Strat mod ideas

[chaosinfaith]

Hey there

Having found guitarnuts.com extremely useful, I thought I would pitch some ideas I've been having on this board and hopefully get some input.

I have a Fender Strat that I've had since I was very young (had it for 5-10 years). The only indication that it is in fact a real Fender or a strat is that it looks like one (SSS and so on), the peeling sticker decal on the neck and what appears to be a genuine Fender trem bridge... it has no serial, neck date, body date, or pot dates. It seems quite old - the inside of the body is very rough, unlike a lot of new-ish guitars I've looked inside, and there's a general worn look about it.

It has been heavily modified at various points. None of the screws match, and electrically its a mess, some of it done with completely exposed wire, etc. One of the tone pots appears to do nothing, and the other controls volume. The volume also controls volume.

If anyone is interested or could tell me anything about it, the pots say "M250k?A 39 C" and the 5 way says "PA222-673 8" on one side and "MADE IN USA", "<CRL>", and "PAT NO. 2503885" on the other. I can also draw up a schematic of how the guitar is wired now, but I not sure there would be much point.

Starting with this and my desire to have a guitar that functions the way I want it to, I have decided to carry out some work on it. Firstly, and obviously, I'm going to shield it. Secondly, I want to do something along the lines of the ToneMonster 2.

I want to have individual pick-up on/off controls, and a serial/parallel switch, giving me four switches. I also want to add an extra tone pot (probably using mini-pots and smaller knobs in order to fit it all, giving me individual tone control for all three pickups and a master volume control. I may or may not change the pickups, probably will.

To get everything to sit nicely, and because the present pickguard is a bit warped and not very nice, I'm planning to get a custom pickguard made (from somewhere like terrapinguitars.com) with four pot holes where the three normally are, and four switch holes roughly where the 5 way normally is.


Any thoughts? Does it sound doable?

[sumgai]

CIF,

Doable, yes. Worthwhile, maybe.

Before you spend this kind of time and effort, ask yourself one or two more questions: do I like the feel (and maybe the looks) of this body and neck? And do I like the tone of the pickups?

If the answer is yes to both, then dig in, 'cause you're in for a treat when you're finished. If you have to buy new pickups, figure the cost of those into the equation. If you don't like the body or neck, then before you do any shielding work, carefully consider how long you'll use this beast before you chuck it for a new one.

And if there are absolutely no identifying marks other than that decal, then I'd get a little suspicious. Unless you've either bathed the headstock in paint thinner, or else you've taken the ax on stage and bashed the bejabbers out of it, then that decal should never peel up.

Them's my two kroners worth, about all I've got in my pocket today. HTH


sumgai

[dunkelfalke]

it should also work with stock pickguard, a push pull pot for volume and a concentric pot for two tone controls at once.

[chaosinfaith]

Sumgai,

I do like the body and neck and overall look of the beast, and I've used it so long I can't really imagine playing anything else. I also like the sound of it, and although I've always been fairly suspicious of it and how genuine it actually is, its got some nice parts and I like it.

I think I'm going to start drawing up schematics at some point over the next few days.

While it could probably be done fairly well with push-pull pots, I've found I prefer having dedicated pots and switches for everything, and I'm not overly bothered by the look of having a few more knobs and switches than a stock.

[JohnH]

chaosinfaith said:

Starting with this and my desire to have a guitar that functions the way I want it to, I have decided to carry out some work on it. Firstly, and obviously, I'm going to shield it. Secondly, I want to do something along the lines of the ToneMonster 2.

I want to have individual pick-up on/off controls, and a serial/parallel switch, giving me four switches. I also want to add an extra tone pot (probably using mini-pots and smaller knobs in order to fit it all, giving me individual tone control for all three pickups and a master volume control.

