S-Tastic Mod

[brians]

I have performed the S-Tastic mod on two guitars now. The first was several years ago and I loved it. Got rid of the guitar and was feeling nostalgic for the old tone so I bought a Squier Cherryburst strat and did it again. (I had intended to do the Double Barrel switching but would have had to rout the body cavity for the switch) Not as good this time as the old guitar had Texas Specials which sounded better than the Squier pickups.

So now I have bought a new set of Texas specials to put in the Squier (Not Fender, Guitar Fetish Texas specials). The thing I liked most about the S-Tastic mod is playing it with the bridge and middle in series. The thing I liked least was the interaction of the middle pickup volume with the master volume. I usually ended up with the middle pickup either on or off using its volume.

Now John is recommending a second tone control to help with the problem but I don't want to add a another pot or use a concentric pot.

So, that got me thinking. Why not just put the middle pickup on a SPST switch to switch it on and off. Since I like the series tones better than the parallel tones, it would be no great shakes to wire it in so that it is ether on in series or off. That would free up the middle volume to be used as a tone again and give me more combinations of series wiring which I like the best anyway.

Has anyone here tried this before? Is there any potential problem with the overall plan I'm not seeing?

Thanks
Brian

[pete12345]

Wiring the middle pickup for series/off is really easy. You wire up the pickup in series with the rest of the circuit (bridge+neck 'ground' goes to middle 'hot') and wire an SPST switch around the middle pickup. When the switch is on, the middle pickup is shorted and essentially out of the circuit. When the switch is off, the middle pickup is on and in series with the others.



Here's my setup. The tele switch selects bridge/neck/both in series, and S2 switches the middle pickup on or off. All you need to do is replace my bridge/neck wiring with the T-riffic schematic.

P.S. separate tones are really useful with pickups in series. With one tone acting on two pickups, and another on the third, you can get some really nice tones, and even approximate the parallel tones.

Pete

[brians]

Jun 27, 2008 12:56:07 GMT -5 pete12345 said:

Wiring the middle pickup for series/off is really easy. You wire up the pickup in series with the rest of the circuit (bridge+neck 'ground' goes to middle 'hot') and wire an SPST switch around the middle pickup. When the switch is on, the middle pickup is shorted and essentially out of the circuit. When the switch is off, the middle pickup is on and in series with the others.



Here's my setup. The tele switch selects bridge/neck/both in series, and S2 switches the middle pickup on or off. All you need to do is replace my bridge/neck wiring with the T-riffic schematic.

P.S. separate tones are really useful with pickups in series. With one tone acting on two pickups, and another on the third, you can get some really nice tones, and even approximate the parallel tones.

Pete

Thanks. That is kinda what I had planned. I already have my S-Tastic switch wired up but I think it is about the same as the T-riffic. Except for the mid tone control.

Brian

[pete12345]

Yeah, the S-tastic is derived from the T-riffic, so the wiring for the bridge/neck is the same. All you need to do is wire in the middle to this. If you didn't want to add an extra switch to the pickguard you could use a push/pull pot for the middle tone, with the switch part turning the pickup on or off.

Pete

[brians]

Jun 28, 2008 4:05:22 GMT -5 pete12345 said:

Yeah, the S-tastic is derived from the T-riffic, so the wiring for the bridge/neck is the same. All you need to do is wire in the middle to this. If you didn't want to add an extra switch to the pickguard you could use a push/pull pot for the middle tone, with the switch part turning the pickup on or off.

Pete

My guitar isn't routed deep enough under the pots for a DPDT pot. Did finish wiring it up today though with a switch. Just ran the signal comming off the mega switch through the SPST and the mid pickup. Worked out pretty well with the new pickups. I may change the way the tone pots are wired in the future though. Right now I have the middle pickup on its own tone pot so it is kinda working as a master tone pot. Would like to wire the bridge and neck on their own tone pots but not quite sure how to do it right now.

Thanks
Brian

[pete12345]

Simple: one tone pot/capacitor is wired directly around the middle pickup, the other goes around the whole T-riffic scheme. If you follow the wiring for the T-riffic, that will show you how to wire the neck/bridge tone.

Pete

[brians]

Jun 29, 2008 4:15:10 GMT -5 pete12345 said:

Simple: one tone pot/capacitor is wired directly around the middle pickup, the other goes around the whole T-riffic scheme. If you follow the wiring for the T-riffic, that will show you how to wire the neck/bridge tone.

Pete

Ha. I didn't think of grounding the mid tone pot to the SPDT. That would cut it out when the mid pickup is off. Have to do that next time I change strings. Must say though, Im liking it much better now with the new switch since I dialed in my pickup height. Bottom end was a bit ratty before cause the pickups were too close to the strings. Thanks for the help Pete. How would you wire a seperate tone for the bridge and neck instead?

Brian

[setain]

Wiring separate tone controls is simple, just short across the pickup with a pot and a cap (in series of course.) That way it will work in both series and parallel.
If that doesn't make sense, look at Pete's schematic: the bridge tone control is wired the way I'm trying to describe.

[pete12345]

If you want a tone control to act on a single pickup, just wire it around that pickup. For a tone control acting on a switched pair, wire it around the whole switching arrangement. They're really useful for series wiring, as turning down one tone control also allows some high frequencies to bleed through from the other pickups in the chain.

In this case, just follow the wiring for the S-tastic for the main two pickups, but connect the 'ground' connection of the switching and main tone to the middle pickup 'hot' wire instead of to the jack ground. Disregard all other wiring shown for the middle pickup. The middle tone and on/off switch both connect to the same places as the middle pickup.

Pete