Many people have asked about my dual capacitor wiring scheme for my Stratocasters so I thought I'd put together a short how-to video regarding this simple modification. Enjoy.
I'm absolute zero experience in guitar wiring. Or any other wiring of course. But this man has me successfully going through my 36 budget guitars one at a time, tricking them out like a boss. I don't even consider any other tutorial sites any more. Stick with the best. Cheap pickups respond to wiring upgrades every bit as good as the so called better pups do.
Did this mod, dig this mod! Left the bridge with no-tone as it sounds better just rolling the vol down and the Bridge+middle sounds clearer and springy. Tone for neck(.047uf), tone for middle ((.022uf). Mylar for neck, pio for middle...nice . Thankyou for giving me the confidence and a clear concise explanation of how and why it is done. I must add; do this in daylight and have a magnifying glass handy, get a simple Volt-meter with a buzzer to check continuity before you solder it up and triple -check all groundings even the ones you did'nt touch. Great way to learn, trial by "soldering Iron"!
Recently picked up all new electronics to wire a new pickguard for my standard. I used this mod with .047 on the bridge and .022 on neck/mid. Your diagrams and commentary were very helpful. I ended up with a Japanese PCB style switch, but once I found the diagram for that style, it was easy to figure out where everything went. Thanks!
I had a really old NOS .022uf disk cap that actually specked out to .016 and i put it in my bridge tone, going with your wiring scheme here. Absolutely exactly what I was looking for! Made my 2nd tone control AND bridge pickup usable for a change! I like to use the outside two with my 10 way mod and this makes my strat a little more flexible than it was. Soon I’ll be upgrading to a set of those 57/62s, and my strat will be leaning into Eric Johnson territory plus a few more tricks.
Don Thanks for the education! I installed two '65 strat single coils (neck & middle) & a Dimarezio Fast track II in series to the bridge. I followed your instructions perfectly - The bridge pickup works and sounds amazing. Volume & lower tone control work fine. One position up the Bridge and Middle pickup work fine. BUT!!! The neck and middle pups must be bad - no output. So I'm starting over and using new pups for neck & bridge. Also going to replace the switch & pots. Will post back with an update after the next round! MJ from Philly UPDATE: Thursday July 9th 2020. New DiMarzio Area 58, 61 & 67 pickups new 5 position switch, new pots (500k for tone - 250k for volume) and 0.22 caps on both tone pots. FINALLY it works! At first only the bridge pickup was working. Switched the wiring back to standard - all pickups worked - then... switched back to your strat mod and it's working like it should. THANKS! MrMike
I didn’t realize this a mod until seeing the title. Just replaced everything but the pups in my late 90’s beginner strat and this is how its wired up. Its the only guitar I’ve ever owned so I assumed this was how all strats are wired up.
Gave me a wonderful idea to improve the tone of my strat and tele. I have a .022 uF extra that I took out from my LP. Will see if I can add another capacitor to my strat tone pot. Good tutorial.
THANK YOU. I had a few capacitors laying around and I wanted to experiment. I couldn't figure it out before i found this. It took me 10 minutes after watching.
Thank you, these videos are very helpful. I followed your video for the dual capacitor wiring and combined it with the 7 way switch concept. It was slightly different wiring but everything seems to work really well. I am using fender vintage noiseless pick ups with CTS pots, one orange drop 047 µF capacitor for the neck and middle tone knobs and a paper and oil 047 µF capacitor for the bridge tone knob. The tone is amazing. Instructional videos were very helpful. So thanks again. Switch Off = Standard Strat. Switch On 1 = Bridge / Neck 2 = Bridge / Mid / Neck 3 = Mid / Neck 4 = same as 3 5 = Neck I know it’s not quite the same as the 7 way switch instructions, but I really wanted the dual capacitor tone settings and I only had a SPST switch. So I’m willing to live with the redundant 3 and 4 positions for now.
So far I’ve done 2 different wirings. They were accurate and spot on. These videos should be archived on other sites like Stewmac or other locations for more widespread access.
Thanks for all your videos Don! I’ve literally taught myself how to wire all my guitars thanks to your videos and some trial and error with my soldering skills …. Lol , appreciate all your help buddy and great job with how you put these videos together. Thanks again! 😎
Great video. This is just what I needed for an HSS build which with have separate tone and cap values. Add a DPDT On/On/On to setup for series/parallel/split of the humbucker and I'm set.
Going to try this with my Squier Strat. I put the Fezz Parka mod in and don't much care for it - blender mods are not really that useful to me in real world situations. I like the image at 4:08 of this vid that shows how you turn the middle pot to face the switch - avoids congestion between the two tone pots and shortens the wire run from the pot to the switch. Another great tutorial. Thanks!
There's a valid point too, that the bridge pickup shouldn't have tone control - since it's the bright pickup, and you can't turn off a tone control entirely. There are pots available which will actually open when turned all the way CW, to solve that problem. I've recently installed new pickups on my 30yo Fairmont Stratimposter, and since the new bridge pu is a 'hot' one I modded the switch wiring and used 2 caps just like in this video. Much better than the old bar-magnet pickups :-)
I love this mod. The only thing that I change is that I jumper the switch so that bridge and neck share the same tone pot (vice neck and middle). That way, at no time will two pickups be sharing the same tone pot, regardless of where the 5 way switch is set.
@@eertje01 Benefit is that no two pickups share the same tone cap in any of the 5 switch settings. The bridge and neck pickups are never active at the same time, like you would have on the middle position on a Tele. Allows for more tonal variety if you use different value tone caps. For example, I have the middle pup on a .015 cap and the neck/bridge share a .022 cap. In the video here, note at 3:25 that the diagram shows the neck and middle wired at the bridge to share the same tone cap, so when those two pickups are active (switch position 2 or 4? I forget) they share the same tone cap.
@@Secretarian OK I can understand that benefit of not sharing a tone cap. But what happens with position 2 and 4? Wouldn't you then have a double load of caps? Ergo, making those positions muddier?
