Pickup positions

Wizard · 2009-09-01T10:09:30+00:00

Provocative survey time. Who uses their strat in all of the pickup switch positions? And who spends most of the time playing with the selector switch in thei...

Pickup positions

[deleted]

Any reason for that? elaborate

Yes. The desire to be different. hahahaha

My main band is a trio, and I just haven't found many uses for the neck-or-bridge-biased positions for the type of music we play. I actually like the balanced tone of the middle pickup for clean sounds.

At home or if I'm playing with someone else taking care of the underlying melodic burden, I'm happy to whack some hoary old neck-pickup Strat tones over the top...

Wizard

Here's a silly idea that must have been proposed, analysed and rejected many times before:

Have:
- a master tone pot
- a no load pot for volume for each pickup

i.e. 4 pots & no selector switch

AlanRatcliffe

I think some of the Italian guitars from the '60s had multiple volumes (and tones), but it's generally a bit cumbersome working with volumes instead of a selector. The beauty of a 5-way lever switch is that it's easy to operate and even on the darkest stage, you always know where you are.

Sidecar

I don't have a Strat, but the Hondo Strat Copy I have, I use either the Neck or Bridge mostly. The bridge is nice for strumming and has more attack and bells but the neck sounds bluesy and warm. So it depends what I want to play.

I found however that if I put the switch between the neck and middle or the middle and bridge (although its only a 3-way switch) I get a thinner scooped bass sound... It sounds tinny and clean, but if you overdrive it and play with the tone controls, it can get very interesting. Alan, whats happening here? Is it just a "weak contact" sound or is it a blend the differnet pups? What you think?

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Brentcgp wrote: How is that? Can i some how wire my middle position to do that?
Not with the standard switch - but there's a few easy ways to get the two extra sounds ("neck + bridge" and "all three"):

If you use a four pole SuperSwitch, you can wire up any combination in any switch position. Using one of those, my Strat/Tele hybrid has Strat switching but with "neck + bridge" in the middle position 3.

My Strat has an extra switch that turns on the neck pickup regardless of the 5-way switch, so position 1 ends up as "neck + bridge" and position 2 ends up as "all three". You can also choose to do this to the bridge pickup instead of the neck.

Similar to the above, but using a pot instead of a switch: You can turn the first tone control into a master tone and use a "No-Load" pot in the second tone position to turn on the neck pickup (the Kinman K7 wiring harnesses do this). This lets you blend in as much or as little of the neck pickup as you want. You use a no load pot so that at "10" on the knob the pickup is turned off completely.

Gearhead

@Sidecar: Your middle is probably out of phase. Swap the leads.
@Wizard: the answer is to put in cheap pup(s) first and upgrade later... I will can send you something worthless with the truss rod nut I still owe you (if you want).

AlanRatcliffe

Gearhead wrote: @Sidecar: Your middle is probably out of phase. Swap the leads.

Agreed. Sounds likely from what you describe - all the common frequencies cancel out and you end up with a wierd "honky" tone (think of some of Brian May's lead tones) and the output level also drops radically. If the guitar wasn't designed to have more than one pickup on at a time, it's quite likely that Hondo (or someone rewiring it later) didn't bother paying attention to pickup polarities.

However, if it's just a small level drop and the tone gets more "quacky" than "honky" (don't you love these precise descriptions?), it may be just the usual Strat thing where a few equally spaced frequencies get knocked out (called "comb filtering") and the resonant frequency goes up. How is the volume of the middle pickup on it's own? If it's low it can also cause a volume drop on the 'tween settings.

Wizard

Gearhead wrote: @Wizard: the answer is to put in cheap pup(s) first and upgrade later... I will can send you something worthless with the truss rod nut I still owe you (if you want).

Put the pups in the packet too ... ?
(please)

Danny-B

I've got a superswitch in my new strat(classic player 50's). the 4th position is already neck+bridge. could i wire the third postition to be all three? if so, how?

AlanRatcliffe

Is that the one with the 57/62 pickups? I haven't got a schematic for that one, but you should be able to do it easily enough.

Usually each pickup uses one pole and you just bridge together the solder lugs corresponding to the pickup positions you want that pickup active. So you just need to bridge the wires for the neck and the bridge pickups to the middle lug on their pole.

Danny-B

Is that the one with the 57/62 pickups?

The very same.

It sounds an easy enough job to do.

Sidecar

Thanks for the input guys!

The middle pickup is working fine though, just as loud as the others. So you guys think it might be out of phase with the other two pups?

I like the fact that it sounds different though, especially when you have some overdrive. Its generally honky (brittle) when clean, but if you turn the tone down slightly it starts to sound quacky (in combo with the neck) ? - But I like it so I'm not gonna change it. ?

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Gearhead wrote: @Sidecar: Your middle is probably out of phase. Swap the leads.
Agreed. Sounds likely from what you describe - all the common frequencies cancel out and you end up with a wierd "honky" tone (think of some of Brian May's lead tones) and the output level also drops radically. If the guitar wasn't designed to have more than one pickup on at a time, it's quite likely that Hondo (or someone rewiring it later) didn't bother paying attention to pickup polarities.

However, if it's just a small level drop and the tone gets more "quacky" than "honky" (don't you love these precise descriptions?), it may be just the usual Strat thing where a few equally spaced frequencies get knocked out (called "comb filtering") and the resonant frequency goes up. How is the volume of the middle pickup on it's own? If it's low it can also cause a volume drop on the 'tween settings.

[deleted]

Stratisfear wrote: Any reason for that? elaborate

Yes. The desire to be different. hahahaha

My main band is a trio, and I just haven't found many uses for the neck-or-bridge-biased positions for the type of music we play. I actually like the balanced tone of the middle pickup for clean sounds.

At home or if I'm playing with someone else taking care of the underlying melodic burden, I'm happy to whack some hoary old neck-pickup Strat tones over the top...

Perhaps Tailon and Neps can now give me some feedback as to whether my reasoning is good or not. ?