crusty philtrum
Vintageologist
Hi all
The premise : To discover any audible differences between the standard wiring, the 50's mod and the treble-bleed mod. By this, i mean i was looking to the core tone of the pickups and guitar, usually with volume and tone controls wide-open.
The back-story : I have a set of BKP Apache pickups in a Tokai Straocaster, wired normally. The Apaches use A3 magnets and have the fuller 50's Strat tone. I recently bought a Highway One Stratocaster and moved the Apaches into it, along with all new pots, switch and capacitor. I wired the tone pot from the middle lug of the volume pot (50's mod) rather than the usual connection to the outer lug. This mod alleviates the treble loss encountered when turning down the volume control. (Please note that all my Strats are wired with just one tone control, acting as a master across all three pickups).
However, the Highway One sounded somehow thinner than the Tokai with the same pickups. It still sounded very good, but more like a 60's, A5 Strat sound. I began to wonder how much of the difference was due to the obvious fact of two diferent guitars, and how much might have been due to the fact that in the Tokai, they'd had their tone control wired as normal, but in the Highway 1 I'd only heard them with the 50's mod.
The concept : To fit a three-position rotary switch into a Stratocaster to switch between standard tone pot wiring, the 50's mod and the treble-bleed mod. My Strats all have master volume and master tone controls, so there is a spare pot location that can be used to mount this switch. This switch would be a temporary addition to allow me to hear the diferences (if indeed there were any differences to be heard).
The execution : I worked out how the switch would need to be wired, and built it as an assembly and installed it onto the pickguard. The rotary switch was a little larger than a regular pot, and was in the last tone pot position, i.e. the one furthest from the strings.
I discovered that the switch interfered with fitting the pickguard so I decided to remove the switch, run the wires through the empty hole and leave the switch loose outside the guitar...after all, this was simply to hear the differences, and when i had made my decisions, i would hard-wire whichever system i liked best.
Then that all seemed to be too tedious, so i wired the Highway 1 with the oringinal, non-50's tone pot connection, and that would at least allow me to hear the difference between the Apaches in the Highway 1 with regular tone pot connection and the 50's version.
What I heard : In the Tokai, these pickups had been wired as normal. In the Highway 1, I'd wired them with the 50's mod and had found the second guitar to sound thinner, although still very good. Now, wired back to normal, the Highway 1 sounded much fuller, very similar to how the same pickups had sounded in the Tokai (which is a *very* good Strat). I noticed immediately a lot more 'woodiness' to the tone and the 'girth' of the Apaches was back, as it had been in the Tokai.
The conclusion : In researching this recently, I saw a forum member say he felt that the 50's mod tended to thin the guitar's sound. After this experiment, i have to agree. The Highway 1 Strat sounded good with that mod, but now i know that it did sound thinner than when i reverted back to the regular way of hooking the tone pot to the volume pot (outside lug). Because of using the A3 Apaches, which give a very '50's' Strat tone, they still sounded good even when thinned out by the 50's mod.....I am not sure how a set of A5 Strat pickups would fare under the same circumstances.
The switch idea : I may still try this if i can find a smaller switch to install, but now the only thing i haven't really heard is the treble bleed (bypass?) mod. I am wary of this mod because it seems you need to 'fine-tune' the component values for your guitar and the effect will vary by using different guitar cables and plugging in to different amps or pedals. I'm not sure i want to be in that territory.
The premise : To discover any audible differences between the standard wiring, the 50's mod and the treble-bleed mod. By this, i mean i was looking to the core tone of the pickups and guitar, usually with volume and tone controls wide-open.
The back-story : I have a set of BKP Apache pickups in a Tokai Straocaster, wired normally. The Apaches use A3 magnets and have the fuller 50's Strat tone. I recently bought a Highway One Stratocaster and moved the Apaches into it, along with all new pots, switch and capacitor. I wired the tone pot from the middle lug of the volume pot (50's mod) rather than the usual connection to the outer lug. This mod alleviates the treble loss encountered when turning down the volume control. (Please note that all my Strats are wired with just one tone control, acting as a master across all three pickups).
However, the Highway One sounded somehow thinner than the Tokai with the same pickups. It still sounded very good, but more like a 60's, A5 Strat sound. I began to wonder how much of the difference was due to the obvious fact of two diferent guitars, and how much might have been due to the fact that in the Tokai, they'd had their tone control wired as normal, but in the Highway 1 I'd only heard them with the 50's mod.
The concept : To fit a three-position rotary switch into a Stratocaster to switch between standard tone pot wiring, the 50's mod and the treble-bleed mod. My Strats all have master volume and master tone controls, so there is a spare pot location that can be used to mount this switch. This switch would be a temporary addition to allow me to hear the diferences (if indeed there were any differences to be heard).
The execution : I worked out how the switch would need to be wired, and built it as an assembly and installed it onto the pickguard. The rotary switch was a little larger than a regular pot, and was in the last tone pot position, i.e. the one furthest from the strings.
I discovered that the switch interfered with fitting the pickguard so I decided to remove the switch, run the wires through the empty hole and leave the switch loose outside the guitar...after all, this was simply to hear the differences, and when i had made my decisions, i would hard-wire whichever system i liked best.
Then that all seemed to be too tedious, so i wired the Highway 1 with the oringinal, non-50's tone pot connection, and that would at least allow me to hear the difference between the Apaches in the Highway 1 with regular tone pot connection and the 50's version.
What I heard : In the Tokai, these pickups had been wired as normal. In the Highway 1, I'd wired them with the 50's mod and had found the second guitar to sound thinner, although still very good. Now, wired back to normal, the Highway 1 sounded much fuller, very similar to how the same pickups had sounded in the Tokai (which is a *very* good Strat). I noticed immediately a lot more 'woodiness' to the tone and the 'girth' of the Apaches was back, as it had been in the Tokai.
The conclusion : In researching this recently, I saw a forum member say he felt that the 50's mod tended to thin the guitar's sound. After this experiment, i have to agree. The Highway 1 Strat sounded good with that mod, but now i know that it did sound thinner than when i reverted back to the regular way of hooking the tone pot to the volume pot (outside lug). Because of using the A3 Apaches, which give a very '50's' Strat tone, they still sounded good even when thinned out by the 50's mod.....I am not sure how a set of A5 Strat pickups would fare under the same circumstances.
The switch idea : I may still try this if i can find a smaller switch to install, but now the only thing i haven't really heard is the treble bleed (bypass?) mod. I am wary of this mod because it seems you need to 'fine-tune' the component values for your guitar and the effect will vary by using different guitar cables and plugging in to different amps or pedals. I'm not sure i want to be in that territory.
Last edited:
