Rancid Rumpboogie
Blues Mangler
OK, time to convince you all that I really am certifiably NUTS.
I re-wired my MIM Strat to give it a 4-speed tranny and a 3-speed rear end. What do I mean by that?
I have two teles, both with 4-way switches to get the neck and bridge on in series. I LOVE that series connection. I wanted to manage doing that to my Strat … so I could get the neck and middle in series or the middle and bridge in series and still retain all the stock pickup selections.
It hit me that if you were to think of the middle pickup and bridge pickup as the two coils of a big humbucker, and put those on a 3-way splitter for either pickup or both in series and thought of that 3-way splitter as your new “bridge”, you could simply put a 4-way switch for a Tele into a Strat and be done.
I thought that to do that I would need to go to a single volume and single tone control like in a Tele, and use one of the holes for the removed tone pot to put the 3-way splitter switch in. This new 3-way toggle would see a whole lot of use and have to be one that could be EASILY found and manipulated and would have to be RUGGED. So a mini-toggle just wouldn’t do. I had to find a DPDT ON-ON-ON switch that is a full-sized toggle switch. So I went looking, and finally found one.
http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=70118724&mkwid=sO2fOP9oj&pcrid=23475517937&pkw=2nt1-12&pmt=b&pdv=c&gclid=CNG_152e67wCFdBqfgodV0MAGg#tab=overview
I ordered a 4-way Tele switch and this nice big rugged DPDT ON-ON-ON switch. I put the DPDT toggle switch where the middle tone control used to be … in close proximity with and basically right in line with the 4-way selector for quick manipulation. And so when the toggle is forward it’s the middle pickup, when in the middle it’s the middle and bridge in series, and when it’s to the rear it’s the bridge pickup so it’s intuitive.
Now whenever the 4-way selector is in any position OTHER THAN neck only, it is using the “bridge” pickup, and which pickup/s the “bridge” is depends on where the 3-way toggle is set. It really isn’t any more complicated than if you had a Tele with a big humbucker bridge and a 4-way switch and a 3-way splitter on that bridge pickup.
Here are the available pickup combinations:
01 Neck Only
02 Neck in parallel with middle
03 Neck in parallel with bridge *
04 Neck in parallel with middle and bridge in series *
05 Neck in SERIES with middle *
06 Neck in SERIES with bridge *
07 ALL THREE PICKUPS IN SERIES *
08 Middle pickup only
09 Bridge pickup only
10 Middle and Bridge in SERIES *
The only standard selection given up is the middle and bridge in parallel … a combination I rarely used anyway. But 6 selections are gained that weren’t previously available (marked with asterisks).
And those series connections give my Strat some VERY convincing “big humbucker” sounds! This guitar used to be my favorite go-to guitar. Now it still is, it just went up by a quantum leap. The bridge and middle in series makes for a really NICE powerful lead. The neck and middle in series makes for really NICE warm, FAT, powerful blues. And all three in series sounds a lot like the neck in series with the bridge, just MORE. And all of that without compromising the pure stock Strat sounds of those wonderful Klein 1957 Epic Series pickups one bit.
On the 4-way selector, the “series” notch is right next to the “neck only” notch, and this is PERFECT. I play this guitar primarily on the neck pickup only. If I want a hotter/brighter sound, it is only one notch away, and also never losing the fatness of the neck pickup. But there are three flavors of “hotter/brighter” depending on where that 3-way selector is set. It’s like kicking in a big humbucker with three flavors. If all I want is “brighter”, just flip the 4-way all the way to the rear for “bridge only”, and I have three flavors of “brighter” depending on where the 3-way selector is set … and one of those is like a big humbucker as well. It seems complicated, but after playing with it for just a half hour it becomes totally intuitive and very easy.
If you are familiar with Bian May of Queen, you know that he hand-built his own guitar and used three single-coils and three slider switches and that all of his multi-pickup selections were wired IN SERIES. This set up I have devised gives you all of those very same selections … as well as all of the stock parallel selections except one.
Here is the wiring for the 4-way switch.
And here is the wiring for a 3-way splitter for either coil or both in series.
In the diagrams, the green wire going to the bridge pickup goes to the splitter instead, and the output of the splitter goes to ground.
And here is a close-up of the guitar body, pickups and controls.
If the tail of the tremolo looks a bit odd to you, it is a Killer Guitar Components Mega-Trem; the Big block part of the thread title.
