The “MEGA STRAT” progress by James @ 9:55 pm

What was previously known as the strat with the most, the blue fender, has now been torn down for another, less radical, radical mod.

I received a set of Fender Custom Shop ‘69 pickups for Christmas and have been trying to figure out what to do with them. I found the following wiring diagram while surfing the web:

http://www.guitartechcraig.com/techwire/tech01.jpg

The secret is a push-pull volume knob, with the middle Tone knob converted to a “blend” knob. What would you blend with it? The following:

Switch Blend Push/Pull Pickup Combination

1 10 Down Lead

1 0 Down Lead + Middle (in series)

2 10 Down Lead + Middle

2 0 Down Middle + Rhythm (out of phase)

3 10 Down Middle

3 0 Down Middle

4 10 Down Middle + Rhythm

4 0 Down Lead + Middle (out of phase)

5 10 Down Rhythm

5 0 Down Middle + Rhythm (in series)

1 10 Up Lead + Rhythm

1 0 Up Lead + Middle + Rhythm (in series)

2 10 Up Lead + Middle + Rhythm

2 0 Up Middle + Rhythm

3 10 Up Middle + Rhythm

3 0 Up Middle + Rhythm

4 10 Up Middle + Rhythm

4 0 Up Lead + Middle + Rhythm (Lead out of phase)

5 10 Up Rhythm

5 0 Up Rhythm

Anyway, as you can see there are a lot of sounds that this “mega strat” setup can pull off. Also, the guitar has a Fender TBX (Treble/Bass/eXpander or X-cut) tone control. This is an interesting “stacked” tone control with a resistor and capacitor to give a full range of EQ control, rolling off bass on one end and treble on the other. It seems to be a widely accepted opinion that the standard TBX sucks a lot of signal and tone just being there, even when sitting at +0-.

I found the following mod for the TBX to change the resistor value and move things around a little bit:

http://blueguitar.org/tbx_doc.gif

Apparently, this just removes the “tone suck” from the mix and allows the TBX to do what it was designed to do, give you an even middle ground between rolling off the highs and rolling off the lows. This will serve as a “master” tone, which Strats usually don’t have.

I soldered the thing up a couple of nights ago, but a lot of the parts I used were recycled from other parts, except those fine-ass Custom Shop pickups. When all was said & done, I had one working pickup and a lot of hum & buzz. The 5-way switch is definitely part of the problem. It was already blackened and partially melted around certain terminals from being heated up so much. My shoddy electrical skills didn’t help matters much as I added new solder onto old solder and made a general mess of the switch.

I am going to go pick up a new 5 way switch tomorrow and see if that does the trick. If not, I will bite the bullet, take the whole thing apart, get all new components and try again.

January 19, 2008