Need some help..unusual strat wiring..

[flyingbanana]

Hey all. I'm really glad to have joined the site. I have had most questions answered just by searching...but this one has me stumped. I had a luthier near me rewire my strat with some new pickups, but ended up taking the pickups out and now I'm going to be installing Lollar Blackfaces....I can't wait till this Tues.

So anyway, I don't remember which of the little solder posts to reconnect which pickup to. I'd appreciate any advice. Oh...and maybe a reason it may have been wired this way as well.

Cheers. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Mark

[sjtalon]

Left to right on the termianls of the pot side:

N M B


Also it looks like he may have the switch wired so that the tone next to the vol pot controls the Neck and Middle and the other tone (lower one) controls JUST the bridge.

It is nice to have it like that.

My best guess without seeing a pic of the other side of the switch.

[flyingbanana]

Here's a pic of the other side....

By the way, why is it nice to have it that way versus the bridge/mid and neck only.

Thanks for your help...now the pickups install should go as planned.

[Octave Doctor]

Depending on the pups in your guitar, a bridge pup without a tone control can be pretty shrill. I usually wire the bridge and middle pups to the #2 tone control, but others may have different preferences. I also left one strat with the stock setup, since Blackmore's all about shrill.

[sjtalon]

Yep the tone mod looks like I mentioned.

Octave Doc is right about shrill.

I have a Strat with 57/62 pups and have a .1 µF cap.

That tones (darkens) the bridge down REAL nice. Some can be pretty ice pick.

Depending on your pickups (or mix of them) and choice of tone variety, you can even use a different cap on each tone pot.

If you really want to get fancy, add a push/pull pot so you can also do the Neck and Bridge together ( or have ALL THREE ON).
7 way !!


Happy pickin'

[flyingbanana]

Thanks for the help....yeah, I'll be putting Lollar Blackfaces in Tues night if UPS gets em here on time. I was thinking of doing a .047 cap on the bridge tone and maybe a .022 for the neck/middle and nothing on the volume knob. In my experience, limited as it may be, those tiny treble bleed caps are tone suckers.

Tues...tues...tues...tues

[sjtalon]

HNPUD

What sucks about Strats is having to take the strings off to pull the pg up to make changes. Then you have to put it all back together to try it.

The Tele control plate is by itself, QUICK change like NASCAR.

What I've done on Strats a few times is run a couple of wires from the tone pots out the claw ground wire hole and then you can experiment with different cap values. All you need is one wire from each pot as you can ground the other cap lead on the claw.

Your cap choices sound good. You must think that bridge is REALLY bright by using a .047 µF cap.

This little birds nest can be kept out of site under the trem cover and the next time you change strings you can tear the pg off and make your selections final.



I have a 50's Classic Series Surf Green Strat comming Wed.

Wed...wed...wed...wed


Happy pickin'

[flyingbanana]

Yep....I do hate it, but it's gotten to be such second nature, I can have the guard and strings back on in under 5 minutes....I even reuse the strings. I've got the schaller tuners and just loosen em and pull the strings out...then reuse the strings. Of course...it didn't dawn on me to reuse the strings until I went through 8 sets....during my experimenting.

As for the bridge tone...I'm going by what Jeff Senn told me about the Lollar Blackfaces...he said that he likes using a .047 cap for the bridge and middle...I think the middle is ok with a smaller cap...it's the bridge that needs the toning down. I went to Fry's and bought several cheap chicklet poly something type caps to experiment with.

Oh well. The tone search saga continues. I will definitely do that wire out the back trick.

Wed...wed...er.....Tues...tues....tues

[flyingbanana]

Man..I got those pups in...reversed of course.

I then proceeded to put the bridge and neck leads back where they belong.

Wow is all I can say. These Lollars are way better than people say. Go get em now!

[sjtalon]

Oh Sorry, your picture is very clear (focus) but close up so I must have got the pg orientated upside down in my little mind.

huh, now that I re-look at it I see what screwed me up.............I thought the two pots on the right were tone as they have caps on them.

Dumb S^*#, one of the caps is a TREBLE BLEED which would make that the volume pot !

So much for the free help !

Glad you love it thought ! but you shouldn't stay up so late..........it's JUST a guitar.

IT'S WEDNESDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[flyingbanana]

Originally Posted by sjtalon

Oh Sorry, your picture is very clear (focus) but close up so I must have got the pg orientated upside down in my little mind.

huh, now that I re-look at it I see what screwed me up.............I thought the two pots on the right were tone as they have caps on them.

Dumb S^*#, one of the caps is a TREBLE BLEED which would make that the volume pot !

So much for the free help !

Glad you love it thought ! but you shouldn't stay up so late..........it's JUST a guitar.

