Fender Guitar Mods

[Elephone]

Hi. I can imagine some purists finding a lot of mods a bit silly, but on a guitar used in a recording studio, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a greater variety of tone options available, getting it right at the source first, then seeing how different tones affect pedals, etc.

As a starting point, it's worth knowing that there are apparently 47 different combinations (using series and parallel configurations) that can be produced on a S-S-S Stratocaster if the necessary switches are added...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNLeBWowp8

However, my favourite mod is the '5-way Strat Blender Wiring' because it keeps it simple. I'd definitely like to add phase reverse options though... but can series/parallel options be added to this mod?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD9qDvFSEeQ

Or... can the blender mod be easily added to the more complex wiring mods, such as this 9-way one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaylqAbpUAM

I'm definitely limiting myself to mods that incorporate the stock 5-way selector switch, so I won't be replacing that with three switches to get the 13-way 'super-Strat' mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XSEJULEZpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dufizLm61Xc

So... basically, can the blender mod be added to the other mods that give various pick up combinations, or is the bridge tone knob required by these mods?

Thanks

[zenguitar]

Sorry, but I find a wiring diagram/schematic and text description far easier to work through than YouTube videos. But I can offer some general advice...

Many of those phase/series/parallel combinations duplicate others or offer very similar voices. Using a blend pot for one pickup does offer genuine variety. But you can get many more useful variations by using various resistors and capacitors, the various Jerry Donahue telecasters have good examples of this.

My suggestion would be to get a cheap scratch plate or two and experiment. Try one with a full set of phase switches and series/parallel switches and work out how many combinations offer sounds you can use. Then use another to test what blend pot combinations work for you. Then try out some of the resistor/capacitor mods; the transfer characteristic of a pickup is a product of it’s inductance, resistance, and capacitance, which is why these mods can give you distinctly different tones.

Take some time to decide a shortlist of sounds you find useful, then see if you can get 5 or more of them using a 4 pole superswitch a blend pot and one or two push/pull switches.

Going beyond standard wiring can quickly become a minefield. If it’s any consolation, my 1984 custom Manson Flying V (bought second hand in 1989) has wooden plugs where there were once mini switches.

Andy

[Elephone]

Thanks. I think I might go for that 5-way mod, with a blender if possible and reverse phase toggles. My current (bought) wiring has a 0.022uF 100v PETP tone capacitor on the middle tone knob and one of the knobs is also a push switch.

I think if I replace the bridge tone knob with a blender, my SSL-5B might bother me if that's not the right capacitor on the (one) tone knob.

Perhaps I could put a switch to choose between a 0.022uF and a 0.047uf when using the bridge on its own, I don't know. I'm not sure if the SSL-5 will sound harsh, or how best to temper it without a tone knob.

Ideally, I'd prefer to add a dedicated blend knob, perhaps a small discreet pot, but I've never seen a mod that adds an extra pot.

[John Egan]

I agree with Andy. It's entirely possible to do too much and end up with a confusing selection. However, there is one mod that I do like (from Brinsley Schwartz, I think) which involves having the ability to blend in the neck pickup in series, using one of the tone controls (the other being wired to affect all switch settings) to the bridge pickup and affecting both bridge and bridge/middle positions. It is particularly effective on a bright Strat. Although I don't use it, it strikes me that the addition of a phase switch to the bridge pickup would further increase the versatility of this option without becoming too confusing.
Regards, John

[Elephone]

Yes, I might go with a simple blender option, but I'd like to make a good decision rather than keep rewiring.

Incidentally, is there an electrical issue with adding an extra pot to a Stratocaster? I've never seen a mod that involves adding an extra pot for tone, even though it would seem to solve issues with some mods.

When it comes to treble bleed cap options on the pots, would there be a way to add a switch/es to bypass these (i.e. to take advantage of the treble bleed, if desired)?

Thanks.

[Wonks]

There's more of a physical issue in adding an extra pot if you use full-size pots, so you'd need to switch to mini-pots. Even then, the control knobs need to move closer together, which could make them feel cramped.

And you then really need to get a custom-made pickguard.

Of course you could move away from standard Strat knobs and use smaller ones to make access easier, but it's hard to do tastefully.