Thank you Don for this great tip!! I recently bought a Fender Lite Ash Stratocaster mik, it was fitted as standard with a set of Seymour Duncan APS1's but with 500k pots. The guitar looks stunning with natural ash body and Birdseye maple neck but tone wise was weak and far too bright. I replaced the bridge pickup with a SD SSL5 and the pots with 250k's, a no load wired to the bridge. I think they used welding rods to solder the wires to the pots, my shouldering iron struggled to melt it, also the 5way switch has 8in a row. I managed to figure out it was the same as 2sets of 4 but in line, I used the 0.15pio cap on the bridge/2nd tone knob. I have just tone tested it and all I can say is WOW!! I now have usable tone in all 5 positions and when switched from 9-10 the bridge tone goes into no load and what can only be described as the sweetest sounding bridge pup in any Strat. Thanks for the wiring diagram and great tutorial, I will eventually go with your 7 way 2 cap mod, to be able to combine bridge and neck will be just sublime!!
Hi, thank you a lot for posting this mod. It's very, very useful with my Classic Vibe Stratocaster (Simon Neil Signature). It's bridge pickup were unusable and now I've a full "sound palette" to play with.
You have the best videos I have seen. I really like how you get to the point and use such great graphics to illustrate your work.Thank you for posting!
Excellent and clearly explained. I was going to waste money on changing the stock pickups. Got a good THR amp which gives me what I need already. I know a tech who can do it.
Dropped it off this morning, putting 0.022 PIO in the bridge and a 0.047 in the mid and neck with a treble bleed. In total with parts and labour, £25 to do. The tech thinks it’ll work but easily reversible
Thanks for the videos are very easy to understand. I just realized this mod on my strat and I found it fantastic. I think it will be so until the end of time. Thanks again, greetings!
It's pretty cool on the mod, usually by the other several company's wirings the suggestion has been to use a .022uf-..033uf on the bridge and .015-.022uf on the neck (infamous Woman Tone) and implemented on a Paf type Hbr. but I like ur way being even though there's even less play on the bridge, but you know it's my way too being just enough to allow the fuller bridge to reach the crunch and just enough to veer off the dreaded feedback on a higher gain when used! By chance too on my '62 Strat RI it had just one lil Blue chicklet that was fantastic on the neck-5,4,3 MId and it was pure vintage in the blends neck on 7-8 and the 3-4 on the mid tones ,..when I switched to a Twin bladed for bridge I also upgraded the cap to allow the bridge for use as well,.. I was stunned to find the lil Blue chicklet was a .1uf. I tried several more expensives but none could do the factory standard no kidding so I kept it as it was and on the bridge Twin blade (old'99 Carvin 13k) and middle turned down to 6.5-7 it sounds identically to a vintage Tele feeling,pluck picking the whole Tele Twanging feeling.!! You can only get this lil wonder on the MIM 2000 model I've tried! It's a shame they constantly keep changing everything all the time lately the PIO has it spades and the Orange Drop 225 .018-.022 is another beauty it allows at 10 bypass a brighter mid boost not present with 715-716s so it does pay and I've proved to several on hands who also know so, there's a bleeder from the 1960 Tele circle.001uf on the the Volume @ bypass 10 has a distinct crunchy tone especially with a clean boost to cleaner OD with a slight lil gain that will give a Tele dream of the sustained notes and clear clean tone, try it last I heard the circlek .001 uf can be had in limited quantities fron Chris Klein pickups along with other great vintage caps that sure make believers of the owners good pickups can be made great and great pickups can be made legendary, honest!
Thank you for posting informative, intelligent, and factual information in an easy to understand presentation. Of all the guitar mod videos on YT, you have some of the very best. This as opposed to a number of knuckle-draggers that post endlessly with their opinions on all matters of guitar, evaluations, tone, and myth-busting, which are usually wrong. You are absolutely right about quality in tone caps, they do make a difference, many manufacturers use the cheap 5cent ceramics because of cost considerations. In the '50's the PIO milspec caps were more common place and were sold as military surplus, they also happen to be very musical. For the doubters, go to Rat Shack and stick to the 10 pack of .022's for a couple of bucks and don't post how they sound exactly like Sprague Vitamin Q's.
I use a dual capacitor mod on my strats, where I add another jumper between the "neck" & "middle" tone pots, give the "middle" tone pot a capacitor, and wire them together to the common pole(s) of the switch. So then I have (on my strat) 0.147uF total potential capacitance. And I can dial in the tone on all three pickups (in any configuration)
I have a .047 (green chicklet) on my 88 MIJ Strat. I just bought a .033uf 200v K40Y-9 OIP Cap to try out as well as a .015 Treble bleed with resistor. Trying to keep the guitar as original as possible, but thought this little tweak might be a nice improvement.
Electrically, this makes sense: with an old-style 3-pos switch, only one tone control is in play at a time, so a single cap is never used in 2 tone controls. When you change to 5-pos, you can now select 2 pickups at once, but if you put 2 tone controls in parallel and there's only one cap, that cap is now smaller relative to the tone pots. With 2 caps - even of the same value- you maintain about the same RC when putting two tone ccts together, so the effect is more consistent.
Beautifully done and diagrammed! I am inclined to try this. Just a small correction, capacitors are measured in Farads (shortened to F, the largest capacitance, used in AC units and as motor starters) Pico (or Nano, pF or nF, the smallest), and Micro-farads or mF, not Micro-farans (or Micro-farens) as you stated. Maybe you just had a slip of the tongue, but I noticed it and cringed when you said it! Not trying to be an ass, however I am an electronics tech and just wanted to keep you from teaching anyone that sees this from using wrong terminology! Anyone walking into an electronics supplier saying what you did will be immediately judged as being an unqualified tech and might be treated like a newb. Otherwise this is a great vid! Cheers mate!
Yeah - I've gotten a couple of similar comments on my 'farans' word choice. Not sure why I said it that way - probably the solder fumes were getting to me. :)
I couldn't do a before/after since I tear all my guitars apart immediately and make the mod. All of my Strat videos (except for the Blacktop) have this mod in place so I hope you can get a sense of what's going on if you watch one of them. Basically - you're getting tone control on the Bridge pickup whereas with the normal Strat wiring, you don't.
I like wiring Strats with a bridge tone knob and the first tone pot for neck and mid. Also I like to have a push/pull pot to turn on the bridge pickup in the 4 and 5 positions to get just the neck and bridge or all 3 pickups on. By the way, the capacitance unit is Farads not Farins.
