Strat Wiring Project!

[StratMatt22]

Hey dudes I need some advice for rewiring my Strat. I currently have a SSH setup with a texas special neck, a stock middle, and an SD vintage rails bridge. I love the single coil sound but my band's sound requires me to use pretty much just straight dual HB. I have an Ibanez Artcore as73 with a jazz and a jb that I use to jam and it sounds great but I really want to put flatwounds on it to maximize its jazz capabilities because that is where my main interest lies. As we all know, flatwounds are pretty much only good for jazz.

So basically I want to give my strat an HSH setup with the ability to split both humbuckers. I also want my split neck humbucker to sound similar to the Texas Special with a high output and my current Texas Special to be in the middle position. The neck humbucker has to be GREAT for clean stuff just like my sh2 Jazz in my artcore even when not split. I dont mind replacing the Vintage Rails either because its such low output I dont think it would sound any good split. My band is pretty much a jam band and we play stuff from jazz to funk to rock. Its pretty much just a fusion type thing.

What would you guys suggest as far as pickups go? Also what kind of pots would best fit with your suggestions? My Strat has the universal routing so I can fit any combination of pickups as long as my pickguard is shaped right.

BTW my strat has a little cutout in the wood beneath the pickguard right below the neck pickup. I was thinking of putting a simple toggle switch there from Stewmac to do the splitting. What would you recomend as far as this is concerned?

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

um bump?

 

[bungalowbill]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

Go to the SD site and check out a stagmag for the neck and a JB for the brigde. I believe these pups are the ones to go with for single coil tone.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

Also what kind of pots would best fit with your suggestions? What would you recomend as far as this is concerned?

I'd recommend whatever the pickups say. For example, if you pick the stag mag and it recommends 250K, and the middle single recommends 250K, but the bridge recommends 500K, I'd go with 250K and see how that works out.

And for splits, you'd probably only want true split, so I would go with pots that are push-pull so that you can split them when you want. Think "easily accessible while playing guitar" type stuff. However, if you "must" have hum cancelling while splitting, you can wire the push pulls to do parallel rather than split, you can. See Split versus Parallel for a description.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

In my Strat, I currently have a 500k on the JB and a 250k on the two singles with a 250k master volume. It works out very nicely. The JB sounds full and powerful, and the singles sound like Strat singles should.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

In my Strat, I currently have a 500k on the JB and a 250k on the two singles with a 250k master volume. It works out very nicely. The JB sounds full and powerful, and the singles sound like Strat singles should.

Cool, although I just told a service rep to install 250K volume on mine lol

Anyways, he'll see if he can fix it. Should be 250K vol 250K tone .047/.022 cuf cap DPDT toggle for JB, etc etc etc.

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

Ok so i managed to get a TB4 on ebay for $42 and a stag mag from www.music123.com for $56 new. They had a closeout sale on the white ones for some reason and I plan on covering it eventually anyways.

So now Im gonn have a SH-3 neck, a texas special mid, and a TB-4 bridge. I got an hsh pickguard on ebay as well, and a 500k push pull pot and a 500k regular pot from stewmac.

How should I wire this so i have all the choices from a dual HB guitar and all the choices from a 3 single coil guitar. I dont need my mid pickup when in humbucker mode but I need it when I split my coils. I want all 5 standard strat positions.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

Ok so i managed to get a TB4 on ebay for $42 and a stag mag from www.music123.com for $56 new. They had a closeout sale on the white ones for some reason and I plan on covering it eventually anyways.
So now Im gonn have a SH-3 neck, a texas special mid, and a TB-4 bridge. I got an hsh pickguard on ebay as well, and a 500k push pull pot and a 500k regular pot from stewmac. How should I wire this so i have all the choices from a dual HB guitar and all the choices from a 3 single coil guitar. I dont need my mid pickup when in humbucker mode but I need it when I split my coils. I want all 5 standard strat positions. Any help is appreciated.

Did you get push-pull tone and volume? How many knobs are we talking about, and how do you want it laid out? I would get a true fender 5-way and wire all the outputs, then set the humbuckers on the push-pull pots so that you just pull them out to split them. I wouldn't bother with using parallel or out of phase, just split. It results in less output drop.

My ghetto wiring diagram:

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

I would need it so that the pushpull pot splits the humbuckers AND shuts off the middle pickup. I got one 500k push/pull pot, one 500k regular pot, and my 3 stock pots which I guess are 250K. I have a standard strat 5-way switch as well. Thanks!

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

The diagram above will give you the following configuration with the 5-way...

1) Neck
2) Neck/Mid
3) Middle
4) Mid/Bridge
5) Bridge

As you can see, the middle will be on when in positions 2,3, and 4.... BUT, with the push/pull pots, you can split the appropriate HB's using the respective pot....

