Pots and caps

[andrewsrea]

After 40 years, I am still experimenting and learning.

Preface: I like a guitar to sound full on '10' on the guitar's volume rich, but a little less bassy from '6' to '9', bright, but not strident from '2' to '5' and off at '0'. I like the tone controls to be slightly less perceivable as I roll the volume down.

In building a Highway 1 H-S-S Strat pickguard for a friend, I came up with this:
- Vintage wiring: CRL 5-way switch with the left rail switching the pickup combinations and the right rail, the tone pots. The left rail 'common' gets wired to lug #3 on the volume and the right (tone) common to the #2 lug (instead of the #3, like is most commonly found).
- Volume pot: I used a Gibson A275K pot with a 680pF +150K series resistor treble bleed, attached to lugs #2 & #3. Lug #1 to ground.
- Tone Pot #1: CTS A250K pot with a 0.015uF cap wired to lug #2 and the other end to the back of the pot (ground). Lug #1 gets wired to the neck and middle pickup switch lugs on the 5-way and lug #3 is no connection. So, this is a common tone for the single coil pickups which preserves some spank.
- Tone Pot #2: a CTS A250K pot with a Push-Pull switch, to cut the polepiece coil of the humbucker. A 0.022uF cap is wired to lug #2 and the other end to the pot. Lug #1 goes to the bridge lug of the 5-way. This cap is a bit darker and even with the tone on '10', takes some of the shrill off of the bridge pickup.

Note that if you are trying this with a S-S-S Strat, use a 500pF + 200K series resistor for the treble bleed.

The pickups I built were my AMI Serenity (unpotted Alnico 2 / 7.2K DCR), an AMI EJ Middle (custom stagger rod mags & 6.4K DCR) and AMI EJ Neck (custom stagger & 5.8K). This exceeded my expectations of how balanced it sounded through all 5 of the sections and that there were no tone compromises. I tested it on my 1996 American Standard and it sounded beautiful in every amp I own.

If you are looking to get your Strat to behave without a trade-off, this wiring may be the ticket for you.