Could also have a 15nF always hooked up but when the switch is selected on Neck/Middle it adds in 7nF. With a bit of editing of the switch itself you can make it so the M+B is 15nF as well (would mean opening it up and taking a KNIFE too it)
Big thanks for all the amazing videos. Very helpful and well done! I have a question about the signal path to the tone knobs. When the signal travels to the tone knobs this seems like a dead end. How and where does this filtered frequency join back to the path of the original signal and out to the output? Thanks so much!
I have a mid 80's Japanese West Strat-o-Clone that has dual caps. The one on the middle tone control is tiny. I'd never seen dual caps in a stratocaster before.
I'm going to try this but add a 500k push pull pot with a 250k resistor since I have an SSH setup. I found a 70s super distortion with 2 wires and braided ground so I can't split it but it sounds awesome with 250k cts pots and an orange drop 0.47. it's my single coils that sound too muddy so I'll use a 0.22 for them on the other pot. Thanks
Hello Breja and thank you for a very informative tutorial. I have one question regarding your DUAL CAPACITOR WIRING. Due to the addition of the short Jumper Lead to share a Tone control for both Neck & Middle pickups, does selecting the Bridge and Middle pickups together actually engage both Tone Controls in that particular setting? Regards, Graeme
Thanks for this. However in position 2 (bridge and middle), both tone knobs are active. Is there a way to prevent this so the bridge tone knob is only "active" in position 1?
Excellent videos!. Can you show this same dual capacitor scheme only with a dedicated neck tone cap control and the middle and bridge with the second two cap tone control. I love the .015 for everything but the neck, were I want to make it darker for jazzier type sounds, however I simply tried what I thought would work and ended up with a tone control for the neck which also acts as a volume control. Help... Thanks for the great video.
I have a strat with 3 volume pots and one tone. I took out the switch years ago and threw in a bunch of spare pots and 3 buckers. I'm changing it to ssh and getting cts pots but want to keep my 3 volume controls. Would I just need one cap, since I only have one tone pot? And which size pots would you recommend. I was thinking 500k for the bridge buckers and two 250k for the two single coils ?
Seems like a very interesting mod, I think I'll try this! However I am a bit confused. At 4:03 you show the caps with the pots in this alternative configuration. There doesn't appear to be a ground wire running form one tone pot to the other and finally to the volume. Is there no need to ground in this case? Or are the ground wires omitted to make the example easier to follow? Either way great video, thanks for sharing!
Anthony Giacomazzi Hey Anthony... Good eyes. This is one of my secrets (or maybe I'm just the only one who does it). I'm planning on doing a simple video on it and why I do it but when using a Pickguard and you have metal nuts and washers - the foil on the back of the Pickguard acts as the ground for all of the components so there isn't really a need to ground the pots together. Some guys prefer to do the ground wire to cover themselves 'just-in-case' but I've found that if you use quality parts, metal nuts and washers - then the foil ties them all together. Hope that helps. Don
Breja ToneWorks Good point, either way it's a metal on metal ground, and it would be a lot cleaner under the pick-guard. Makes sense! That does help, thanks Don.
I love this demo and I'm a new subscriber and liker ! Maybe you can answer a question for me if you have the time. I always thought that the tone cap value for a strat was 0.47. I had a 1963 Strat and that was the value of the tone cap. I'm in the process of doing the DYI Strat and I bought the 0.47 tone caps. Did I make a mistake here should I be using the 0.22 as you used here? I know you're super busy but any advice that you could give me would be super super appreciated! Good Vibes and good tone from your new friend Jim in Seattle 🎸💯🍻🎶🔊
Thank you so much for posting these vids and being so clear with your explanations. I have a question. In many strat wirings, step one is grounding the pots together, and you don't do that in this case. (I know little to nothing about electronics, only copy guitar circuits.) Do the capacitors create a ground? If the pots were all grounded in the usual fashion, would it still work, or would it create a ground loop? Thanks again for posting, I really want to try this out.
So if you have Neck + Middle, Both Tone pots come in to play and one will out do the other to drop off the Freq ! As pose to the normal way were both Pots come in to play and it just halfs the Pot Values to 125K with say 47nF
You make great instructional videos. So easy to understand and follow. Have you any experience with the 7 way Dave Gilmore (mini toggle) Stratocaster circuit? If so, can a treble bleed mod be added to this circuit. Thanks for your time.
Thanks for all the great information Breja ToneWorks! You've saved me money and educated me as well! Would a dual capacitor and the 7 way mod be possible?
Hi super smart , helpful guy . Greetings from Nashville. I have 3 fralin Woodstocks single coils , one Grigsby 5 way , 3 CTS pots , all mounted to pickgaurd, from scratch, i was thinking about installing a fender white and blue phone book size paper cap .1 mfd 150 vdc , they offer for way over priced 15 dollars, ( i don't care) on neck , middle pot , and a Sozo 473k 500 volt on the bridge. I was hoping for super dark tones on neck for fuzz and slide tones , and a bridge pickup that gets the cocked wah effect , like my old cheap ceramic 47 did . I was curious your thoughts on my choices, be honest on what i can expect. Also , do you like position 2 , because you can blend 2 separate pickup tones , middle and bridge ? Thanks so much for all your posts
why would my middle pup have two black wires and a green ? the other pup are all black wires , does it matter about polarity with the wires ? very good video, easy to understand
Hi , BREJA ! Thanks for these precious infos about tone !Do I have to take off the two cables which were connecting the three pots together , on my strat , because of the two independants tone condensators ? Thanks again !!
Tone caps are only bypass caps, the sound does not go thru them, so it doesn´t matter much what quality they are. But it matters a lot to twist the wires tightly, to reduce noise. so you waste your energy in the wrong place.
+catboyzee I know - but that would take planning and I just get distracted and do the darn mods. Technically, all of my Strats have the Dual Cap mod installed so if you watch any of my videos with Strats (minus the Blacktop ones), you can hear this mod in place.
Hey man, nice video! I was wondering, how would one keep the tone knobs as they sit (one controlling the neck, the other the middle) but do the two capacitor wiring setup? Thanks so much
Hey just so you know an account called Diary Feel has reposted a significant amount of your content including this video. It is the same exact video with out any changes and comes up when searching for topics that should lead to your videos on your channel. You may want to look into this and submit a copy right claim if the repost is without your permission and you have not already claimed the video. Best of luck and thank you for these helpful videos.
