Wiring a Stratocaster for Two Volumes and One Tone

My friend Adam was recently upgrading an Epiphone Strat copy (which we’ll be covering in the next blog post) and asked if I could help him with a somewhat unorthodox wiring idea. So, continuing on somewhat from the previous post about the Stratocaster 5-way switch, today we’re going to look at how to wire up a Strat so that it has two volume controls and one tone control.

To quote Adam: "I want to rewire my Strat so that I have two volume controls and only one tone control. I want the knob nearest the strings to control the volume for the bridge and middle pickups, the middle knob to control the volume for the neck pick up and the knob furthest away from the strings to be a master tone control. "

I couldn’t find much on Google about anyone else doing this, at least not without using a super switch, but I was pretty sure it could be done.

So this is what I came up with. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Here’s how it works:

In the bridge position, pin 1 (bridge) is connected to pin 0 (common) on both sides. The yellow wire from the bridge pickup goes to pin 1 and the signal then continues to pin 0 on the left side of the switch. This then connects to the bridge/middle volume control via the blue wire. Additionally, the purple wire from that volume control comes back to pins 3 and 1 on the right side of the switch and this then passes to pin 0 on that side since it is currently connected to pin 1. Pin 0 then connects to the tone control through the red wire and continues to the output jack.

In the middle position, pin 3 (middle) is connected to pin 0 (common) on both sides. The green wire from the middle pickup goes to pin 3 and the signal then continues to pin 0 on the left side of the switch. This then connects to the bridge/middle volume control via the blue wire as before. Additionally, the purple wire from the volume control comes back to pins 3 and 1 on the right side of the switch and this then passes to pin 0 on that side since it is currently connected to pin 3. Pin 0 then connects to the tone control through the red wire and continues to the output jack.

In the neck position, pin 5 (neck) is connected to pin 0 (common) on both sides. However, the neck pickup wiring is quite different from the other two pickups. The grey wire from the neck pickup goes directly to the neck volume control. It connects there no matter what position the switch is in, so you may wonder how that doesn’t affect the output even in the other switch positions, well, that’s because the pink wire coming OUT of the volume control connects to pin 5 of the switch and that doesn’t connect to anything unless the switch is in the neck position, at which time the signal can now continue to pin 0 on the right side of the switch. This then connects to the tone control through the red wire and continues to the output jack.

The Stratocaster 5-way Switch

Today we’re going to talk about the standard 5-way switch used in Fender Strat-style guitars—how it works, how to wire it up and variations of the switch itself.

Back when Strats were first made, they came with a 3-way switch (one position for each pickup), but some savvy guitarists soon realized that if they moved the switch into a position midway between two of the “official” positions, they could get two of the pickups to turn on at the same time, resulting in new sound options. This happened because the switch was what is known as a “make before break” switch, which means it touches the next contact before disconnecting from the previous one. It wasn’t easy to keep the switches in these in-between positions and guitarists often resorted to sticking matchsticks, etc., into the switch slot to hold them in position.

Here’s how the switch looks as more of an electrical diagram. As with all images, click to enlarge.

Seeing how customers were doing this, Fender eventually started installing 5-position switches. Note that these were still really 3-way switches, just with a couple of in-between positions added on so that matches were no longer required to hold the switch in those positions.

Also of note is that the switch is “dual pole”, which means that it is basically two switches in parallel that move at exactly the same time, without being electrically connected to each other.  If you take a good look at the switch below, you will see that there is a second row of contacts on the other side.

Here’s how THAT looks as more of an electrical diagram:

This allows for more wiring possibilities, which we’ll discuss later.

Looking at the photo of the switch a couple of images back, you can see that there are four contacts on the side facing us (and four on the other side that aren’t so easy to see). Of the four on this side, the left-most one is the “common” contact, which is to say that it is always connected. The three contacts to the right correspond with the three main switch positions (with the additional two positions being in-between 1 & 2 and 2 & 3 respectively). The other side of the switch has a similar setup.

