• Registered: 2009-10-10
  • Posts: 438

Topic: Strat Mod

I hate to bring this up after my anti-Fender speech a few weeks ago but I have gravitated back to my Strat lately. Call me Mr. Wishy Washy. I am so used to the Strat necks.   I have never had a strat that I didn't need to mod, but that may be because I purchased only American Standards.  Gotta have that 22nd fret!  Anyway, I don't record I play live.  I needed more beef for a five piece classic/blues rock band.  I have a Seymour Duncan JB Jr. in the bridge position, a Rio Grande Half Breed in the middle, and the first part of the mod, a Fender SCN bridge pick up in the neck position. (Yes, I said bridge pick up in the neck position) This pick up mates very well with the Jb Jr. in the bridge.  Thicker and fuller but still somewhat stratty.  The second part of the mod, my friend put a 500K volume pot in.  I now have very good control on the volume knob. I have very usable volume down to "1" on the volume knob!The 500K pot probably won't work with stock strat pickups, but single coil sized humbuckers and noiseless pick ups love it.  My friend also put a capacitor in but I will have to get the details from him if anyone is interested.  It is supposed to help with high end loss as you reduce the volume and I believe it does.  Just thought I would share this.  Also, one of Joe's old Pain and Sorrow videos helped ignite my strat return, along with a heavy dose of Eric Gales.

  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: Strat Mod

The mod your talking about is a very simple one called either Treble Bleed, or volume mod.  On your Volume Pot you have 3 lugs to solder to.  The first one is from the selector switch and is your signal after the Tone pots did their thing.  The Middle is the signal going out to the input jack.  The last one is soldered to the casing as a ground (neat trick is to switch this lug with the first one If your a Lefty playing a righty guitar, it makes the volume work in reverse or counter clockwise) With a capacitor and a resistor tied together and tinned you can solder these between the first lug I was talking about and the middle.  The values are 680pF/220K (single coils) and 1000pF/220K (humbuckers).  You can buy them both at radio shack for about
50¢

AD3THREE's Website

3 Reply by DAN (edited by DAN 2010-05-21 14:30:46)

  • DAN
  • Gold Member
  • Offline
  • From: Lima, Ohio
  • Registered: 2010-01-14
  • Posts: 94

Re: Strat Mod

I removed the Lace Sensors from my(black and maple) 90 Strat Plus and installed SCN pups and the treble bleed cap..... you get a nice crackling transparent plastic pickguard (hollow) tone. I only have 250k pots however.
I really like the Wilkinson roller nut....I found out after the ''recall'' of sorts on the original design, that I could have gotten the better, second (open slots) roller nut for free from my dealer. I did this job carefully....buying the exact size metric drill bit for the new nut, and the black plastic spacer under this nut matches my black finish!

I to fluctuate between guitars. This Strat mod is the only mod I have ever done to a guitar. I am a purist, but for some reason, look at the Strat as a guitar to go ahead and modify. The L Paul....No Way...to perfect and pretty to mess with.
My 02' ash Tele, 2 tone sunburst, has nothing on it to modify.....the original design unchanged  from 1948........and should not cost you $1,500.00 to buy an American series! Two pieces of wood slapped together, that's it!....OH well ....sorry.....>> DAN

PS ...the roller nut and the Schaller locking tuners work well keeping this Strat in tune...for my limited wang bar use. I think over all if any guitar keeps going out of tune easily, you need to diagnose and correct. Learning how to intonate your own guitar with the Boss TU-12 tuner...that has a needle to watch, not an LED light type tuner, will really help you  understand tuning issues. When the needle on the tuner indicates an adjustment to the saddle is needed, the visual aspect of seeing this adjustment helps you understand tuning, and helps your ear training. Hard knocks I went threw before owning a tuner and relying on any AC/DC opening chord......typically ''A" to start my tuning. (The "A" note droning bell from Hell's Bells!)...When I change strings, I tug on the new strings at the 12th fret to stretch them, retune, and stretch a second time, and retune....put the guitar away for a week or two, and it stays in tune.....maybe I'm just lucky....but I really struggled in this area when I first started....tuning in octives with my ear, and the guitar not in tune. Then I learned about intonation and it changed my life.....sorry I'm off topic....Thanks Dan

79' Epiphone Genesis Custom, 89' pre-reissue Les Paul Standard, 90'Strat Plus,
02' Tele (ash), 91' Martin HD-28, Epi A-12 acoustic, Fender Hot Rod Deville 2x12
  • From: Detroit
  • Registered: 2006-06-02
  • Posts: 5,807

Re: Strat Mod

on both my strats I moved the tone knob from the middle pickup over to the bridge pickup. Not a whole lot too exciting, but it makes the bridge pickup less ear piercing.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping. cool
  • From: Lancashire
  • Registered: 2008-02-26
  • Posts: 700

Re: Strat Mod

I have my strats with the middle tone connected to both the bridge and middle pick ups seems to work well for me.

  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: Strat Mod

Ever try a blending pot?  Those can produce some fun tones.  blend in like a neck pickup to any other pickup your using and have a master tone control.  I think I've more or less tried every mod you can do on a stratocaster and honestly the good old 5 way switch 2 tone pots and a volume is still by far the best thing going for a Strat style guitar.

AD3THREE's Website

7 Reply by GuyBlauser (edited by GuyBlauser 2012-01-04 12:26:54)

  • Registered: 2011-02-01
  • Posts: 1

Re: Strat Mod

I don't know I got a mexican stratocaster to fiddle around and customize it a little bit ! And I was amazed at how good it sounded, especially in the dual pick-up mode (setting 2 and 4 on the pickup switch). It is amazing value for money !

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