Certainly doable, and the ToneMonster2 could be adapted to suit. That would involve removing the blender pot if not wanted, and adding the tone controls. I suggest doing that by putting one tone pot/cap directly across each pup between the two wires of each coil, before they connect to any switches. That way, each tone control will travel with the respective pup as it gets connected or disconnected in series and parallel combinations. My guess would be that 500k pots would be best for all of them.

cheers

John

[sumgai]

CIF,

I do like the body and neck and overall look of the beast, and I've used it so long I can't really imagine playing anything else. I also like the sound of it, and although I've always been fairly suspicious of it and how genuine it actually is, its got some nice parts and I like it.

Then do it!

Seriously, don't let me or anyone else dissuade you, you've got no reason not to do this. Comfort with an "old buddy" is worth as much as, or more than, perceived resale value.

And have fun. Hell, take pictures of your progress and post 'em here when you're done! ;D


sumgai

[chaosinfaith]

Thanks for the support.

I've been thinking some more and started drawing. I'm still trying to get my head around a lot of the diagrams and workings of everything, but I think I'm developing a fair understanding.

Putting the tone pots for each pickup before any switches seems like a sensible thing to do, I will bear it in mind.

Now I'm wondering if it would be possible to do what I already outlined, but with in-phase, off, out-of-phase controls for the pickups (like the Individual Pick-up Selection mod on the main site). My suspicion is that it might complicate the whole process a bit, but it would let me do essentially every combination of in-phase, out-of-phase, parallel and series for any of the pickups.

I emailed terrapinguitars about having a custom pickguard made, and it seems fairly straightforward (edit a photoshop template and so on), I started drawing a schem, will post it tomorrow along with some pictures of the guitar in its present state. I'll try to post any updates I can... this will pretty much be a complete overhaul of my guitar and I'm hoping the end result will be well worth it.

[Runewalker]

Pickgaurds

Terraphin is great but pricey especially on one-offs.

If you are going the TM2 rout or even TM1 on GN1 then your most economical approach is Warmoth. On a strat They will put any array of standard holes you want - 1 2 or 3 Pot holes, nearly any array of pups, and 8 or 11 mounting holes. I have never asked, but suspect that the 4 or more mini-toggle holes may be extra or so non-standard as to be un available.

However, the holes are easy to drill, just take a little precision and technique, which I can discuss if you go that route. (1/4" drill bit).

What your will give up compared to Terrapin is their enormous selection of pickgaurd materials and 2 to 3 X the cost. Warmoth semi customs are readily available for $22.

Switching Config

I discussed with JH the idea of the On-On-Ons for the selectors when were first walking through the options, giving the OoP, but he indicated:

a) that there are complications in the wiring that preclude that approach (at least that is my recollection), and

b) OoP, while nice to have, demonstrably thins the tone. The utility of the sound is maximized by having it available to the neck pup, as that gives you 3 of the primary combos ([NM, NB, NMB] ignoring the repeats in System Seri/Para). The only one you loose is MB, and some would argue, but the loss is negligible, since NB OoP is very close.

Here also is where the Blender shines in the TM2 as you dial up the amount of wacky OoP in the mix, a little or full-bore Jimmy Page.

A final thought. To reinforce positive ergonomics in live play, you want to minimize the "fiddilyness" of your switches. Trying to find On / Off / or OoP in the middle of a song is clunky when on a multifunction switch that has the critical role of taking pups in and out of the array.

In a lot of these designs Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. There are designs out there that get a mathematically calculated 96 or more combos, and fully 70% are redundant sounds. The real art in these designs is deriving abundant but distinct voices, Selecting the "optimum" array and achieving ergonomically easy palliate management.

Sorry for the editorializing (but aparently that won't stop me). I think most of us have gone down the road of "I gotta have it all." And coming from a generation where "Excess is Best," I certainly had to get that out of my system.

I am now trying to determine what are the sounds that are used 80-85% of the time. The other 15-20%, qualify as novelty sounds. Build one to get you there (novelties), but your home instrument needs to be easy to play and manuver, so develop your list of 10-15 gotta have sounds, then design the ergonomics to accomodate rapid swithing. Using a standard or no more than 1 or 2 motions to get you to an array in the middle of a song.

