Category: Wiring & Pickups

Stratocaster mods for SSS pickups configuration, which one is best?

Stratocaster mods is one thing popular with many ways to get into, and me is excited about that, too. (but one thing first i wanna say is, It’s been a while since my late post. I’ve been busy and lazy at once, but finally i got my mood to write again here.)

back to topic. Recently I got a decent strat with good deal, of course it’s not Fender. This guitar brand is “selva”, japan market guitar,a new brand i guess. my series is SELVA SST-201 OTM/M, SSS pickups with poplar body and canadian hard maple neck. Check how it sounds on youtube at https://youtu.be/Z_LyWDVQYF8 .

A default sound of conventional SSS strat by itself is great. It has three pickups and 5-way switch and two tone control knobs, which means it has more options than a tele or les paul. and actually stratocaster mods will bring us more options. here the two of them which for me is the most interesting stuff.

  • SSS configuration stratocaster with humbucking style by adding dummy coil

sure you can change the pickups with stacked humbuckers or mini humbuckers, but If you love your single coils pickups, why don’t try adding a dummy coil into your pickups wiring? this method will work as noise reducer for bridge and neck pickups (not middle pickups since it’s RWRP). it will compromise the treble sound, a little loss, but with decent overwound dummy coil, the loss is minimal. it’s worth to try.

stratocaster mods dummy coil

 

  • SSS configuration stratocaster with blender pot ( 7 sound options strat)

Some say this is the oldest mods for strat, and i would say this is the best one. By changing the wiring scheme, we convert the first tone pot into a blender pot, blending the pickups. we will get a bridge+neck pickups option just like a telecaster(!) switched on the middle, and bridge+middle+neck pickups (all 3 of them is on!). we still got our single coils sounds and 2 more soundstyles! this becomes my choice for my selva strat mods and it works great. here’s the wiring scheme:

blender-stratocater-mod-schematic-wiring

 

Sure there are more than these two mods. these are my top choices for strat mods, which hopefully inspire everyone. thanks, see ya next post 😀

Muddy Pickups Mods with Caps

Dull guitar sound is always bothering everyone. We re-fretted the fretboard, changed the strings, bought an expensive equalizer pedal, even we changed the pickups with a new expensive one. BUT, it doesn’t always work that way, buying new things doesn’t take us to new things beside product knowledge. We know we can always modify things which we already have to get better results. And this is one of it. i got this from the Seymour Duncan’s Facebook

A muddy neck pickups is one annoying problem, I tried to overcome it by doing Muddy Pickups Mods with Caps and i really am satisfied by it. you know, Add capacitors to the guitar circuit is a favorite thing. It’s cheap and easy. this could be one of best of it.

There are two things you can do about this mod.

– First is wiring the .047 capacitor with the output of the pickup on the switch

– Second is wiring the .047 capacitor with the output of the pickup on volume knob

Muddy Pickups Mods with Caps
removing muddy neck pickup mod

In this post, I’ve done the first option, hopefully someone did the second option and share me some feedback

So i wired the .047 caps on the switch on my 2 guitars. first guitar is my Fender Spalted Maple Telecaster. I felt that BOTH OF PICKUPS were still too muddy while i had lowered the pickups heights to get brighter sound, so I took two of .047 caps and wired them to both pickups output on the switch. Here’s the pic:

Muddy Pickups Mods with Caps
removing muddy neck pickup Tele mods

i hope this Muddy Pickups Mods pics are easy enough to understand

for my next guitar is Gretsch G5236 electromatic pro jet 125th anniversary . Here i felt that the neck pickup had a big brightness sound difference compared to bridge pickup, so i put only one of .047 caps on the switch. my expectation was to add more color to That Great Gretsch Sound and IMHO, I REALLY did it with this mod.

Muddy Pickups Mods with Caps
removing muddy neck pickup Gretsch mods

one thing i need to improve is my video sound record. It seems not enough to justify the sound, but I assure you will get big difference when you try this Muddy Pickups Mods. and this is exactly what i wanted.

I have something to say overall about this.

this Muddy Pickups Mods is useful.

I’ve been trying to get brighter sounds on my guitar using compression pedals, pickups height adjustments and the most i hate, using equalizer bands ( i want my guitar sound like it is without any output enhancements/adjustments). this mod is significant, it removes unwanted mud-bass-like sound so the sound clarity goes on top.

so, do you like it? or you wanna share it with your bandmate? have good day, virtuosos!