IT'S WEDNESDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait a minute....did you actually put "B M N" before? I thought I read it that way. Hey...I can follow directions. But...something didn't quite sound right. Now that the ahem...B and N pickups are in the correct spot, wow!

You guys gotta get these now! I noticed that Lollar included a Special in the bridge position. I was supposed to get a reg blackface there, but I'm not complaining one bit.

Ok....gotta get back to work.

[sjtalon]

Yep I did, BMN.

Then I dug up a switch diagram, spun it around, right side up and up side down a few times and thought I was backwards so did an edit.

Broke the rule...........just like a multiple choice test....NEVER change your first answer !

[Wally]

FWiw, everything on the switch in those pics is bassackwards. IT can work that way, but it sure is confusing to an old dog who is accustomed to seeing it done the way LEo did it.

That is, the 3 pickup leads connect to the neckward posts on the outside terminals....away from the pots. The lead to the volume pot comes off of the 'forward' terminal on the inside row...close to the vol pot. The tone leads take off on the terminals on that side. As I said....just backwards from the way this switch is wired. Not right, not wrong....just different.

[flyingbanana]

Originally Posted by Wally

FWiw, everything on the switch in those pics is bassackwards. IT can work that way, but it sure is confusing to an old dog who is accustomed to seeing it done the way LEo did it.

That is, the 3 pickup leads connect to the neckward posts on the outside terminals....away from the pots. The lead to the volume pot comes off of the 'forward' terminal on the inside row...close to the vol pot. The tone leads take off on the terminals on that side. As I said....just backwards from the way this switch is wired. Not right, not wrong....just different.

Thanks for chiming in Wally...with bell like tones.

I am gonna need to do something else for this guitar. I went ahead and put in the pickups, and everything works...Lollars sound great, but the tone pots aren't working like they should. I'm used to rolling off the highs and gradually getting a more bass muffled strat type sound, but something is not ....quite........right.

Any ideas before I rip it all apart and wire up things the correct way?

[Wally]

I would use a .047mfd tone cap. Fender never used a .022mfd cap for tone controls on his single coil pickups....there is a reason. There are a few ways to wire up tone controls. I like what occurs when the cap is used as the lead into the tone cap's middle lug and the right lug (looking down on the back of the pot) is taken to ground.
To use this type of circuit would entail a change to the basic tone circuit that is used traditionally in Strats. The change to a .047mfd might do enough for you...make that change and see what transpires would be my suggestion.
My personal 'strat' build has an entirely different approach...on treble cut pot and one bass cut pot. The tone circuit is applied to all pickups.

[flyingbanana]

Originally Posted by Wally

I would use a .047mfd tone cap. Fender never used a .022mfd cap for tone controls on his single coil pickups....there is a reason. There are a few ways to wire up tone controls. I like what occurs when the cap is used as the lead into the tone cap's middle lug and the right lug (looking down on the back of the pot) is taken to ground.
To use this type of circuit would entail a change to the basic tone circuit that is used traditionally in Strats. The change to a .047mfd might do enough for you...make that change and see what transpires would be my suggestion.
My personal 'strat' build has an entirely different approach...on treble cut pot and one bass cut pot. The tone circuit is applied to all pickups.

Well, I was considering just redoing everything (more normal like the typical Fender way) but setting up the top tone for neck/middle and bottom tone for bridge and then use a seperate tone cap for each pot...and make both tone pots the no load version so I can open them up and have em out of the loop entirely. Are there any drawbacks to this....would doing this muddy up either of the positions for the neck or middle? This is possibly the sort of issue I'm having now. I've got a .047 cap across both the tone controls now. Would I be going higher on the cap number to brighten the tone?

I had actually thought of just bucking the norm altogether and adding a third tone pot so that all three pickups can have individual tones. I honestly don't know why this hasn't been done before? Might I seem weird?

[Wally]

I rather think that Bill Carson might have had it 'more correct' for me when considering a standard strat pickup arrangement. HE had only a volume and a tone...the tone for all 3 pickups. HE moved the pots down into the lower hole so as to get that volume pot out of the way of the picking hand....something that I sometimes want since that volume pot can get in the way and is easily knocked out of the setting.
IF I didn't have a bass cut, I would have a two control Strat.....but then, I run a lil '59 on the bridge, and when running it in the series arrangement with gain, the bass cut is helpful when I want more clarity/articulation....so I have 3 pots...and sometimes I hit that volume if I am not careful. IT is easy to do since I was raised on Gibsons. lol
When tying the middle tone together with another pickup, I usually put the bridge and the middle together. And...once zagain, I have never seen a Fender single coil guitar with a .022 tone cap. Gibson used .022's with their P-90 single coils, but those pickups are much thicker sounding than the thin FEnder single coils. The .022 works for P-90's.