I think the short list of critical sounds on a strat are:

the 5 standard strat sounds

Then

• N/B para and series
  
• N/M Series
  
• M/B series - there's your fat strat
  
• N/M/B series - time to power up Chicago
  
• N/M/B - Para - SuperQuack
  
• OoP in series with N/M, N/B or all three.
  

So that's what, 13. You can do almost everything you need to with those. If you do the blender then you have a vast array of sub sounds within those 13. 13 X infinity?

I was watching a vid of SRV the other night, hand slamminng the 5-way blade, and twirling the vol, while he slashed and sawed out a flurry of mean tones, and had a newfound appreciation of the ease of use of the 5 way. Once you build one of these you will always miss the additional capability when you get on a conventional strat, but making arrays easy to get to is still a challenge. You do adapt readily to the toggles, but they don't take well to hand-slams. Oh well.

RW

[chaosinfaith]

I'll look into some other pickguard manufacturers as well before I order anything. My main concern was having holes I didn't want, adding holes is a much smaller concern.

While still a bit interested in the IP-off-OoP, I realize the practical concerns, such as wiring, ergonomics, etc. A thought occured, however, when I was looking around at pots. How about using push-pull pots to take pickups in and out of phase?

I know that I said I didn't really want to use push-pull pots, but I'm warming up to them for the following reasons:
- It wouldn't interfere with the feasibility of the circuit
- The regular switches would still just be on-off and thus no real ergonomics issues
- Most of the time you wouldn't need to worry about them, but if you ever wanted to take something out of phase it would be easy
- They seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong) the same size as minis (just "deeper") so no space issues.

What I mean is doing something like the following. It's only a start, the first part of the circuit, and it could be *completely* wrong. I appreciate any help I can get, because all this is quite new to me.



***EDIT*** By popular demand, shrunken. And I forgot to fix the leads. Tired and going to bed. More work tomorrow.

[UnklMickey]

hi Chaosinfaith,

"I have a Fender Strat that I've had since I was very young (had it for 5-10 years)."

i guess that means you"re young now, instead of very young. lol


nothing personal, but you guys are killin me with these wide images.

my little laptop just doesn't handle anything more than 960 pixels (wide) very well.


first, the wires you have leaving the tone controls are not where you want to take the signals from.

for instance from the bridge pickup you'll want to take the signal from 18 and 19.


second, using push-pulls on the tone pots for the phase switches seems like a reasonable idea.

i like the idea of 3 independent tone controls.

i can't predict how their effect will change when going from parallel to series. but it might not be a bad thing.


third, your real challenge is going to be in the management of the pup on-offs and the s/p switch.

unused pickups in a parallel circuits need to "leave behind" an open.

in series they need to "leave behind" a short.

so you'll need to keep that in mind when designing your wiring.



unk




BTW: welcome to GN2

[chaosinfaith]

I'll move those, I'm assuming you mean the signals at the bottom (with the dashed ends) should come off 18 and 19, 24 and 25, and so on.

I'm 18 now, so I suppose that's still quite young. I wanted something saying "young"-er.

I'll make future images smaller... the computer I'm on right now does 1440 pixels wide so it didn't occur to me.

I'm working on the rest of it, modifying the ToneMonster 2 schematics to fit with my specs.

[sumgai]

Holy Goggles, Batman, but I can't see the whole page!

Right you are, Robin, some yo-yo has linked to a Very Bad Thing!

CIF, is that you, man? Hey, don't worry, this can be fixed. Just shrink the image in your usual editing tool, and then do one of the two following things:

Post the new image right over the top of the old one, the link in your post above will still work;
or
Post the new image with a new name, then come back here and edit your post above to modify the [ img ] tag's new image location and name.

Either way, we'll all love you for it, trust me on this!


sumgai