New pickguard for my 2012 American std strat

Keep in mind that crazy schemes also make it harder to get from one sound to another, in that it might take 2 or 3 moves to get to the sound. As options are added, I always feel the
useful options are only a small percentage of the whole of all the options.

This is very true. Especially playing live - you just need a few tones that are workable and let you tell the musical story. Hence the proliferation of guitars with two humbuckers and a simple 3-way switch.

For home/studio use, there is also a whole world of tones to be explored if you're willing to play with guitar volume and amp volume in tandem. Humbuckers can be made thin like single coils and vice versa. You can make the neck bright, the bridge fat and warm, and everything in between.
 
Omg
I didnt know these existed
seriously considering ordering 3 and knobs for them
1 per pickup
tone on top volume on bottom

This will not be a strat anymore lol
I would think long and hard before going that route.

In addition to the numerous drawbacks Christopher and Mincer have pointed out, double pots are quite awkward to operate.
For a back tone pot that's set-and-forget most of the time, the extra functionality may be worth the inconvenience.
But for a volume control (or any frequently-used knob) I would not recommend dual-concentrics to anybody.
In fact, I strongly discourage the idea.

There are good reasons why you don't ever see these used in modern guitar designs.
 
I would think long and hard before going that route.

In addition to the numerous drawbacks Christopher and Mincer have pointed out, double pots are quite awkward to operate.
For a back tone pot that's set-and-forget most of the time, the extra functionality may be worth the inconvenience.
But for a volume control (or any frequently-used knob) I would not recommend dual-concentrics to anybody.
In fact, I strongly discourage the idea.

There are good reasons why you don't ever see these used in modern guitar designs.

for sure
I think im good with the classic 59 bridge, 2 lil 59's for mid and neck
3 500k pots...master volume...bridge tone and mid/neck tone (orange drop caps)
I can get ONE micro switch on the pickguard to coil split the bridge humbucker...but wont be splitting the mid and neck
 
changing from series/parallel to a coil split should just be a matter of wiring the switch differently
dont see how i could wire a switch for series/parallel/coil split
 
That's another way you can take things:. Have the split humbucker be the standard sound at the bridge. I have a Washburn set up so that the split, bridge position Dimebucker is the standard sound on the five way switch and I use a push/pull pot to bring the pickup into series humbucker operation and use it as a sort of boost.

You can also use a five way superswitch to do an auto coil split, so you get full humbucker bridge in P-1 and single coil in P-2.

Wiring diagram to follow.
 
The standard 5-way blade is really a 3-way blade but with a blade that is just too wide, or just wide enough, depending on how you look at it. In the very early Strat days, Fender intended the selections to be bridge, middle, OR neck. The bridge plus middle and middle plus neck options were found by musicians, and subsequently adopted by Fender, who added extra "notches" to the switch in response.

The upshot of this is that it's impossible to use tone controls covering all three pickups without creating a short on the pickup selector side of the switch. Two tone pots covering any two out of three pickups, yes. Two tone pots, one shared between two pickups, no. One has to create a jumper over to the second set of contacts and use those contacts to add the tone connections.

The upshot of that is you don't have a bank of connections left vacant for an auto coil split, dumping the hot end of the first coil to ground and creating a direct ground for the second coil..

The good news is that the super-switch provides a third bank of connections to enable that ground connection.

The bad news is that the superswitch uses five individual connections for P-1 through P-5. Easy enough to jump the bridge inputs between P-1 and P-2, the neck inputs between P-4 and P-5. But to bring in the middle in P-2 P-3 and P-4 you need a FOURTH bank of contacts, otherwise you create shorts.
 
E, A D, G, B and e? :D

The wiring diagram I posted does all the standard positions but auto coil splits the bridge humbucker in P-2.

FWIW my HSS is wired with a conventional 5-way, and I have three push-pushes (I can't grip Strat knobs well enough for push-pulls) enabling:
  1. Neck in parallel with bridge in P-1, all three pickups in parallel in P-2;
  2. Phase inverting the middle;
  3. Coil splitting the humbucker.
As of this afternoon it's got a Little 59 / Custom Hybrid TREMbucker in the bridge and SSL-1s in the middle and neck. Regular SSL-1s, no RWRPs. I'm not sure if I get humbucking in P-2 by default, but I don't have any flourescents in the house anyway.
 
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