Now given that there are only (normally) three pickups, and the switch has three contacts on each side (in addition to the common contact), you may be wondering why we need two sets of contacts in the first place. Well, this is so that you can have a bit more freedom when it comes to choosing how to control the volume and tone of each pickup. For example, with standard Strat wiring, the volume pot controls all three pickups, whereas the two tone pots control one pickup each (with the bridge pickup having no tone control at all). Older Strat versions had one of the tone pots controlling two of the pickups at the same time (and there are many more options too!)

Here’s how the switch would look from below. Rather than numbering the pins--which I think can be confusing given that there are 3 pins (not counting the common pins), but five positions—I’ve named them B (for bridge), M (for middle), N (for neck) and C (for common).

Again, remember that you also have two additional positions, as mentioned previously, in-between bridge and middle (so pins B and M would both be connected to C at the same time), and in-between middle and neck (so pins M and N would both be connected to C at the same time).

As for the other side of the switch, despite the fact that the pins appear to be in a different order, they still work the same way, so when the switch is in the Bridge position, the left-hand pin B is connected to the left-hand pin C, and the right-hand pin B is connected to the right-hand pin C.

I hope you’re still with us here. The above can be a bit of a brain melter, but once it clicks it makes a lot of sense.

In an effort to make this as simple as possible, here’s what a standard Strat’s wiring looks like just around the switch itself (remember that there are many, many ways to wire up a Strat and this is just one of the more common ones):

Without going into too much detail about how the tone controls actually work (that’s for another day), I’ll try to walk through how the switch works as clearly as I can.

When the switch is in the neck position, left-hand pin N (neck) is connected to left-hand pin C (common). This allows the signal from the neck pickup to pass to the common pin on this side of the switch. Since left-hand pin C is shorted to right-hand pin C, the signal from the neck pickup continues to right-hand pin C, where it then goes to the volume control. Additionally, right-hand pin C is currently connected to right-hand pin N, allowing the signal from the neck pickup to ALSO travel to the neck tone control.

When the switch is in the middle position, left-hand pin M (middle) is connected to left-hand pin C (common). This allows the signal from the middle pickup to pass to the common pin on this side of the switch. Since left-hand pin C is shorted to right-hand pin C, the signal from the middle pickup continues to right-hand pin C, where it then goes to the volume control. Additionally, right-hand pin C is currently connected to right-hand pin M, allowing the signal from the middle pickup to ALSO travel to the middle tone control.

When the switch is in the bridge position, left-hand pin B (bridge) is connected to left-hand pin C (common). This allows the signal from the bridge pickup to pass to the common pin on this side of the switch. Since left-hand pin C is shorted to right-hand pin C, the signal from the bridge pickup continues to right-hand pin C, where it then goes to the volume control. Additionally, right-hand pin C is currently connected to right-hand pin N, but right-hand pin N is not connected to anything else, the sound is unaffected by any tone control.

Remember that we also have those two additional in-between positions, but all that happens there is that everything is true for both positions either side of it, so for example in the in-between position between the neck and the middle pickup, everything I wrote about the neck position AND everything I wrote about the middle position is true.

Finally, in addition to a standard Stratocaster 5-way switch, you can also get import types, which look more like this:

Note that these are just wired up in the same way as the switch that I’ve already been describing, except that the pins are laid out a bit differently. In the above image, the pins are numbered (left to right) 3,2,1,0,0,3,2,1. These represent the following positions:

    3 – Bridge

    2 – Middle

    1 – Neck

    0 – Common

    0 – Common

    3 – Bridge

    2 – Middle

    1 – Neck

Finally, if you want to get all fancy with your wiring, you can get “super switches”, which have many more contacts, allowing you a much greater range of wiring options. Here’s an example of one below:

Building a Noisy Cricket Mk II Amp and Mini Speaker Cabinet

I quite like the look of the Noisy Cricket Mk II amp from Beavis Audio (http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/NoisyCricket/), and I happened to have a wooden box lying around that looked like it would work great as a 6” speaker cabinet, hence today’s project. (EDIT: Actually it turns out the Mk I and the MK II are the same. The only difference is the PCB design, and since I'm using veroboard, that's irrelevant.)