I like watching any and all videos on pots (potentiometers) and volume and tone controls. I would point out that the F in microF stands for Farad, not Faren or Faran, and it comes from Michael Faraday as a unit of electric capacitance. I noticed that none of your tone controls, in the before and after stages, had a ground wire on them. Was the conductive material on the underside of the pickguard going to be sufficient to ground these two tone pots, or did you mean not to ground the tone pots? I liked your use of colors to show your wiring, it was very good. I have a used Squier Strat that I got for $60 and I've been trying to achieve greater tonal range for each pickup, so I'm interested in all I can learn from your videos. I'd like to try this modification, but my 5-way switch is built a little differently. I got a complete setup, prewired, from StewMac for $39 with 3 single coil ceramic pickups, 3 pots, jack and pickguard because I was trying to make sure all my parts wire in good shape.
Please. Which capacitor shall I put on a Telecaster with Vintage pups ? I would like the traditional Tele configuration. 0.22 or 0.47 ? The kit I am buying comes in these two options.
Sorry for the delay - I've been on vacation. Vintage is .47uF or even .1uF. But as I always say - it more about the sound in your head than what someone else had in their guitar.
Great layout for Strats and you can achieve more flexibility using a super-switch but I don't agree with your statement about the type of capacitors, any modern polyester (greencap) or ceramic will do the job and save you a bucket of cash. This PIO, bumble-bee,orange drop myth circulating the industry is only about the dealers charging ridiculous prices for redundant crap that should have been junked back in the 60's.
The best instructions I have seen yet. Isolating the individual wires is very clear method and helps understand the purpose of each conductor. I am replacing asian 500K volume pot and tone pots (can't tell yet if 250K or 500K) fitted with .047 tone caps with three CTS 450G audio taper 250K pots pots and .033 PIO tone caps. I plan to rewire exactly as you show. I also may install a treble bleed with .001 cap and 150K either in parallel or Kinman series method. What should I expect from tone? Do you suggest different pot or cap values? Thanks.
+Dobes49 Personally I don't like dark caps so I'd recommend going with .015uF or .022uF capacitors rather than .033uF. The 450Gs are great Pots and I use them all the time now. I always suggest guys do one mod at a time and try it first before adding a second so you might think about holding off on the treble bleed. test with the new better valued pots and caps and see - you might not actually need a treble bleed. If you do - easy enough to per er' in. Many things go into your tone so it's hard to say what to expect. If you knew the values of the old pots compared to the new, you should be able to expect better treble response and with the caps - .047uF is a dark cap so going with the values I gave you should mean you have more play in you tone pot before it gets all woofy. Happy Modding... Don
+Breja ToneWorks I just put SME (Sullivan Music- Austin) vintage pickups in the guitar and it is pretty bright now with the .047's so I may try the .033's first. The guitar sounds great with all knobs on ten but goes to hell when I try to back any of them down - hence the total rewire. I checked to see if you have a web store, but it doesn't look like you do. I did see you are in the Milwaukee area. Do you know Greg Koch? He is a funny human and a great guitar player. Thanks.
+Dobes49 Yeah - sorry.... no web store here. I do this stuff on the side from my normal job hence why it sometimes takes me a bit to get new videos up or respond to people. I do know Greg Koch - doubtful he'd remember me though it's been 15 years or so I think and Yes, he's a incredible guitar player and funny as hell sometimes.
+Breja ToneWorks As I replied in another comment I plan to wire this way. The bridge tone control appears to be pretty independent. I assumed that I would be able to control the tone on the bridge and the middle independently and tailor my position 2 sound to be very individual. Sort of like Robert Cray on steroids. Am I wrong about this idea of controlling each pickup tone individually or does the signal that gets to the volume output somehow get affected retroactively through linking inside the five way switch?
Hi Don, I have wired my Strat exactly how you have instructed on your excellent video, but I am not getting any reaction from the pick ups. Pulling my hair out! Anyone any ideas please?
hi i just completed this mod but i forget where the wire attached to the tremolo claw is to be soldered to. thanks in advance. great video,hope i did it right. we'll find out soon :)
That is a ground wire so that should get soldered to your main ground component - normally one of your pots. I forgot to add this in my video so if you wired against this video, you'd connect that claw ground wire to the top of the Volume Pot.
Great video, but one question: if you have 1 cap for the bridge and a different cap for the neck/middle, how does the affect bridge/middle sound? Wouldn't the 2 caps combine? Thanks!
The DUAL Capacitors will change the tone of the strat how so, it creates different capacitor values because .022uf in parallel with another .022uf will ADD capacitance so this should change the tone of the pickups? because some strats will have two capacitors .022uf on both tone pots for the 2nd and 4th positions selector switch.
I love how you show the diagrams step by step, very easy to follow, I wish everyone would do this.
I'm absolute zero experience in guitar wiring. Or any other wiring of course. But this man has me successfully going through my 36 budget guitars one at a time, tricking them out like a boss. I don't even consider any other tutorial sites any more. Stick with the best. Cheap pickups respond to wiring upgrades every bit as good as the so called better pups do.
Did this mod, dig this mod! Left the bridge with no-tone as it sounds better just rolling the vol down and the Bridge+middle sounds clearer and springy. Tone for neck(.047uf), tone for middle ((.022uf). Mylar for neck, pio for middle...nice . Thankyou for giving me the confidence and a clear concise explanation of how and why it is done. I must add; do this in daylight and have a magnifying glass handy, get a simple Volt-meter with a buzzer to check continuity before you solder it up and triple -check all groundings even the ones you did'nt touch. Great way to learn, trial by "soldering Iron"!
10 years and still a valid tutorial. thakn you for he hours you've saved me
Recently picked up all new electronics to wire a new pickguard for my standard. I used this mod with .047 on the bridge and .022 on neck/mid. Your diagrams and commentary were very helpful. I ended up with a Japanese PCB style switch, but once I found the diagram for that style, it was easy to figure out where everything went. Thanks!
I had a really old NOS .022uf disk cap that actually specked out to .016 and i put it in my bridge tone, going with your wiring scheme here. Absolutely exactly what I was looking for! Made my 2nd tone control AND bridge pickup usable for a change! I like to use the outside two with my 10 way mod and this makes my strat a little more flexible than it was. Soon I’ll be upgrading to a set of those 57/62s, and my strat will be leaning into Eric Johnson territory plus a few more tricks.
This is my go to channel for guitar wiring. You explain everything so even I can understand it.