A friend tried out the Jerry Donahue circuit mods on a test rig on his Tele. We couldn't really tell the difference between some of the options, or even particularly like some of the sounds, and in the end he only use one of the extra options from that circuit. There is a big difference between obtaining a different sound and obtaining a useful sound.

You'd only have one treble bleed circuit on the volume pot and yes, you could switch it, but why? It's not doing anything when the volume's up full and if you don't want to keep a similar overall tone when the volume gets turned down, then don't fit one.

[adrian_k]

A friend tried out the Jerry Donahue circuit mods on a test rig on his Tele

That’s interesting - are there different versions of that mod? I have the Fret King JD model and the switch position sounds are all quite different. Almost too different, not quite cohesive within one guitar if you know what I mean.

[Wonks]

This was based on the Fender JD Tele circuit.

[Sam Spoons]

I have a blend circuit on both my Strats and use it a lot, the '61 uses the middle pot and the 'Bitsa' (which has 2 P90s) a mini toggle switch.

[zenguitar]

The problem with the JD style resistor/capacitor mods is that that they interact with the pickup. So the values in the circuit work well with the pickups on that guitar. To make them work with a different set of pickups you might need to experiment with component values. The varitone switch on the ES355 is an even bigger can of worms.

Andy

[Wonks]

My Jimmy Page model Les Paul has 21 possible sounds. I use 7 of them. More is not always better.

The blend mod on a Strat or the equivalent mod with a switch is useful. Fitting a TBX tone control will add extra brightness (it's like a no-load pot but more controllable).

Changing the polarity of a Strat pickup will give some extra tones, bit they are very thin and pretty unusable in the real world IMO.

[John Egan]

Changing the polarity of a Strat pickup will give some extra tones, bit they are very thin and pretty unusable in the real world IMO.

I have a bitsa Strat on which I fitted a neck pickup which was wired with different polarity to the neck and bridge. I used the Brinsley Schwarz (?) mod to allow the neck pickup to be blended in series to the bridge. This is eminently useable - like a humbucker with an "out of phase" coil. This was an experiment which worked. Even in the neck/middle combination, the sound is useable as a kind of strummed electro acoustic (which I hadn't expected).
Regards, John

[SecretSam]

I tried a couple of wiring tweaks on a stratopartocaster. In case this is helpful:

Phase (sorry, Hugh: polarity) switch on the middle pickup, an 'always on' switch on the neck pickup, and the Leo Fender PTB system that gives you two tone controls: treble roll-off and bass roll-off.

The PTB system works really well. The phase/polarity switch gives the sort of thin funk rhythm sound that was common in the late 70s.

The neck-always-on switch doesn't give you much difference over the standard pickup selector, so I wouldn't bother with it again.

[Wonks]

The neck-always-on switch doesn't give you much difference over the standard pickup selector, so I wouldn't bother with it again.

My experience is different. It gives the Strat bridge position selection (really it's neck + bridge) a much more useable sound to me (when playing clean) and I use it a lot. I'm not a fan of the standard Strat bridge on it's own position for clean playing.

The neck+mid+bridge position isn't much different from the bridge+mid position, just a bit thinner sounding (to me anyway), but the neck+bridge pickup combo really adds something.

Of course the sound you get will depend on your pickups, so all I can say is about the sound I get from my guitars.

If you are wanting to experiment, then I'd suggest picking up a cheap scratchplate that you can cut about a bit, lead the pickup wires outside the cavity and have an external control plate for trying out different wiring combinations without having to make a commitment to a particular switch, pot and wiring combination.

[BigRedX]

My experience with guitars is that no matter how many switching/wiring options you have, you end up using only one or two 99% of the time.

In fact the guitar that I have spent the most time playing recently has a single P90-style pickup and a volume control (that is always on full and never touched). I use my amp which has 4 preset levels of drive for different sounds and that is it. Everything else is done with how I play the instrument.

I settled on this after I discovered that it didn't matter which of my various guitars I played, I was always able to get suitable sound for the music I was playing simply by unconsciously adjusting how I played the guitar. Also I barely rate as a competent player, so if I can do it anyone can.

[Elephone]

Changing the polarity of a Strat pickup will give some extra tones, bit they are very thin and pretty unusable in the real world IMO.

Sounds and style... depends what you're looking for... on a Tele for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKN4vWytGlI

[Wonks]

But a Tele's not a Strat, so don't think they are equivalent just because that are both Fender guitars. Different pickups, different pickup spacing, very different sounds.