The Noisy Cricket is a little 1/2 Watt guitar amplifier that fits into a standard Hammond-like enclosure (such as the one I used here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2013/04/building-modified-ea-tremolo-pedal-on.html). It uses a MPF102 or a 2N5951 transistor as a preamp channel and an LM386 as the power amp. It’s also powered from a standard 9v guitar pedal power supply (or even a battery). What’s not to like?

As I usually do, I’m going to use Veroboard for this. A few people have already done layouts for it, and I decided to go with this one:

Which can be found here: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.tw/2012/04/noisy-cricket-mkii.html

In addition to the Veroboard layout, this one has an additional tone switch, which lets you choose between the original 47nF tone capacitor, or the “improved bass” 100nF capacitor. In the end, I didn’t use a switch, electing instead to try both caps and choose whichever one I thought sounded best (in my case the 100nF).

Anyway, let’s get started. First we cut the veroboard to size:

You can see above that I have drilled a hole in the bottom right corner to match the one in the top left. That’s because I’m going to secure it inside the box (more on that later).

Now I cut the tracks in the appropriate locations:

And then give the copper a clean with a wire brush. This is to remove any tarnish from the copper, making it easier to solder.

Meanwhile, I’m also working on the box. First I work out where all of the controls/jacks will go:

Then I drill them out using a stepping drill bit:

After that I do a quick layout check to make sure everything is going to fit like I’d hoped:

I also glue in a couple of clips to hold the board in place once it’s done.

OK, let’s get soldering:

Here are all of the components in place (except for the chip itself, which I'll do as a last step):

Then the wires:

And then finally wired up to the pots, switches and jacks:

EDIT: I'm adding some extra information below about wiring up the box, since a couple of commenters so far have asked if I could share more details.

First, let’s look at the power switch. You need to connect the positive wire coming from your DC-in jack to one leg of the power switch (let’s go with the middle pin). The bottom leg of the switch connects to the 9V wire on the board. Make sure the negative pin of the DC-in jack connects to “ground”.

Here's a close-up of the power switch:

Actually, a point about “ground”. What I usually end up doing is choosing a fairly solid patch of metal to connect all the grounds to. In this case, I used one of the ground tabs on one of the ¼” jacks (doesn’t matter which jack since they’re connected electrically through the metal enclosure [this approach won’t work if it’s not in a metal enclosure, but simply hooking up the other 1/4" jack's ground to this same point too will keep you right]).

You can see that there are a few ground wires all connecting the right-hand jack in the image below.
 

The wire labeled “LED+” goes to the long leg of the power LED (the other leg should then also be connected to ground.

“Grit 1” and “Grit 2” connect to the middle leg and bottom leg of the grit switch (doesn’t matter which way around). If you buy a DPDT switch (six legs), then you can use the other column of pins to give power to an LED that will indicate when the grit switch is turned on. To do so, connect the middle leg in the other column of that switch to ground. Connect the end leg of the switch in that column to a 1k resistor and connect the other end of the resistor to the short leg of the grit LED. Finally connect the long leg of the LED to 9V ON THE BOARD (not straight to the DC-in jack).

Here's how my switch looks:

OK, that’s the switches and LEDs. Now let's look at the pots.

I’ve attached a photo that sort of shows the pot wiring. Basically as you look at that picture, the pin on the right of each pot is pin one, middle is pin two, and the left one is pin 3. Same for all three pots. If you mix up pins one and three, it’ll still work, but everything will work in reverse (turning up will actually reduce the volume, for example).
 

So, for example, “Vol 3” refers to pin 3 on the volume pot.


Some more points:

• Gain pins 1 and 2 are connected together. You can’t really see it in the photo, unfortunately.
• Tone pins 2 and 3 are connected together too.
• “Output” goes to the tip pin of the output/speaker jack (the other pin goes to ground of course). 
• Many speakers will be marked + and -. Theoretically, “-“ should go to ground, but it doesn’t really matter that much.

Here’s how it looks all closed up:

Now remember I mentioned that box? Well here it is beside a lovely 6” speaker I picked up:

We’ll need to cut a big circular hole, so let’s make sure we get the centre in the right place:

Then we measure the diameter of the speaker:

I’m using this adjustable spinning blade of death to cut the hole. Believe me when I tell you that this particular tool deserves all of your respect and then some. It will happily remove some of your body parts if you are not careful.

But for all of its scariness, it does do a great job:

A few more small holes for the securing screws and here’s the speaker attached (I'll add a grill to this later):

Now we need to wire up a jack. Unfortunately the thickness of the wood is more than the length of the thread on the jack, so I’m having to get a little creative with the solution.

I use another boring bit to scribe a line a few mm down into the wood. This will act as a guide for the next step, both for the depth and the outer diameter.

I then use a flat-bottomed drill bit (really, it’s a routing bit) and very carefully lower the depth of the wood within the confines of the outer circle I’ve just cut:

I also cut a little lip in there to match the lip that’s on the jack itself:

Here’s the jack in place:

I wanted to make some sort of handle, but also use the handle to hold the amp in place. However, I’d like to be able to remove the amp at any stage to use with a different speaker, or even use a different amp with THIS speaker.

So I attached a piece of leather like so:

Now the jack gets wired up to the speaker:

And I used a couple of metal fasteners to hold the back cover on:

After a bit of a search, I found a suitably-sized grill to protect the speaker:

And here it is holding the Noisy Cricket in place:

Finally here is a quick, dirty and extremely amateur demo of the amp. I probably should have planned what I was going to play before I started the camera rolling, but hopefully it will at the very least give you an idea what the amp sounds like.

How to set up a Gibson Les Paul style guitar

Hello everyone. Today we’re going to do a setup on a Les-Paul-style guitar. For this post, I’ll be setting up a “Burny Super Grade” guitar, but the set up is the same for most Les-Paul-style guitars. I already have a general electric guitar setup post over here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-set-up-electric-guitar.html, but there are a few Les Paul specific areas I’d like to go into here.

Before I start, I want to mention a few things about this particular guitar. It looks and (potentially) sounds great. The neck plays well too, but it has some tuning problems and buzzes a bit more than I’d like. The tuning problems are coming from two areas. Firstly the nut slots are too tight, made evident by the strings making a pinging noise when they are tuned up or down. This means that it is difficult to fine tune, as the string’s pitch tends to “jump” up or down. The second reason for the tuning issues is that the intonation is way out. By that I mean that the saddles’ forwards/backwards positions are not set up well, and so when the open strings are correctly tuned, and we then play up the neck, it suddenly seems out of tune again.

Before doing a setup, I’d recommend you put a new set of strings on the guitar. Specifically put the type of strings on that you intend to use in future, since different gauges (and sometimes brands) can require a slightly different intonation setup. If you don’t know how to restring a guitar, then have a look here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2011/08/stringing-guitar.html

One thing to point out here. When you take the strings off a Les Paul, there is (usually) nothing holding the bridge or the tailpiece on, so be careful with this. That said, I do want to mention that while the strings were off this guitar, I took the opportunity to lower the tailpiece. I prefer the tailpiece to be lowered all the way to the body if possible. Many believe that this will give you better tone/sustain, although it's hard to prove such a thing scientifically. That said, there is very little reason for the tailpiece to be anywhere other than as low as possible anyway.

Here are the reasons why you MIGHT want to raise it: 1. The break angle (the angle change of the strings as they pass over the saddles) is so severe that the strings keep breaking as they pass over the bridge. 2. The break angle is so steep that the strings hit the edge of the bridge before they go over the saddles. I’ve never had a problem with 1 above. However, 2 often happens and it’s not something that bothers me unless it’s severe.

