| Articles:
Hotrodding a Stratocaster Part 4: Other Wiring Modifications |
I recently decided that I needed a real Fender Stratocaster
to get the traditional Strat sound. I ended up buying a relatively inexpensive second-hand
Mexican Strat which felt pretty good to play and sounded good acoustically. I replaced a
few of the parts with higher quality components and did some work to set it up and the
resulting instrument is wonderful. It sounds good, plays well, stays in tune (even with
abuse!) and is inspiring to play.
A lot of these tweaks and mods apply to most Stratocasters
(and many other electric guitars too), so I've decided to share them. Not every tweak will
be needed - or wanted - for every Strat, but it's usually easy to decide what you want.
Where I could have made an alternate decision, I'll mention the other options, and why I
specifically chose one over the other.
Part 1:
Choosing a Guitar to Customise | Part 2: Modifications To
hardware & Setup | Part 3: Pickups, Wiring &
Control Hotrods | Part 4: Other Wiring Modifications
| Part 5: Refinishing
Other Wiring Modifications
Apart from replacing some of the electrical
parts and componants, I did a few other wiring modifications that are standard for me.
Star Grounding (Earth)
Star grounding is done by connecting all the ground wires
in a circuit to one common point, eliminating the possibility of ground loops which pick
up hum. The Stratocaster wiring circuit is not
usually star grounded, and does have a ground loop - a flaw which has never been corrected
as it has only a small impact on the total amount of hum. However, I feel strongly that to
quiet a Strat you do everything possible, regardless of how small the results, as the
effect of a number of small modifications added together can be appreciable.
The standard Strat wiring comes with the back of the pots
used as convenient solder points. Stock wiring connects the backs of the pots together
with a piece of wire. The problem with this is that the shielding tape on the underside of
the pickguard also connects the pot cases together electrically, creating a short ground
loop.
 I use a solder tab as a common grounding point. A solder tag is a flat washer
which has an additional "lug" for soldering wires on to. All the earth
wires are connected to this and it is attached to the guitar by screwing it between the
switch and the scratchplate with the switch screw. This also grounds the shielding on the
underside of the scratchplate.
|
Standard Stratocaster Wiring
Click for larger image
|
Tone Control on the Bridge Pickup
Standard Strat wiring has a tone control on each the neck and middle pickups but
none on the bridge pickup which, as it is the brightest sounding pickup, is the one that
needs it most. By moving one wire, the second tone control operates on the bridge pickup
instead of on the middle one. This means there is no tone control when the switch is at
"position 3" on the switch, but gains control on position one. To do this mod,
simply remove the wire that leads to tone control 2 from the switch and move it to the
unused tab next to it. Another option is to
use tone control 1 (which is next to the volume control and usually operates on the neck
pickup) for the bridge pickup. This would be done by moving the wire that leads to it to
the unused tab. Of course, this means that the tone controls would be reversed in relation
to pickup position, so I would probably move tone 2 to the unused tab and then move tone 1
to where tone 2 was in the stock wiring. |
Standard Switch Wiring
|
Treble Bleed Capacitor Mod
Often as the volume control is turned down, the guitar sound seems to become more
bassy and muffled. This mod allows some of the high frequency sound to "bleed"
into the output as the volume is turned down, making the guitar brighter sounding at lower
volumes.To do this, I added a small .001mfd
capacitor to the volume control, across the wiper (middle) tab and the upper tab (where
the switch connects). Some prefer doing this mod with both the capacitor and a 150k fixed
resistor in parallel with the capacitor, finding it to give a more natural tonal balance
at lower volumes, but I find this also changes the taper of the pot, which I do not like.
At the right is a diagram showing what the wiring will look
like if you do all the mods on this page. |
Modified Stratocaster Wiring
Click for larger image
|
|
