination in place of the bridge/mid position and everything else stays in the same place.

I think that was the wiring scheme on the (now discontinued?) '50s Classic Player Strat.  And it's fairly easily modified to decide which of the standard positions 2 or 4 you lose in favour of bridge/neck.

Strange that this should come up and also mention the TwangBanger, I have one of those and a pair of Alnico IIs I intend to use in this wiring scheme... eventually.  Not sure which guitar they'll go in though.

Do it! Twangbanger is Alnico 2 isn't it, should go well with the other pickups.

english_bob

ChuckManual said:

Is there anyway of getting bridge + neck in addition to the five normal sounds?

I've got a G&L S-500 that does that.



It differs from a regular Strat in having master bass and treble controls instead of two tone controls for different pickups. Worth a bash if you're in to alternative Strat wiring schemes.

ChuckManual

Brilliant!  Cheers chaps.

Yours thankfully,
A.Wiring-Dunce.

guitars4you

Strat54 said:

I always fit a blend to mine which does the same job so I can add the bridge to the neck and vice versa I put it the lower tone pot position and just have a master tone. The neck and bridge are a great combination.

this is get more and more common - I've seen quite a few Custom Shop vintage replicas now coming through with this option - so master volume - master tone and blend option

Of course with a Strat there are many many options

mudslide73

I swapped to neck/bridge but put it back as I like the 2 and 4 positions so much. The only mod I have is a tone on the bridge but not middle. 

Dave_Vader

I've got a little switch that turns the neck pickup on (like Knopfler/Gilmour did) so I can get all 3 (very phasey) and the N+b.
I appreciate many don't want to drill holes in their scratchplates though.

axisus

I prefer to keep the regular strat sounds. The only one I don't use is middle on its own. Something that adds to them would be OK though. 

I have a push/push pot on a 3 pickup guitar that adds bridge to neck and vice versa.

Dominic

Funnily enough ;I think middle on its own is very overlooked on Strat use ......sometimes it gives a sweeter lead sound and not too ice-pick sounding when playing a cleanish lead