Simple strat wiring mods

LionAquaLooper

I've got a few strats and I want to now wire each one of them diifferently.  Only thing is I don't really want to have buy or mess with super switches, push pull/ push push pots, no load pots, toggle switches, special capacitors etc.  What are some good wiring mods for strats out there that just utilises the parts already there in a standard strat?  Any recommendations would be most appreciated!

Yorkie

Never tried it, but cable length allowing you could try to switch the middle and neck pickups and see what happens. I like using bridge and neck together. Would be like a zero cost mod.
I think ICBM mentioned the other day rewiring a tone control to use the bridge pickup as opposed to middle or neck. 
You could also change the pickups from parallel to series?

steamabacus

I've used this mod and it works well (I used a switch but you can use the existing pot to 'blend' it in). It puts the neck pickup in SERIES with the bridge pickup when the 5-way switch is in position 1 (bridge) or 2 (bridge & middle) - kind of turning the bridge pickup into a wide spaced humbucker. It will not actually be hum-cancelling unless you put a RWRP in either bridge or neck position.

Funkfingers

The single most practical rewiring mod possible with only the existing components is to reconfigure the tone controls side of the circuit.

Choose one of the pots to become Master Tone. Disconnect the wire on the selector switch that feeds a signal to that pot. Reconnect that wire to whichever of the common/collector terminals is easier to reach without straining the cable.

The second tone pot could be repurposed or it could be left out of circuit just to occupy the hole in the pickguard.

Lebarque

I bought a blender harness from Six String Supplies (allows you to blend a bit of neck with the bridge etc, etc.)

 Great fun, but I realised I'm a neck or bridge kinda strat guy. Make me an offer if you fancy it.

 https://sixstringsupplies.co.uk/pages/stratocaster-blend-control

Lebarque

I've currently got my strat wired up how Scott Henderson does it. It uses a superswitch to remove the tone pot from the in-between positions so they're not duller/quieter than the other positions. Sounds ace, but I don't really use the in-between positions haha.

ICBM

Lebarque said:

I've currently got my strat wired up how Scott Henderson does it. It uses a superswitch to remove the tone pot from the in-between positions so they're not duller/quieter than the other positions.

I can't imagine anything I'd want less . The tone controls are essential to make the thin, clicky in-between sounds on a traditional SSS Strat sound any good... and it really helps to have both of them active in the neck/middle position so it's softer than the bridge/middle.

If you're going to do a series mod I would do it with the middle pickup not the bridge, so you get bridge/middle in series and neck/middle in series as the two 'end' settings. If you then reverse the phase of the neck pickup you get Brian May's two most-used sounds...

CasperCaster

Master volume, master tone and reconfigure the remaining tone control as a blend control. A lot of folks will insist that the blend must be a no-load pot, but that isn't entirely necessary. The stock 250K pot will work fine as a blend, and allow you to blend neck in with bridge or vice versa. All three on together is a bit underwhelming, but some neck blended into the bridge is great.

BillDL

I know this deviates from your condition of only using the installed components, but if you don't already have a G&L Strat like the S-500 or Legacy models, you might want to consider changing a couple of pots and capacitors to a standard Strat's wiring that is referred to by G&L as PTB (Passive Treble and Bass).  The switch selects the single pickup combinations just as any Strat does.  The neck tone control becomes a master tone that rolls off bass frequencies rather than treble ones, and the middle pickup tone control becomes a master tone that rolls off treble frequencies as normal.  You can get the "quacky" hollow sound of your position 2 setting, and being able to roll off some bass also allows you to cut through a band mix very well when needed.

There are a couple of versions I have seen.

One uses 500K pots for volume and both tones, but the capacitor for the "treble" tone control is a 0.022uF, the one for the "bass" tone control is a 0.0022uF one, and a treble bypass across the lugs of the volume control comprises only a 200pF capacitor (0.000uF) and no resistor.

Another uses a 250K pot for the volume, a 500K for the "treble" tone pot, a 1Meg for the "bass" tone pot.  The capacitor values are the same as for the other version.

I could send you (or link you to) a wiring diagram if you thought you might want to try this on one guitar.

The 2nd version is the one I prefer, but I do find that I need to have played the guitar consistently for a while to instinctively find the tones I need by feel.

LionAquaLooper

CasperCaster said:

Master volume, master tone and reconfigure the remaining tone control as a blend control. A lot of folks will insist that the blend must be a no-load pot, but that isn't entirely necessary. The stock 250K pot will work fine as a blend, and allow you to blend neck in with bridge or vice versa. All three on together is a bit underwhelming, but some neck blended into the bridge is great.

This is very reassuring to hear because I've heard about the blend control and very interested in blending neck to bridge (vice versa) but all the wiring schematics I've seen have no-load pots. 

