EASY Stratocaster Mod

[theAeronought]

Here's something I did that I thought turned out really neat. Best part - no soldering or wiring changes necessary. I took all the pickups out of my Strat and moved them around - I moved the neck pickup to the middle position, the middle pickup to the bridge position, and the bridge pickup to the neck position. With this done, my 5-way switch is a little backwards, but it works just fine for me:

Position 1 - Neck
Position 2 - Neck + Bridge
Position 3 - Bridge
Position 4 - Bridge + Middle
Position 5 - Middle

This is perfect for a number of reasons. For one, positions 2 and 4 are still hum-cancelled because what was the RWRP middle pickup is now the RWRP bridge pickup. Also, I never used or liked the Neck + Middle option, so I'm okay with not having it any more - I was glad to keep the Bridge + Middle option however, because that's how Eric Clapton recorded "Lay Down Sally."

For those of you (like me) who understand by seeing:


Just sharing for the sake of sharing - all too often on this forum I have questions and no answers.

 

[NotCardio]

Re: EASY Stratocaster Mod

Interesting concept.

Wouldn't apply to me, because neck + middle is one of my favorite positions, and because Lay Down Sally is arguably my least favorite Clapton song, as it's him at his most country during a period where I really hated the prevalent country of the day.

Give me Bell Bottom Blues any day.

But neat idea.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: EASY Stratocaster Mod

Neat...although bridge pickups tend to be wound a little hotter so this can affect the tone. This of course depends on which model strat you have and what pickups are in there.

I could do this quicker with a soldering iron and moving things around on the switch.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: EASY Stratocaster Mod

That is very interesting way to get the Tele style b+n tone...but I agree that the bridge pickups tend to be a little hotter so not something I would do personally. But cool and thanks for sharing!