I'm going to try this and yeah I know these videos are old, but I've enjoyed looking at them over and over very informative! . Pex
Great video up until the end. Cheap capacitors are indistinguishable from more expensive ones.
Don Thanks for the education! I installed two '65 strat single coils (neck & middle) & a Dimarezio Fast track II in series to the bridge. I followed your instructions perfectly - The bridge pickup works and sounds amazing. Volume & lower tone control work fine. One position up the Bridge and Middle pickup work fine. BUT!!! The neck and middle pups must be bad - no output. So I'm starting over and using new pups for neck & bridge. Also going to replace the switch & pots. Will post back with an update after the next round! MJ from Philly UPDATE: Thursday July 9th 2020. New DiMarzio Area 58, 61 & 67 pickups new 5 position switch, new pots (500k for tone - 250k for volume) and 0.22 caps on both tone pots. FINALLY it works! At first only the bridge pickup was working. Switched the wiring back to standard - all pickups worked - then... switched back to your strat mod and it's working like it should. THANKS! MrMike
I didn’t realize this a mod until seeing the title. Just replaced everything but the pups in my late 90’s beginner strat and this is how its wired up. Its the only guitar I’ve ever owned so I assumed this was how all strats are wired up.
Gave me a wonderful idea to improve the tone of my strat and tele. I have a .022 uF extra that I took out from my LP. Will see if I can add another capacitor to my strat tone pot. Good tutorial.
THANK YOU. I had a few capacitors laying around and I wanted to experiment. I couldn't figure it out before i found this. It took me 10 minutes after watching.
Best explanation i've seen! Easy and crystal clear. Save my day! Thanks a lot! Great work!
Just carried out this mod by following your first class video.
Very happy with being able to control the bridge pickup.
Thanks very much.
Thank you, these videos are very helpful. I followed your video for the dual capacitor wiring and combined it with the 7 way switch concept. It was slightly different wiring but everything seems to work really well. I am using fender vintage noiseless pick ups with CTS pots, one orange drop 047 µF capacitor for the neck and middle tone knobs and a paper and oil 047 µF capacitor for the bridge tone knob. The tone is amazing. Instructional videos were very helpful. So thanks again.
Switch Off = Standard Strat.
Switch On
1 = Bridge / Neck
2 = Bridge / Mid / Neck
3 = Mid / Neck
4 = same as 3
5 = Neck
I know it’s not quite the same as the 7 way switch instructions, but I really wanted the dual capacitor tone settings and I only had a SPST switch. So I’m willing to live with the redundant 3 and 4 positions for now.
Great video. Nice straight forward presentation and easy to understand. Thank you.
Good clear cut video's with voice, pictures and good short dialog.
Your videos are, by far, the best way to learn about the electronics in a Strat guitar. Period! Thanks for
putting them "out there".
Thanks... I appreciate the comments.
So far I’ve done 2 different wirings. They were accurate and spot on. These videos should be archived on other sites like Stewmac or other locations for more widespread access.
i understand now no need for my questions sir brejan ty
Just did this to my sons 60th Strat and also changed out the pickups. Thanks, well done and easy to follow.
Your son’s 60th birthday will be amazing
Used this video for my first project. Followed everything exactly and figured out the grounding on my own. Worked like a charm!
Thanks for all your videos Don! I’ve literally taught myself how to wire all my guitars thanks to your videos and some trial and error with my soldering skills …. Lol , appreciate all your help buddy and great job with how you put these videos together. Thanks again! 😎
Great video. This is just what I needed for an HSS build which with have separate tone and cap values. Add a DPDT On/On/On to setup for series/parallel/split of the humbucker and I'm set.
Going to try this with my Squier Strat. I put the Fezz Parka mod in and don't much care for it - blender mods are not really that useful to me in real world situations. I like the image at 4:08 of this vid that shows how you turn the middle pot to face the switch - avoids congestion between the two tone pots and shortens the wire run from the pot to the switch. Another great tutorial. Thanks!
There's a valid point too, that the bridge pickup shouldn't have tone control - since it's the bright pickup, and you can't turn off a tone control entirely. There are pots available which will actually open when turned all the way CW, to solve that problem. I've recently installed new pickups on my 30yo Fairmont Stratimposter, and since the new bridge pu is a 'hot' one I modded the switch wiring and used 2 caps just like in this video. Much better than the old bar-magnet pickups :-)
I love this mod. The only thing that I change is that I jumper the switch so that bridge and neck share the same tone pot (vice neck and middle). That way, at no time will two pickups be sharing the same tone pot, regardless of where the 5 way switch is set.
I have the same as you described in my strat. I only use 1 cap though. Whats the difference if you would use 2 caps? What's the benefit?
@@eertje01 Benefit is that no two pickups share the same tone cap in any of the 5 switch settings. The bridge and neck pickups are never active at the same time, like you would have on the middle position on a Tele. Allows for more tonal variety if you use different value tone caps. For example, I have the middle pup on a .015 cap and the neck/bridge share a .022 cap. In the video here, note at 3:25 that the diagram shows the neck and middle wired at the bridge to share the same tone cap, so when those two pickups are active (switch position 2 or 4? I forget) they share the same tone cap.
@@Secretarian OK I can understand that benefit of not sharing a tone cap. But what happens with position 2 and 4? Wouldn't you then have a double load of caps? Ergo, making those positions muddier?
Might try this when I wire up these new pots, switch, and jack I ordered. Thanks!
Thank you Don for this great tip!! I recently bought a Fender Lite Ash Stratocaster mik, it was fitted as standard with a set of Seymour Duncan APS1's but with 500k pots. The guitar looks stunning with natural ash body and Birdseye maple neck but tone wise was weak and far too bright. I replaced the bridge pickup with a SD SSL5 and the pots with 250k's, a no load wired to the bridge. I think they used welding rods to solder the wires to the pots, my shouldering iron struggled to melt it, also the 5way switch has 8in a row. I managed to figure out it was the same as 2sets of 4 but in line, I used the 0.15pio cap on the bridge/2nd tone knob. I have just tone tested it and all I can say is WOW!! I now have usable tone in all 5 positions and when switched from 9-10 the bridge tone goes into no load and what can only be described as the sweetest sounding bridge pup in any Strat. Thanks for the wiring diagram and great tutorial, I will eventually go with your 7 way 2 cap mod, to be able to combine bridge and neck will be just sublime!!