I quite liked the reversed polarity sound on my Emicaster after I changed the pickups and before I corrected it, but the normal mixed position sound is just so more useful.

[Elephone]

Well, the Telecaster can mix bridge and neck. That not being available on the Strat is something I would add anyway, so I presume the presume the phase reverse would have a similar type of effect...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8beZHy7lpw

I like the idea of changing capacitors & resisters to alter the tone. This guy has created a custom dial to switch between different capacitors on his bass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ujHtoHMg8

Tone Capacitors Explained with Lindy Fralin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t_eqST1pWQ

I know he has wired this box from inside his guitar, but can this sort of thing work outside the guitar circuit, after the output if the tone pot is left open. I mean, it's still an electrical signal...?

Thanks

[Elephone]

Sorry, I was just making a point. A lot of mods to wah-wah pedals are also available, but I'm not sure why they don't offer multiple cap switches in these things anyway, even just simple screwdriver turning ones inside. Cheers!

[Wonks]

Some wahs offer a number of different sounds. I bought an EH Queen Triggered Wah when they first came out, and that had three settings. But I didn't like any of them. It would be worth a lot of money now if I'd kept it. My cry baby mini has three voice settings, but I haven't moved it off the standard position.

I also have a Wahoo wah/filter pedal, which is ridiculously variable through software, though the circuitry is all analogue (but digitally controlled). Just too OTT.

[Studio Support Gnome]

Not necessarily fender, but could be a very flexible Hot rod Strat ...
My now favourite pickup combo (as fitted to three of my S series Ibanez)
Neck. = Reverse orientated Bridge version Seymour duncan P-rails , fitted with 3 way switch to give P90/humbucker/single rail
Middle , currently Dimarzio True Velvet,. but might change to something else. not utterly convinced, but it's nice enough
Bridge = Quad Rail Humbucker.... I used to use a rotary switch to give me single coil, single stack, two series stacks in parallel, or all 4 coils in series . but these days I'm just using a push-push volume pot to give me two series stacks in parallel, or two series stacks in series...

fairly discrete , just a 3 way micro toggle, and a push-push volume , plus the std 5 way switch, (with coil cut earth links on the B-side)

it's about as flexible as it gets..... not a single pointless tone.... but loads of useable variation.

[zenguitar]

And you have made my main point perfectly SSG. What matters most is having different and useful sounds to hand with the minimum of switch combinations to remember.

Andy

[DanStack16]

Hey everyone

So I have an HSS mexi strat, and like many of you I’m bored out of my mind. So, I was thinking about modding it. Currently, I have my volume pot as a push-pull to coil split the humbucker, so what I wanted to try and do was add a new mini 3-way toggle which in the middle position kept the humbucker and in the other two positions split to each respective coil of the humbucker (so that I could use either coil). I then wanted to wire the push-pull pot as a “gilmour switch” type thing to turn on the neck pickup and get a telecaster sound as well as all three pickups. With this combination of wiring I should be able to have hum cancelling in all positions but the neck and middle pickups by themselves. Would anyone be able to create a wiring diagram for this? I can put it together but I haven’t the slightest clue how to plan the wiring.

[zenguitar]

The more switches you add, the more complicate it is to use and as well as the sounds you want you get additional sounds you might not want, or are very similar to the others.

So sometimes it's worth putting a little extra thought into which are the principle pick-up combinations you want. It might be possible to get most or all using your existing push/pull switch and a 4-pole 5-way switch.

For example, assuming that the middle pick-up is RWRP, you could get this...

Pos1 Bridge humbucker
Pos2 Middle pick-up and the coil from the bridge pick-up that is RWRP to the middle.
Pos3 Middle single coil
Pos4 Neck pick-up and the other coil from the bridge pick-up
Pos5 Neck only

Then use the push/pull switch to add the neck pick-up to any other selection. And that will also restore the neck & middle selection lost from the standard 5-way wiring.

Andy

[Wonks]

One coil of a humbucker is RWRP with respect to the other one, so if you have the ability to select either of the humbucker coils to be the split coil, you'll find that there will be one humbucking bridge single + neck combination, and one non-humbucking. Likewise with the two possible bridge single + mid positions.

So it won't be quite as hum free as you first thought.