How to add individual on/off switches for each pickup to your Strat
Hello and welcome back to āMod Garage.ā Thanks for all the emails during the last few weeks. Lots of people have asked me about modding a Stratocaster with three individual on/off switches for the pickups, to replace the traditional 5-way pickup selector switch, so here it is.
Replacing the common 5-way pickup selector switch on a Strat with three individual on/ off switches is more or less a variation of the ā7-sound Stratā mod we discussed in detail earlier. With three individual switches, itās possible to dial in the bridge/neck pickups together in parallel (as you can do with any Telecaster) as well as all three pickups together in parallel. You canāt do this with the traditional Strat wiring and a 5-way switch. The easiest solution is to simply route the neck pickup via an additional toggle switch and youāre done (for further details please see my earlier column about this subject).
So why would someone replace the traditional 5-way switch on a Strat with on/off switches? There are several reasons: 1. with three switches in a row, itās easier to visualize what pickups are selected; 2. it looks cool and will get some attention because itās different; 3. with three push-pull or push-push pots for controls, itās possible to build a pickguard without any switching controls on the surface (this will look even cooler on a beautifully grained wooden Strat pickguard) 4. three on/off switches are much cheaper than a 5-way switch, so it can be economical when building a new Strat pickguard from scratch; 5. itās easier to do some special mods with this configuration, so youāll often find this on heavily modified Strats.
In a nutshell, this is like cutting a 5-way switch into three equal pieces and connecting each pickup to one of the pieces. Electrically, itās the same as having the 5-way switch, so it will have no influence on your tone. To start, you need three on/on SPDT toggle switches of your choice. You can also use on/on SPDT push switches, push-pull or push-push pots, or any other switching device of your choice. For this mod, I recommend you use a new pickguard without the routed slit for the typical 5-way switch. Such pickguards are available from many sources and will definately look better than drilling three new holes in addition to the (now unpopulated) slit. Naturally, you can use your stock pickguard and drill away. Itās your axe, and you have to like it!
As mentioned earlier, a beautiful wooden pickguard allows you to use three push-pull or push-push pots to switch pickups, so you wonāt have anything on the surface besides the three knobs. This really looks cool and will definitely get your axe noticed. Some time ago, I had a customer who wanted three touch-sensitive switches underneath the pickguard, so he just had to tap a certain spot on the pickguard to dial in the desired pickup combination. This is also possible and could raise a few eyebrows. As always (in case you havenāt done it before), printing out the standard Stratocaster wiring and placing it on your workbench is a good way to start. This way, itās much easier for you to see and understand the differences from the modded schematic.
Wiring diagram courtesy Seymour Duncan Pickups and used by permission. Seymour Duncan and the stylized S are registered trademarks of Seymour Duncan Pickups, with which Premier Guitar magazine is not affiliated. |
Letās Get Started
First of all, desolder all connections from the 5-way switch and take it off. Naturally, you donāt have to do this when youāre building a new pickguard from scratch. Decide what switching device you like best, and install it on the pickguard. Now connect everything as shown in the drawing below and youāre done. Itās very easy to do, and if you compare this wiring with a traditional one, using a 5-way switch, itās very easy to see how these switches substitute for the function of the 5-way switch. Each toggle switch has an input (middle lug) to connect the pickup, and an output (bottom lug), to connect to the next switch, and finally to the input lug of the master volume potājust the same as on the 5-way switch, but with individual switches. The upper lug of each switch is connected to ground. To make this connection easier, each of these lugs is connected together, and only one has an additional ground connection, to ground all three switches. This will save you from a cable mess on the pickguard. Alright, thatās it! Itās a simple mod, and you have only to decide if you want it or need it. Based on the number of requests I received, I assume a lot of players need it.
Stay tuned for more Strat mods coming in the months ahead. Until then... keep on modding!
Dirk Wacker
Dirk Wacker lives in Germany and has been addicted to all kinds of guitars since the age of five. He is fascinated by anything that has something to do with old Fender guitars and amps. He hates short scales and Telecaster neck pickups, but loves twang. In his spare time he plays country, rockabilly, surf and Nashville styles in two bands, works as a studio musician for a local studio and writes for several guitar mags. He is also a hardcore DIY guy for guitars, amps and stompboxes and runs an extensive webpage singlecoil.com about these things.
PG contributor Tom Butwin demos 7 direct boxes ā active and passive ā showing off sound samples, features, and real-world advice. Options from Radial, Telefunken, Hosa, Grace Design, and Palmer offer solutions for any input, setting, and budget.
Grace Design m303 Active Truly Isolated Direct Box
The Grace Design m303 is an active, fully isolated DI box, delivering gorgeous audio performance for the stage and studio. Our advanced power supply design provides unbeatable headroom and dynamic range, while the premium Lundahl transformer delivers amazing low-end clarity and high frequency detail. True elegance, built to last.
Rupert Neve Designs RNDI-M Active Transformer Direct Interface
Compact design, giant tone. The RNDI-M brings the stunning tone & clarity of its award-winning counterparts to an even more compact and pedalboard-friendly format, with the exact same custom Rupert Neve Designs transformers and discrete FET input stage as the best-selling RNDI, RNDI-S and RNDI-8.
