Wiring & pots for Strat G&L style

[dave robinson]

I collected my new pick-guard from AGC today, wired the same way as my G&L S-500 with my own Tonerider Vintage pickups.
I fitted the assembly to my MIJ Fender Premium Strat and am delighted with the sound. The tone controls work just as I had hoped and are a massive improvement on the usual Strat controls. One volume pot, one treble and one bass that work right across the three pickups, plus the 'push-push' feature on the treble knob that brings in the extra pickup, allowing the neck & bridge pickups to work together. The total cost with labour and parts is £60, that's for the three pots, five way Oak Grigsby switch, knobs and switch tip, caps, resistors and wire pick-guard and labour. Recommended if you want a better sounding Strat - or you can buy the parts and do your own, just wanted to let interested parties know it works.

[roger bayliss]

That is a great result Dave and I am glad you have done it and proved it works. I must get around to having a go at doing my strats one of the days.

[ErikMAMS]

Thanks for sharing Dave. Just to comfirm - does your circuit include the 1000pF capacitor (C3 0n the S500 diagram) which shifts down the resonance peak of ANY pickup(s) selected?

When I first saw the diagram I reconned the "fat" cap was due to and tailored for the G&L pickups - and would not necessary work equally well with other PU's. Furthermore AFAIK the cap trick is mostly used on bridge PU's - at least I've never seen it used on N and M.

Obviously the bass cut is an addition to the standard Fender layout, but the treble circuit is pretty standard except the pot values is 500k vs 250k. I'm puzzled why it functions so much better as you, Roger and others describe. Not doubting your findings - just wondering.

[roger bayliss]

I think there are circuit diagrams for the S500 and the Legacy both slightly different. The treble roll off does appear to be similar in nature to a strat. There is also a treble bleed on the volume pot to prevent the turning down of volume sapping tone. The bass pot is the best part IMHO as you can roll out the muddies and clean up the sound . Definitely better than a strat basic configuration.

[roger bayliss]

C3 looks additional on the S500 circuit to the Legacy not sure what it does and Legacy does not appear to have treble bleed mod on volume pot. You could wire a strat either way and try omitting C3 to see if you prefer it that way.

I have heard treble bleeds changes the sound someway maybe changing resonant peaks ?

The pots on the G&L work on all 3 Pickups whereas a normal starts do not and 2 additional sounds are added with the bridge pickup switching.

[ErikMAMS]

The treble bleed cap is effectively out of the circuit with the vol full up - only rolling back the vol puts the cap in the circuit, but only to retain the treble - ie the cap doesn't add anything but at best just retains the response at lower vol settings.

C3 on the other hand is permanently parallel to which ever pickup(s) selected. The added capacitance shifts down the pickups "natural" resonant peak. In the case of a standard/Fender SC with C3=1000pF from around 6-7kHz to just above 3kHz.
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/ see particularly Fig. 15

[roger bayliss]

Noted if the resonant peak is reduced to around 3khz that might prove to be OK as that is the high mids area often boosted. Like I say this is the main difference between the S500 and Legacy circuit and the Legacy being G&L's strat tribute with single coils I can only think they did not want to darken the tones on the Legacy ? The simple answer might be to make it switchable via a switch or just try it in and out of circuit.

I did try a Legacy when I bought my S500 and I found it was quite bright sounding.

[roger bayliss]

actually thinking on the C3 cap must be to make the S500 sound more like strat single coils by tailoring the resonant frequency to match a typical strat sound and so would probably not be required for a Legacy. So leaving it in circuit would change the response of a single coil away from the design sound response. So if we like the single coil sound it might be a good idea to leave it out to retain the original PU response. Our ears will tell us what sounds best I suspect.

[dave robinson]

I'm going to use the new experiment tonight so I'll be able to let you know in the morning whether or not it's done the job. I'ts always better to check these things out with some volume and in a working situation.

[dave robinson]

Used the Strat with the new wiring tonight and everything worked and sounded great, a big improvement on the usual options. For me that was a success and money well spent.