I wouln't complicate it anymore than that... if you need JUST the neck pup, then play in position one... if you want JUST the neck split, the split the neck in position one.... etc...

Hope this helps... you dont want the rig TOOOO complicated to play on the fly...

Allen

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

I would need it so that the pushpull pot splits the humbuckers AND shuts off the middle pickup. I got one 500k push/pull pot, one 500k regular pot, and my 3 stock pots which I guess are 250K. I have a standard strat 5-way switch as well. Thanks!

Why? If you want to shut off the middle pickup, I'd suggest putting a SPDT switch on it (if it's a pickguard guitar) so that you can just turn it off or on any time you want. But still, if it "must" shut off the middle pickup when split, do you want the neck pickup push-pull to do this? or the bridge? or both?

Me, I would just leave it this way. However, if you MUST have middle shut off every time, wire the hot output of the middle pickup to each pin #4 on each push/pull DPDT section (basically, across from the red&white pin). The line would solder to pin #4 on first push/pull then pin #4 on second push/pull then to the pin on the 5-way switch that it was intended to go to, and that would mean that if ANY split was active, it would shut off.

Me, I would just leave it the way it's listed above, or get a SPDT toggle (if your guitar is of the pickguard variety) to do it (not hard, just wire the SPDT in before it gets to the 5-way).

I mean, how much variety do you need? Building a guitar that has everything is only going to either complicate playing it or make you never want to get a backup guitar (until it's too late lol). This is the kind of stuff guitar techs hate because then you might as well get a megaswitch and the guitar's insides start looking like a horrible mess. Besides, the more complex an electronic device becomes, the more difficult it gets to troubleshoot it, should something go wrong. In the end, you can't make one H-S-H guitar sound like a Les Paul, Stratocaster, Super Stratocaster, AND Telecaster. It's just not possible to imitate them all convincingly. A true stratocaster with 5-way in middle position will sound better than yours will with both humbuckers split and middle pickup enabled.

Besides, there's the ohms and output. A split humbucker drops approximately 3 dB (depending on ohms) when you split it. Tell me what style of music you play and whether you have a maple neck or rosewood neck and I'll show you what I mean.

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

I mean shut off the middle pickup when the humbuckers ARE NOT split so its a dual humbucking guitar.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

For example, my H-S-S ibanez (when working) had a JB humbucker and two classic stack plus pickups. The classic stacks are like 9.62k ohms (middle is a touch higher), so they're in the range of high output single coils. The JB is 16.4k ohms in humbucker mode, but split it is 8.2k ohms. So when split and in middle position (i.e. all pickups enabled) the bridge coil is harder to hear amongst the three because it has less ohms, which usually means less output, and in this case it does. However, switch it back to humbucker mode and it overpowers the other two in middle position. By virtue of electronics, usually the higher ohms components draw more current / power, so in this case they usually sound louder (but this is a gross simplification).

Let's try the tone wizard. Say you plugged in your info, rosewood fretboard, alder/ash guitar, rock/pop music style, vintage tremolo. From what it recommends, I would suggest '59 Bridge, Seth Lover Neck, Hot Stack middle. Your ohms would be 8.13K ohms bridge, 7.20K ohms neck, 13.20K ohms middle. The other pickups even in humbucker mode already seem mismatched. With both split humbuckers it would be 4K ohms bridge, 3.60K ohms neck, 13.20K ohms middle. Your middle pickup would be stealing all the "glory". That's way too much of a mismatch in ohms for me.

Let's say you went with the other choice, dual Alnico II Pro (neck and bridge) humbuckers with a vintage staggered in the middle. This would be 7.60K ohms neck, 7.85K ohms bridge, 6.50K ohms middle. This already sounds like a good combination in terms of what the pickups are meant for. However, when both humbuckers are split, you get 3.92K ohms bridge, 3.25K ohms neck, 6.50K ohms middle, which is still looking like a mismatch, but at least I could understand using this combination. The one above is much worse in my opinion.

This is all I know for sure, but still, it's what I feel. The only true way to know if the combination will work for sure is to actually test it. However, having the splits is better than not having them. Sure, your guitar will sound great H-S-H, and the neck and bridge splits will give you versatility, but in the end, you won't be able to sound exactly like a Stratocaster or Telecaster (but you will be more versatile).

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

I mean shut off the middle pickup when the humbuckers ARE NOT split so its a dual humbucking guitar.

Since your guitar has a pick guard, I would recommend buying a SPDT toggle switch and wiring it between the middle pickup and the 5-way switch. This is easy, too: you can drill the perfect size hole in the pickguard for it (like I did with my Ibanez for splitting the JB) and mount it. This is what I would recommend for controlling the middle pickup separately. As for the splits, you can do those like in the diagram I tried to draw. I hope this helps!