Hi, thank you a lot for posting this mod. It's very, very useful with my Classic Vibe Stratocaster (Simon Neil Signature). It's bridge pickup were unusable and now I've a full "sound palette" to play with.
:) Happy Modding...
I was looking all over for this, really simple and helpful. Keep up the great job.
Just found your channel, not gonna say anything new.. Breja your the best!
Nice info, i love it and use on my squier with orange drop 0.047 and i bought used fender pickup
You have the best videos I have seen. I really like how you get to the point and use such great graphics to illustrate your work.Thank you for posting!
+Lou Wallace I appreciate the comments and I'm glad people are finding my videos helpful or at least interesting. Happy Modding.
You have the best mod/upgrade videos.. Thanks for posting!
Thanks... I appreciate it. I'm glad people are find the videos helpful.
Excellent and clearly explained. I was going to waste money on changing the stock pickups. Got a good THR amp which gives me what I need already. I know a tech who can do it.
Dropped it off this morning, putting 0.022 PIO in the bridge and a 0.047 in the mid and neck with a treble bleed. In total with parts and labour, £25 to do. The tech thinks it’ll work but easily reversible
Thanks for the videos are very easy to understand. I just realized this mod on my strat and I found it fantastic. I think it will be so until the end of time. Thanks again, greetings!
It's pretty cool on the mod, usually by the other several company's wirings the suggestion has been to use a .022uf-..033uf on the bridge and .015-.022uf on the neck (infamous Woman Tone) and implemented on a Paf type Hbr. but I like ur way being even though there's even less play on the bridge, but you know it's my way too being just enough to allow the fuller bridge to reach the crunch and just enough to veer off the dreaded feedback on a higher gain when used! By chance too on my '62 Strat RI it had just one lil Blue chicklet that was fantastic on the neck-5,4,3 MId and it was pure vintage in the blends neck on 7-8 and the 3-4 on the mid tones ,..when I switched to a Twin bladed for bridge I also upgraded the cap to allow the bridge for use as well,.. I was stunned to find the lil Blue chicklet was a .1uf. I tried several more expensives but none could do the factory standard no kidding so I kept it as it was and on the bridge Twin blade (old'99 Carvin 13k) and middle turned down to 6.5-7 it sounds identically to a vintage Tele feeling,pluck picking the whole Tele Twanging feeling.!! You can only get this lil wonder on the MIM 2000 model I've tried! It's a shame they constantly keep changing everything all the time lately the PIO has it spades and the Orange Drop 225 .018-.022 is another beauty it allows at 10 bypass a brighter mid boost not present with 715-716s so it does pay and I've proved to several on hands who also know so, there's a bleeder from the 1960 Tele circle.001uf on the the Volume @ bypass 10 has a distinct crunchy tone especially with a clean boost to cleaner OD with a slight lil gain that will give a Tele dream of the sustained notes and clear clean tone, try it last I heard the circlek .001 uf can be had in limited quantities fron Chris Klein pickups along with other great vintage caps that sure make believers of the owners good pickups can be made great and great pickups can be made legendary, honest!
That's the beauty of modding - simple things can get you sounding like what you hear in your head. Best of luck...
awesome man thank you!!!! very well explained.
Thank you for posting informative, intelligent, and factual information in an easy to understand presentation. Of all the guitar mod videos on YT, you have some of the very best. This as opposed to a number of knuckle-draggers that post endlessly with their opinions on all matters of guitar, evaluations, tone, and myth-busting, which are usually wrong. You are absolutely right about quality in tone caps, they do make a difference, many manufacturers use the cheap 5cent ceramics because of cost considerations. In the '50's the PIO milspec caps were more common place and were sold as military surplus, they also happen to be very musical. For the doubters, go to Rat Shack and stick to the 10 pack of .022's for a couple of bucks and don't post how they sound exactly like Sprague Vitamin Q's.
Thanks Man... I appreciate the comments.
I wish I had known 20 years ago about tone what I do now.
I use a dual capacitor mod on my strats, where I add another jumper between the "neck" & "middle" tone pots, give the "middle" tone pot a capacitor, and wire them together to the common pole(s) of the switch. So then I have (on my strat) 0.147uF total potential capacitance. And I can dial in the tone on all three pickups (in any configuration)
You can also wire a jumper from B2 to B3 on the switch. That puts the bridge pickup on the bottom tone control.
I have a .047 (green chicklet) on my 88 MIJ Strat. I just bought a .033uf 200v K40Y-9 OIP Cap to try out as well as a .015 Treble bleed with resistor. Trying to keep the guitar as original as possible, but thought this little tweak might be a nice improvement.
Electrically, this makes sense: with an old-style 3-pos switch, only one tone control is in play at a time, so a single cap is never used in 2 tone controls. When you change to 5-pos, you can now select 2 pickups at once, but if you put 2 tone controls in parallel and there's only one cap, that cap is now smaller relative to the tone pots. With 2 caps - even of the same value- you maintain about the same RC when putting two tone ccts together, so the effect is more consistent.
Exactly the video I was looking for. I discovered my bridge humbucker was not controlled by a tone knob and thats why I don't like the sound of it.
Big thanks! Clear concise
Thank you so much, it worked perfectly.
just tried this diagram and work perfectly. thanks.
Beautifully done and diagrammed! I am inclined to try this. Just a small correction, capacitors are measured in Farads (shortened to F, the largest capacitance, used in AC units and as motor starters) Pico (or Nano, pF or nF, the smallest), and Micro-farads or mF, not Micro-farans (or Micro-farens) as you stated. Maybe you just had a slip of the tongue, but I noticed it and cringed when you said it! Not trying to be an ass, however I am an electronics tech and just wanted to keep you from teaching anyone that sees this from using wrong terminology! Anyone walking into an electronics supplier saying what you did will be immediately judged as being an unqualified tech and might be treated like a newb. Otherwise this is a great vid! Cheers mate!
Yeah - I've gotten a couple of similar comments on my 'farans' word choice. Not sure why I said it that way - probably the solder fumes were getting to me. :)
Actually, mF is the symbol for millifarads. The base term "micro" uses the lower-case Greek letter mu.
From green and magenta to red and Blue
From flora and fauna to Adam and Eve.
Hats off sir🌈
great info. i just replaced my 08 strat stock capacitor .22 with ceramic .01. and sounds killer
Thanks man, could fix my strato with yout help.