Telefunken TDA-1 1-channel Active Instrument Direct Box
The TDA-1 phantom powered direct box uses high-quality components and classic circuitry for rich, natural sound. With discrete Class-A FET, a European-made transformer, and a rugged metal enclosure, it delivers low distortion and a broad frequency response. Assembled and tested in Connecticut, USA, for reliable performance and superior sound.
Hosa SideKick Active Direct Box
The Hosa SideKick DIB-445 Active DI delivers clear, strong signals for live and studio use. Ideal for guitars, basses, and keyboards, it minimizes interference over long runs. Features include a pad switch, ground lift, and polarity flip. With a flat frequency response and low noise, it ensures pristine audio.
Radial JDI Jensen-equipped 1-channel Passive Instrument Direct Box
The Radial JDI preserves your instrumentās natural tone with absolute clarity and zero distortion. Its Jensen transformer delivers warm, vintage sound, while its passive design eliminates hum and buzz. With a ruler-flat response (10Hzā40kHz) and no phase shift, the JDI ensures pristine sound in any setup.
Radial J48 1-channel Active 48v Direct Box
The Radial J48 delivers exceptional clarity and dynamic range, making it the go-to active DI for professionals. Its 48V phantom-powered design ensures clean, powerful signal handling without distortion. With high headroom, low noise, and innovative power optimization, the J48 captures your instrumentās true toneāperfect for studio and stage.
PalmerĀ River Series - Ilm
The Palmer ilm, an upgraded version of the legendary Palmer The Junction, delivers studio-quality, consistent guitar tones anywhere. This passive DI box features three analog speaker simulations, ensuring authentic sound reproduction. Its advanced filter switching mimics real guitar speaker behavior, making it perfect for stage, home, or studio recording sessions.
Learn more from these brands!
PRS Guitars launches the CE 22 Limited Edition, featuring a 22-fret, 25ā scale length, mahogany body, maple top, and vintage-inspired 58/15 LT pickups. With only 1,000 made, this model offers classic PRS aesthetics and a blend of warmth and bolt-on articulation for vintage-inspired tone and modern versatility.
PRS Guitars today announced the launch of the CE 22 Limited Edition. Only 1,000 will be made, marking the brief return of a 22-fret version of this bolt-on mainstay. The 22-fret, 25ā scale length CE 22 Limited Edition combines a mahogany body and maple top with a bolt-on maple neck. The guitar is outfitted with PRSās vintage-inspired 58/15 LT pickups, push/pull tone control, three-way toggle switch, and PRS locking tuners with wing buttons.
āThis limited-edition, 22-fret model in our CE line offers classic PRS aesthetics and a voice that blends warmth with bolt-on articulation for vintage-inspired tone and modern versatility,ā said PRS Guitars Director of Manufacturing, Paul Miles.
The original CE, with 24 frets, first appeared in stores in 1988 and offered players PRS design and quality with the added snap and response of traditional bolt-on guitars. It wasnāt until 1994 that a 22-fret version debuted, just a few months after the release of the Custom 22. Last in stores in 2008, this refreshed CE 22 Limited Edition marks the modelās return to the market.
With a unique combination of specs, the CE 22 Limited Edition is a different animal from the CE 24. These differences include the model of pickups, placement of pickups, and, of course, the number of frets. That is all while retaining the CE familyās combination of maple and mahogany, nitro finish, PRS Patented Tremolo and Phase III Locking Tuners.
The limited-edition model comes in Black Amber, Carroll Blue, Faded Blue Smokeburst, Faded Gray Black and McCarty Sunburst.
For more information, please visit prsguitars.com.
CE 22 Limited Edition | Demo | PRS Guitars - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.Delicious, dynamic fuzz tones that touch on classic themes without aping them. Excellent quality. Super-cool and useful octave effect.
Canāt mix and match gain modes.
$349
Great Eastern FX Co. Focus Fuzz Deluxe
Adding octave, drive, and boost functions to an extraordinary fuzz yields a sum greater than its already extraordinary parts.
One should never feel petty for being a musical-instrument aesthete. You can make great music with ugly stuff, but youāre more likely to get in the mood for creation when your tools look cool. Great Eastern FXās Focus Fuzz Deluxe, an evolution of their trĆØs Ć©lĆ©gantFocus Fuzz, is the sort of kit you might conspicuously keep around a studio space just because it looks classy and at home among design treasures likeRoland Space Echoes, Teletronix LA-2As, andblonde Fender piggyback amps. But beneath the FFDās warmly glowing Hammerite enclosure dwells a multifaceted fuzz and drive that is, at turns, beastly, composed, and unique. Pretty, it turns out, is merely a bonus.