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

I guess that could do it. I was thinking maybe the push pull pot would be able to shut the middle pickup off and split the coils too in one pull. Oh well.

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

How about this diagram?

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/hum_sing_hum_vol_tone_spl.html

With this my coils automatically split in #2 and #4 and I can just use a switch to shut off my middle to get just the neck or bridge split. Instead of buying the SPDT toggle to control this would it be possible to shut the middle pickup off with the push pull pot? If so this seems simple enough for me.

Sorry I have never messed with splitting before in my life as I just have the basic wirings for both my guitars. So this is all a little complex for me.

Also about the pickup ohms like you were saying. My HB's split would be about 8k each and my texas special in the middle is 6.2K. Is that a good enough balance? I want a relatively hot single coil sound anyways.
I know it wont sound exactly like a 3 single coil strat but its the best I can do with what I have. I really do like my strat's setup as it is but it sounds so weak with the music I jam to.


One more thing lol. IF the push / pull put could toggle my middle pickup off and on, can I make it so that it is the volume pot and then have a seperate tone control for each humbucker? That would make it a 3 knob guitar. 1v2t

Thanks again!

 

[StratMatt22]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

Well this is what I came up with:

Only thing Im not sure about is whether or not I can attatch the tones on the left side of the switch like that.

If I can then the next thing I need now is a way to kill the middle pickup and Im hoping thats possible with a dpdt push pull pot. I dont know how to wire those yet.

Any help? Thanks!

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

How about this diagram?

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/hum_sing_hum_vol_tone_spl.html

With this my coils automatically split in #2 and #4 and I can just use a switch to shut off my middle to get just the neck or bridge split. Instead of buying the SPDT toggle to control this would it be possible to shut the middle pickup off with the push pull pot? If so this seems simple enough for me.

I would recommend having the splits separate if you want more versatility. However, you can go with that diagram if you want.

As for the SPDT switch for shutting off the middle pickup, that's relatively easy. Take the wire that comes from the middle pickup that normally goes to the 5-way switch, and solder that wire to the middle pin of the SPDT switch. Then wire one of the other pins to where the middle pickup's output goes on the 5-way switch. That's all there is to it.

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

You remind me of someone I knew when they first started messing around with electric guitars and amps.... ME!!!

Man, I had this AWESOME guitar designed! It could do it ALL! Sound like a Les Paul, a PRS, a Tele, and SRV's strat! And I even managed to put it together and get wiring schematics from the brethern of this board.

I FINALLY got to plug it in to my amp and mess around with it... in the end, all the designs and dreams in the world can't make ONE guitar sound like ALL guitars.... SO I went back with what Strats do best.... And NOW I'm happy..... Don't get me wrong, I have a Lil 59 in the bridge and another one in the neck, but my crazy wiring days are long gone.... I can split the neck via the Spin-a-Split mod and the bridge via push-pull pots.... This gives me ALL the versatility I want.... the HH configutration did NOT sound very good, so I dropped it along the wAy as well...

I hope you figure this out, and that it works how you want it... but it seems as though you are gonna spend more time trying to figure out which pups are on rather than staying in the groove

Good Luck,
Allen

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Strat Wiring Project!

You remind me of someone I knew when they first started messing around with electric guitars and amps.... ME!!! Man, I had this AWESOME guitar designed! It could do it ALL! Sound like a Les Paul, a PRS, a Tele, and SRV's strat! And I even managed to put it together and get wiring schematics from the brethern of this board. I FINALLY got to plug it in to my amp and mess around with it... in the end, all the designs and dreams in the world can't make ONE guitar sound like ALL guitars.... SO I went back with what Strats do best.... And NOW I'm happy..... Don't get me wrong, I have a Lil 59 in the bridge and another one in the neck, but my crazy wiring days are long gone.... I can split the neck via the Spin-a-Split mod and the bridge via push-pull pots.... This gives me ALL the versatility I want.... the HH configutration did NOT sound very good, so I dropped it along the wAy as well... I hope you figure this out, and that it works how you want it... but it seems as though you are gonna spend more time trying to figure out which pups are on rather than staying in the groove Good Luck, Allen

Yeah me too. In the end, I found that the only reason to have push-pulls was for splits, and only for pickups that came with the ability. Just to have the versatility I guess. Might as well wire that up if it's available, just in case. I'll still end up owning one of each basic type of electric (les paul, stratocaster, telecaster, super stratocaster, etc).

Recently I can go to a music store but the guitars on the walls just bore me. They just seem to be the same thing over and over again. But my faithful LP-wannabe ("storm") ESP just seems to be everything I need. Same with my Ovation (when I need to play acoustic).