I couldn't do a before/after since I tear all my guitars apart immediately and make the mod. All of my Strat videos (except for the Blacktop) have this mod in place so I hope you can get a sense of what's going on if you watch one of them. Basically - you're getting tone control on the Bridge pickup whereas with the normal Strat wiring, you don't.
I like wiring Strats with a bridge tone knob and the first tone pot for neck and mid. Also I like to have a push/pull pot to turn on the bridge pickup in the 4 and 5 positions to get just the neck and bridge or all 3 pickups on. By the way, the capacitance unit is Farads not Farins.
Could also have a 15nF always hooked up but when the switch is selected on Neck/Middle it adds in 7nF.
With a bit of editing of the switch itself you can make it so the M+B is 15nF as well (would mean opening it up and taking a KNIFE too it)
Very clever. Thank You!
I’ve got my Strat wired master vol & master tone + a treble bleed.
this is great!!
Big thanks for all the amazing videos. Very helpful and well done! I have a question about the signal path to the tone knobs. When the signal travels to the tone knobs this seems like a dead end. How and where does this filtered frequency join back to the path of the original signal and out to the output? Thanks so much!
I like your videos.. clear consise...peck
Forget my request : I've found the answer in the comments !... Anyway , many thanks for sharing this scheme with us !!!
well this did wonders for my bullet strat that i upgraded
I have a mid 80's Japanese West Strat-o-Clone that has dual caps. The one on the middle tone control is tiny. I'd never seen dual caps in a stratocaster before.
I'm going to try this but add a 500k push pull pot with a 250k resistor since I have an SSH setup. I found a 70s super distortion with 2 wires and braided ground so I can't split it but it sounds awesome with 250k cts pots and an orange drop 0.47. it's my single coils that sound too muddy so I'll use a 0.22 for them on the other pot. Thanks
The Rock Jam comes this way.
Hi original cap was .1 -- I prefer them -- more 'range' -- good enough for E.J. too !
Great tip!
Hello Breja and thank you for a very informative tutorial. I have one question regarding your DUAL CAPACITOR WIRING. Due to the addition of the short Jumper Lead to share a Tone control for both Neck & Middle pickups, does selecting the Bridge and Middle pickups together actually engage both Tone Controls in that particular setting? Regards, Graeme
Thanks for this. However in position 2 (bridge and middle), both tone knobs are active. Is there a way to prevent this so the bridge tone knob is only "active" in position 1?
Excellent videos!. Can you show this same dual capacitor scheme only with a dedicated neck tone cap control and the middle and bridge with the second two cap tone control. I love the .015 for everything but the neck, were I want to make it darker for jazzier type sounds, however I simply tried what I thought would work and ended up with a tone control for the neck which also acts as a volume control. Help... Thanks for the great video.
I have a strat with 3 volume pots and one tone. I took out the switch years ago and threw in a bunch of spare pots and 3 buckers. I'm changing it to ssh and getting cts pots but want to keep my 3 volume controls. Would I just need one cap, since I only have one tone pot? And which size pots would you recommend. I was thinking 500k for the bridge buckers and two 250k for the two single coils ?
Seems like a very interesting mod, I think I'll try this! However I am a bit confused. At 4:03 you show the caps with the pots in this alternative configuration. There doesn't appear to be a ground wire running form one tone pot to the other and finally to the volume. Is there no need to ground in this case? Or are the ground wires omitted to make the example easier to follow? Either way great video, thanks for sharing!
Anthony Giacomazzi Hey Anthony... Good eyes. This is one of my secrets (or maybe I'm just the only one who does it). I'm planning on doing a simple video on it and why I do it but when using a Pickguard and you have metal nuts and washers - the foil on the back of the Pickguard acts as the ground for all of the components so there isn't really a need to ground the pots together. Some guys prefer to do the ground wire to cover themselves 'just-in-case' but I've found that if you use quality parts, metal nuts and washers - then the foil ties them all together. Hope that helps. Don
Breja ToneWorks Good point, either way it's a metal on metal ground, and it would be a lot cleaner under the pick-guard. Makes sense! That does help, thanks Don.
Thank you nice one
Great !
I love this demo and I'm a new subscriber and liker ! Maybe you can answer a question for me if you have the time. I always thought that the tone cap value for a strat was 0.47. I had a 1963 Strat and that was the value of the tone cap. I'm in the process of doing the DYI Strat and I bought the 0.47 tone caps. Did I make a mistake here should I be using the 0.22 as you used here? I know you're super busy but any advice that you could give me would be super super appreciated! Good Vibes and good tone from your new friend Jim in Seattle 🎸💯🍻🎶🔊
Thank you so much for posting these vids and being so clear with your explanations. I have a question. In many strat wirings, step one is grounding the pots together, and you don't do that in this case. (I know little to nothing about electronics, only copy guitar circuits.) Do the capacitors create a ground? If the pots were all grounded in the usual fashion, would it still work, or would it create a ground loop? Thanks again for posting, I really want to try this out.
So if you have Neck + Middle, Both Tone pots come in to play and one will out do the other to drop off the Freq !
As pose to the normal way were both Pots come in to play and it just halfs the Pot Values to 125K with say 47nF
You make great instructional videos. So easy to understand and follow. Have you any experience with the 7 way Dave Gilmore (mini toggle) Stratocaster circuit? If so, can a treble bleed mod be added to this circuit. Thanks for your time.
Thanks for all the great information Breja ToneWorks! You've saved me money and educated me as well! Would a dual capacitor and the 7 way mod be possible?
Hi super smart , helpful guy . Greetings from Nashville. I have 3 fralin Woodstocks single coils , one Grigsby 5 way , 3 CTS pots , all mounted to pickgaurd, from scratch, i was thinking about installing a fender white and blue phone book size paper cap .1 mfd 150 vdc , they offer for way over priced 15 dollars, ( i don't care) on neck , middle pot , and a Sozo 473k 500 volt on the bridge. I was hoping for super dark tones on neck for fuzz and slide tones , and a bridge pickup that gets the cocked wah effect , like my old cheap ceramic 47 did . I was curious your thoughts on my choices, be honest on what i can expect. Also , do you like position 2 , because you can blend 2 separate pickup tones , middle and bridge ? Thanks so much for all your posts
These are really helpful. Can you do a video on the Eric Clapton mid boost mod?
why would my middle pup have two black wires and a green ? the other pup are all black wires , does it matter about polarity with the wires ? very good video, easy to understand
Hi , BREJA ! Thanks for these precious infos about tone !Do I have to take off the two cables which were connecting the three pots together , on my strat , because of the two independants tone condensators ? Thanks again !!
