Dumb wiring question - parallel vs serial

It's been a long while since I've owned a strat, but I played a nice squier standard strat in a shop today and was thinking about the tonal possibilities to be had. Here's the question:

I generally like the non-quacky (series?) wiring option for the middle position of the Telecaster. I realize the quack positions (2 and 4) are in some ways the soul of the Stratocaster, BUT, if one were to reverse the hot and ground leads of the middle pickup, would the 2 and 4 positions become non-quacky as well (i.e. more of a fat than a thin sound)? If so, are there any examples of this available for listening online? Any pitfalls to be aware of?

Thanks for bearing with my somewhat limited understanding of pickups and wiring!

#1 it's parallel



# 2 reversing the leads of one of the pups would make it out of phase with it's mate and it would sound like CRAP.......thin, weak, nasally.


A Tele w/o quack and a Strat having it has nothing to do with any of that.


The short story:
It's the distance between the pups that gives the Strat it's unique tone when the two pups are played together PARALLEL.

So it's kinda like boys sound like boys, and girls sound like girls.

Part 2:

If you would like to own a Strat and have some other options with combining pups on it, you could wire a set to go in series, for a humbucker sound (fatter). The neck and middle sound nice like that !

AND have another option (by extra switch) to get the neck and bridge together, that sounds sweet too and no quack.

call it a hybrid :razz:

#1 it's parallel



# 2 reversing the leads of one of the pups would make it out of phase with it's mate and it would sound like CRAP.......thin, weak, nasally.


A Tele w/o quack and a Strat having it has nothing to do with any of that.


The short story:
It's the distance between the pups that gives the Strat it's unique tone when the two pups are played together PARALLEL.

So it's kinda like boys sound like boys, and girls sound like girls.

Part 2:

If you would like to own a Strat and have some other options with combining pups on it, you could wire a set to go in series, for a humbucker sound (fatter). The neck and middle sound nice like that !

AND have another option (by extra switch) to get the neck and bridge together, that sounds sweet too and no quack.

call it a hybrid :razz:

Right, I want to wire the pickup combinations in series, then. I suppose there are loads of diagrams online for this...

Yep, for starters:

http://deaf-eddie.net/drawings/strat-series-2.jpg


let me know if you would be interested in a mini toggle to get the bridge and neck in parallel too. here's mine:

You can of course use a push-pull or push-push pot instead.Another solution is to wire one of the tone pots as a master tone control and use the other tone pot as a "blender" for the neck pickup.Everything looks stock,nothing to buy and you blend in how much of the neck pickups signal you want mixed with the bridge pickup.

Right on, you can have the p/p for the series, and another for the neck on. I have one with a p/p neck on as well.

I also have set up a HSS pickguard that I can switch out on my Strats that has a Fat HSS Deaf Eddie switch ! :cool:

He has switches for SSS as well that will do a pile of things..................series, oop, ect.

http://deaf-eddie.net/tonecharts.html

Has anyone tried a series/parallel switch in a Strat? Were the extra tones worth it?

With the Deaf Eddie switch that gets the neck and middle in series. It gives a nice, warm humbucker like tone. Anyone who has put a 4 way on a Tele can relate to that.

Just gives a Strat another tone option, as if you had a neck hb pickup in it too ! As if it doesn't have enough options already.

I also have both my Strats set up to get the bridge and neck together (parallel), one with a mini toggle and the Deaf Eddie switch does it on the other.

Definitely worth a mini toggle or p/p switch.


I even put a mini-toggle on my Jazzmaster for series.

LOVE IT !