Forks in the Road
Though the Cambridge, U.K.-built FFD outwardly projects luxuriousness, it derives its ādeluxeā status from the addition of boost, overdrive, and octave functions that extend an already complex sound palette. Unfortunately, a significant part of that fuzzy heart is a Soviet-era germanium transistor that is tricky to source and limited the original Focus Fuzz production to just 250 units. For now, the Focus Fuzz Deluxe will remain a rare bird. Great Eastern founder David Greaves estimates that he has enough for 400 FFDs this time out. Hopefully, the same dogged approach to transistor sourcing that yielded this batch will lead to a second release of this gem, and on his behalf we issue this plea: āTransistor hoarders, yield your troves to David Greaves!ā
The good news is that the rare components did not go to waste on compromised craft. The FFDās circuit is executed with precision on through-hole board, with the sizable Soviet transistor in question hovering conspicuously above the works like a cross between a derby hat and B-movie flying saucer. If the guts of the FFD fail to allay doubts that youāre getting what you paid for, the lovingly designed enclosure and robust pots and switchesānot to mention the pedalās considerable heftāshould take care of whatever reticence remains.
Hydra in Flight
Just as in the original Focus Fuzz, the fuzz section in the Deluxe deftly walks an ideal path between a germanium Fuzz Faceās weight and presence, a Tone Benderās lacerating ferocity, and the focus of a Dallas Rangemaster. You donāt have to strain to hear that distillate of elements. But even if you canāt easily imagine that combination, what you will hear is a fuzz that brims with attitude without drowning in saturation. Thereās lots of dynamic headroom, youāll feel the touch responsiveness, and youāll sense the extra air that makes way for individual string detail and chord overtones. It shines with many different types of guitars and amps, too. I was very surprised at the way it rounded off the sharp edges made by a Telecaster bridge pickup and AC15-style combo while adding mass and spunk. The same amp with a Gibson SG coaxed out the Tony Iommi-meets-Rangemaster side of the fuzz. In any combination, the fuzz control itself, which boosts gain while reducing bias voltage (both in very tasteful measure) enhances the vocabulary of the guitar/amp pairing. That range of color is made greater still by the fuzzās sensitivity to guitar volume and tone attenuation and touch dynamics. Lively clean tones exist in many shades depending on your guitar volume, as do rich low-gain overdrive sounds.
The drive section is similarly dynamic, and also quite unique thanks to the always versatile focus control, which adds slight amounts of gain as well as high-mid presence. At advanced focus levels, the drive takes on a fuzzy edge with hints of Fender tweed breakup and more Black Sabbath/Rangemaster snarl. Itās delicious stuff with Fender single-coils and PAFs, and, just as with the fuzz, itās easily rendered thick and clean with a reduction in guitar volume or picking intensity. The boost, meanwhile, often feels just as lively and responsiveājust less filthyālending sparkle and mass to otherwise thin and timid combo amp sounds.
Among this wealth of treats, the octave function is a star. It works with the fuzz, drive, or boost. But unlike a lot of octave-up effects, you neednāt approach it with caution. Though it adds plenty of the buzzing, fractured, and ringing overtones that make octave effects so wild and distinct, it doesnāt strip mine low end from the signal. The extra balance makes it feel more musical under the fingers and even makes many chords sound full and detailedāa trick few octave effects can manage. With the fuzz, the results are concise, burly, and articulate single notes that lend themselves to lyrical, melodic leads and power chords. In drive-plus-octave mode, there are many hues of exploding practice-amp trash to explore. The boost and the octave may be my favorite little gem among the FFDās many jewels, though. Adding the octave to boosted signals with a generous heap of focus input yields funky, eccentric electric-sitar tones that pack a punch and are charged with character in their fleeting, flowering state.
Ā The Verdict
Itās hard to imagine adding extra footswitches to the Focus Fuzz Deluxe without sacrificing its basic elegance and proportions, and without elevating its already considerable price. Certainly, there would be real utility in the ability to mix and match all three excellent gain modes. On the other hand, the output level differences between fuzz, drive, and boost are pretty uniform, meaning quick switches on the fly will shift texture and attitude dramatically without delivering an ear-frying 30 dB boost. And though itās hard not be tantalized by sounds that might have been, from combining the fuzz and/or boost and drive circuits, the myriad tones that can be sourced by blending any one of them with the superbly executed octave effect and the varied, rangeful focus and output controls will keep any curious tone spelunker busy for ages. For most of them, I would venture, real treasure awaits.
Why is Tommyās take on āDay Tripperā so hard? And what song would Adam Miller never play with him? Plus, we get Adamās list of favorite Tommy Emmanuel records.
We call guitarist Adam Miller in the middle of the night in Newcastle, Australia, to find out what itās like to play with Certified Guitar Player, Tommy Emmanuel. Miller tells us just how famous Tommy is in Australia, and what it was like hearing him play from a formative age. Eventually, Adam got to open for Emmanuel, and theyāve since shared the stage, so we get the firsthand scoop: Why is Tommyās take on āDay Tripperā so hard? And what song would Miller never play with him? Plus, we get Adamās list of favorite Tommy Emmanuel records.
Adamās newly released trio album, Timing, is out now.
Plus, weāre talking about new recordings from Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton, as well as Brooklyn Mediterranean surf party band Habbina Habbina.