Tone caps are only bypass caps, the sound does not go thru them, so it doesn´t matter much what quality they are. But it matters a lot to twist the wires tightly, to reduce noise.
so you waste your energy in the wrong place.
Would have been nice to hear a before/after sound demo.
+catboyzee I know - but that would take planning and I just get distracted and do the darn mods. Technically, all of my Strats have the Dual Cap mod installed so if you watch any of my videos with Strats (minus the Blacktop ones), you can hear this mod in place.
Hey man, nice video! I was wondering, how would one keep the tone knobs as they sit (one controlling the neck, the other the middle) but do the two capacitor wiring setup? Thanks so much
Watch this video and you'll see: czcams.com/video/Md9Ai1YIdn0/video.html
Hi. Thanks for the video. Will this work if I have a push-push pot for the bridge pickup?
Hey just so you know an account called Diary Feel has reposted a significant amount of your content including this video. It is the same exact video with out any changes and comes up when searching for topics that should lead to your videos on your channel. You may want to look into this and submit a copy right claim if the repost is without your permission and you have not already claimed the video. Best of luck and thank you for these helpful videos.
I like watching any and all videos on pots (potentiometers) and volume and tone controls. I would point out that the F in microF stands for Farad, not Faren or Faran, and it comes from Michael Faraday as a unit of electric capacitance.
I noticed that none of your tone controls, in the before and after stages, had a ground wire on them. Was the conductive material on the underside of the pickguard going to be sufficient to ground these two tone pots, or did you mean not to ground the tone pots?
I liked your use of colors to show your wiring, it was very good.
I have a used Squier Strat that I got for $60 and I've been trying to achieve greater tonal range for each pickup, so I'm interested in all I can learn from your videos. I'd like to try this modification, but my 5-way switch is built a little differently. I got a complete setup, prewired, from StewMac for $39 with 3 single coil ceramic pickups, 3 pots, jack and pickguard because I was trying to make sure all my parts wire in good shape.
Thanks man
Please. Which capacitor shall I put on a Telecaster with Vintage pups ? I would like the traditional Tele configuration. 0.22 or 0.47 ? The kit I am buying comes in these two options.
Sorry for the delay - I've been on vacation. Vintage is .47uF or even .1uF. But as I always say - it more about the sound in your head than what someone else had in their guitar.
Great layout for Strats and you can achieve more flexibility using a super-switch but I don't agree with your statement about the type of capacitors, any modern polyester (greencap) or ceramic will do the job and save you a bucket of cash. This PIO, bumble-bee,orange drop myth circulating the industry is only about the dealers charging ridiculous prices for redundant crap that should have been junked back in the 60's.
Cool story. Sorry you are tone deaf.
The best instructions I have seen yet. Isolating the individual wires is very clear method and helps understand the purpose of each conductor. I am replacing asian 500K volume pot and tone pots (can't tell yet if 250K or 500K) fitted with .047 tone caps with three CTS 450G audio taper 250K pots pots and .033 PIO tone caps. I plan to rewire exactly as you show. I also may install a treble bleed with .001 cap and 150K either in parallel or Kinman series method. What should I expect from tone? Do you suggest different pot or cap values? Thanks.
+Dobes49 Personally I don't like dark caps so I'd recommend going with .015uF or .022uF capacitors rather than .033uF. The 450Gs are great Pots and I use them all the time now. I always suggest guys do one mod at a time and try it first before adding a second so you might think about holding off on the treble bleed. test with the new better valued pots and caps and see - you might not actually need a treble bleed. If you do - easy enough to per er' in. Many things go into your tone so it's hard to say what to expect. If you knew the values of the old pots compared to the new, you should be able to expect better treble response and with the caps - .047uF is a dark cap so going with the values I gave you should mean you have more play in you tone pot before it gets all woofy. Happy Modding... Don
+Breja ToneWorks I just put SME (Sullivan Music- Austin) vintage pickups in the guitar and it is pretty bright now with the .047's so I may try the .033's first. The guitar sounds great with all knobs on ten but goes
to hell when I try to back any of them down - hence the total rewire. I checked to see if you have a web store, but it doesn't look like you do. I did see you are in the Milwaukee area. Do you know Greg Koch? He is a funny human and a great guitar player. Thanks.
+Dobes49 Yeah - sorry.... no web store here. I do this stuff on the side from my normal job hence why it sometimes takes me a bit to get new videos up or respond to people. I do know Greg Koch - doubtful he'd remember me though it's been 15 years or so I think and Yes, he's a incredible guitar player and funny as hell sometimes.
+Breja ToneWorks As I replied in another comment I plan to wire this way. The bridge tone control appears to be pretty independent. I assumed that I would be able to control the tone on the bridge and the middle independently and tailor my position 2 sound to be very individual. Sort of like Robert Cray on steroids. Am I wrong about this idea of controlling each pickup tone individually or does the signal that gets to the volume output somehow get affected retroactively through linking inside the five way switch?
Hi Don,
I have wired my Strat exactly how you have instructed on your excellent video, but I am not getting any reaction from the pick ups.
Pulling my hair out!
Anyone any ideas please?
hi i just completed this mod but i forget where the wire attached to the tremolo claw is to be soldered to. thanks in advance. great video,hope i did it right. we'll find out soon :)
That is a ground wire so that should get soldered to your main ground component - normally one of your pots. I forgot to add this in my video so if you wired against this video, you'd connect that claw ground wire to the top of the Volume Pot.
Would you consider doing a video on wiring a strat,with three stacks/rails or whatever,and a fender mega switch?
Great video, but one question: if you have 1 cap for the bridge and a different cap for the neck/middle, how does the affect bridge/middle sound? Wouldn't the 2 caps combine? Thanks!
I assume you're grounding a couple of pots through the foil?
The DUAL Capacitors will change the tone of the strat how so, it creates different capacitor values because .022uf in parallel with another .022uf will ADD capacitance so this should change the tone of the pickups? because some strats will have two capacitors .022uf on both tone pots for the 2nd and 4th positions selector switch.
What capacitor would you recommend if i'm using a single coil humbucker in the bridge position?