Realistically i know it's not such a bother to source a no-load pot.  Cheap as well.  Just that my first preference has been to explore what I can do with what I've already got.  Now that I know a 250k pot is also fine as a blend control, I'm relieved! 

Just out of curiosity - why do people insist on a no-load pot as a blend?  What advantages does it have over a 250k?  

Lebarque

ICBM said:

Lebarque said:

I've currently got my strat wired up how Scott Henderson does it. It uses a superswitch to remove the tone pot from the in-between positions so they're not duller/quieter than the other positions.

I can't imagine anything I'd want less . The tone controls are essential to make the thin, clicky in-between sounds on a traditional SSS Strat sound any good... and it really helps to have both of them active in the neck/middle position so it's softer than the bridge/middle.

If you're going to do a series mod I would do it with the middle pickup not the bridge, so you get bridge/middle in series and neck/middle in series as the two 'end' settings. If you then reverse the phase of the neck pickup you get Brian May's two most-used sounds...

Interesting how we all see/hear it differently. Would it be fair to say you've been conditioned by the vintage wiring over time to like it that way? It's a bit like the question about the two inputs on Fender amps. We all just accept that's how it is, due to historical reasons, rather than take a vintage-modern approach, which usually presses my buttons. 

ICBM

Lebarque said:

Interesting how we all see/hear it differently. Would it be fair to say you've been conditioned by the vintage wiring over time to like it that way?

Yes and no… I dislike the thinness of the in-between sounds on a traditional Strat (I prefer them on a HSH), so anything which makes them even brighter is a bad thing, for me. I generally like single-tone Strats, which I prefer to the two-tone setup in every way except that I still find the two in-betweens too similar to each other without the second tone control loading the neck/middle. It’s possible to add some extra wiring on the switch to simulate that, if you want.

The original Strat wiring is very close to perfect though, partly by design and partly by accident since the in-between sounds were never intended. A minor tweak to the cap values - I prefer .1uF for the neck but .05 for the middle, which you can do with two .1s in series (one replacing the link between the pots) and connecting the bridge pickup to the middle tone makes it even closer. You can also simulate .022uF for the bridge if you want, by using a .047 cap for the link on the switch.

CasperCaster

LionAquaLooper said:

CasperCaster said:

Master volume, master tone and reconfigure the remaining tone control as a blend control. A lot of folks will insist that the blend must be a no-load pot, but that isn't entirely necessary. The stock 250K pot will work fine as a blend, and allow you to blend neck in with bridge or vice versa. All three on together is a bit underwhelming, but some neck blended into the bridge is great.

This is very reassuring to hear because I've heard about the blend control and very interested in blending neck to bridge (vice versa) but all the wiring schematics I've seen have no-load pots. 

Realistically i know it's not such a bother to source a no-load pot.  Cheap as well.  Just that my first preference has been to explore what I can do with what I've already got.  Now that I know a 250k pot is also fine as a blend control, I'm relieved! 

Just out of curiosity - why do people insist on a no-load pot as a blend?  What advantages does it have over a 250k?  

In principal a no-load pot is technically better for a blend control, compared to a regular pot. However, with a regular Strat I can't really hear anything happen until the blend is turned down from 10 to about 6. This implies that although some tiny amount of signal may pass the pot at 10, it's imperceptible. With a no-load pot categorically no signal can pass the pot at 10, hence why it is superior in principal (but perhaps not in practice).

Going beyond the scope of the original post (no new components), my biggest problem with the blend control is that for me it works backwards - no blend at 10 and full blend at zero. Ideally I would use a reverse taper pot such that there would be no blend at zero. For greater resolution I'd also desire a pot with a smaller value than 250K, but modded to be a no-load pot (easy to do; loads of videos on the net). I'd guess either a 50K or 100K reverse taper pot modded to no-load might work best for me, but I haven't tried it.

Regarding the blend pot working backwards, another thought/potential solution might be to use the redundant side of the 5-way switch to feed a second volume pot dedicated as a blend. So, master volume with paralleled master tone; 1st wafer of 5-way switch wired for pickup selection with the common to the master volume. 2nd wafer of the switch with diagonal jumpers to neck and bridge selections of the 1st wafer (e.g. neck available on 2nd wafer when bridge is selected on the 1st wafer, and vice versa), and the common from the 2nd wafer of the switch sent to the spare tone control (not a no-load), where that spare tone control is actually wired as a volume control. The output of this is then paralleled with the output of the switch/ input to the master volume. I've not tried it, but I think the pot values might need looking at as two volumes would effectively be stacked in series (a bit like on some Gretsch guitars). Anyway, that's enough thinking aloud for now!