I re-wired my MIM Strat to give it a 4-speed tranny and a 3-speed rear end. What do I mean by that?
I have two teles, both with 4-way switches to get the neck and bridge on in series. I LOVE that series connection. I wanted to manage doing that to my Strat … so I could get the neck and middle in series or the middle and bridge in series and still retain all the stock pickup selections.
It hit me that if you were to think of the middle pickup and bridge pickup as the two coils of a big humbucker, and put those on a 3-way splitter for either pickup or both in series and thought of that 3-way splitter as your new “bridge”, you could simply put a 4-way switch for a Tele into a Strat and be done.
I thought that to do that I would need to go to a single volume and single tone control like in a Tele, and use one of the holes for the removed tone pot to put the 3-way splitter switch in. This new 3-way toggle would see a whole lot of use and have to be one that could be EASILY found and manipulated and would have to be RUGGED. So a mini-toggle just wouldn’t do. I had to find a DPDT ON-ON-ON switch that is a full-sized toggle switch. So I went looking, and finally found one.
http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=70118724&mkwid=sO2fOP9oj&pcrid=23475517937&pkw=2nt1-12&pmt=b&pdv=c&gclid=CNG_152e67wCFdBqfgodV0MAGg#tab=overview
I ordered a 4-way Tele switch and this nice big rugged DPDT ON-ON-ON switch. I put the DPDT toggle switch where the middle tone control used to be … in close proximity with and basically right in line with the 4-way selector for quick manipulation. And so when the toggle is forward it’s the middle pickup, when in the middle it’s the middle and bridge in series, and when it’s to the rear it’s the bridge pickup so it’s intuitive.
Now whenever the 4-way selector is in any position OTHER THAN neck only, it is using the “bridge” pickup, and which pickup/s the “bridge” is depends on where the 3-way toggle is set. It really isn’t any more complicated than if you had a Tele with a big humbucker bridge and a 4-way switch and a 3-way splitter on that bridge pickup.
Here are the available pickup combinations:
01 Neck Only
02 Neck in parallel with middle
03 Neck in parallel with bridge *
04 Neck in parallel with middle and bridge in series *
05 Neck in SERIES with middle *
06 Neck in SERIES with bridge *
07 ALL THREE PICKUPS IN SERIES *
08 Middle pickup only
09 Bridge pickup only
10 Middle and Bridge in SERIES *
The only standard selection given up is the middle and bridge in parallel … a combination I rarely used anyway. But 6 selections are gained that weren’t previously available (marked with asterisks).
And those series connections give my Strat some VERY convincing “big humbucker” sounds! This guitar used to be my favorite go-to guitar. Now it still is, it just went up by a quantum leap. The bridge and middle in series makes for a really NICE powerful lead. The neck and middle in series makes for really NICE warm, FAT, powerful blues. And all three in series sounds a lot like the neck in series with the bridge, just MORE. And all of that without compromising the pure stock Strat sounds of those wonderful Klein 1957 Epic Series pickups one bit.
On the 4-way selector, the “series” notch is right next to the “neck only” notch, and this is PERFECT. I play this guitar primarily on the neck pickup only. If I want a hotter/brighter sound, it is only one notch away, and also never losing the fatness of the neck pickup. But there are three flavors of “hotter/brighter” depending on where that 3-way selector is set. It’s like kicking in a big humbucker with three flavors. If all I want is “brighter”, just flip the 4-way all the way to the rear for “bridge only”, and I have three flavors of “brighter” depending on where the 3-way selector is set … and one of those is like a big humbucker as well. It seems complicated, but after playing with it for just a half hour it becomes totally intuitive and very easy.
If you are familiar with Bian May of Queen, you know that he hand-built his own guitar and used three single-coils and three slider switches and that all of his multi-pickup selections were wired IN SERIES. This set up I have devised gives you all of those very same selections … as well as all of the stock parallel selections except one.
Here is the wiring for the 4-way switch.
And here is the wiring for a 3-way splitter for either coil or both in series.
In the diagrams, the green wire going to the bridge pickup goes to the splitter instead, and the output of the splitter goes to ground.
And here is a close-up of the guitar body, pickups and controls.
If the tail of the tremolo looks a bit odd to you, it is a Killer Guitar Components Mega-Trem; the Big block part of the thread title.