Here's how the tailpiece looked before I tightened it down:

An alternative solution to raising the tailpiece is to pass the strings through from the FRONT of the tailpiece (heading towards the back of the guitar) and then passing them over the top of the tailpiece before they go over the bridge. Here you can see evidence of someone having set up the guitar in this way in the past (scuff marks from the strings passing over the top). Personally, this is not something I’ve ever needed to do, but the option is there should you choose to take it.

I’ve also decided to fix the pinching nut issue while the strings are off. However, it’s easy enough to do this while the strings are on, by just moving each one out of the way before filing each slot.

Before filing the nut:

For each slot requiring attention, I use a nut file at a slight downwards angle to widen the slot, making sure not to LOWER it (you should do this at a shallower angle than this photo might imply – you want to make sure that you are JUST slightly downwards compared to horizontal). Just take it really easily here, keeping an eye on the front of the slot to make sure you don’t go too far. Repeat this for whichever slots require widening.

Note that if for any reason you are unable (or unwilling) to widen the slots with nut files, you may get away with using nut sauce instead. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, have a look here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2014/08/cheap-and-easy-guitar-nut-lubricant.html 

OK, I’ve put a new set of strings on now. We’re now going to carry out the following steps, just like we did in the general electric guitar setup post. 1. Check and adjust neck bow (how straight the neck is) 2. Check and adjust saddle height 3. Check and adjust the intonation (how far back or forward the saddles need to sit at the bridge to keep your guitar as in tune as possible no matter what fret you’re playing)

1. Check and adjust neck bow (how straight the neck is)
Since we only want to check how straight the neck is, we need to isolate this aspect of the guitar. In other words we don’t want the height of the nut or the placement of the saddles to confuse us, so we take them out of the equation. Don’t worry; we’re not going to remove any of these components, just circumvent them. I use a ruler to do this, but you can do it using only strings. I’ll describe both methods below.

Method A: Using a ruler
Get a ruler (or straightedge if you want to be all fancy) that is at least as long as the neck, but not so long that it reaches all the way from the nut to the saddles (and watch it doesn’t lean on the pickups or pickup surrounds either). If you can’t get one between these lengths, and are willing to sacrifice a ruler, get one that’s too long and cut it to length. Alternatively, you can just cut a little out of one edge so that you can still make full use of the other edge of the ruler. Now lay the edge of the ruler along the frets (don’t rest it on top of the nut, saddles, pickups or pickup surrounds).

Method B: Using the strings
First, put a capo on the first fret. This stops the nut from having any influence, say from being too high/low.

Next, hold down the low (thick) E string on the bridge side of the highest fret. This stops the saddles from having any influence.

No matter whether you used method A or B, you can now go about measuring the neck bow. This is done by measuring the string height (the gap between the ruler/string and the top of the fret) at about the 8th fret. There is a lot of debate over how straight a neck should be, and in fact it really is personal choice, but a height roughly the same as the thickness of a B string is a good starting point. Personally, I use a 0.012” feeler gauge to do this, but you could use a B string. Simply slide the feeler gauge/B string into the gap to see if it is too big/small.

If the gap is perfect, congratulations – you may now move on to step 2. If the gap is too large, then you need to tighten the truss rod a little (similarly, if the gap is too small, you need to loosen the truss rod). Locate the adjustable end of the truss rod. On every Les Paul style guitar I have seen, the adjustable end of the truss rod is located under the truss rod cover, located on the peg head. To remove this, simply unscrew the two (or three) screws and lift/slide the cover off.

Under this cover you can see a nut. In my case it requires an 8 mm socket, although this may differ from guitar to guitar. Obviously American-made guitars will likely use Imperial measurements.

Anyway, here’s how you adjust the truss rod. This must be done with the strings tuned to whatever pitch you usually use. If your neck is too bowed (the gap you just measured is too big), you tighten the truss rod by turning the socket clockwise. It is recommended that you only turn the tool a quarter turn at a time (or even one eighth) and then give the neck some time to settle. You will also need to make sure the strings are still properly tuned after each adjustment.

CAUTION: If you find that the truss rod is very difficult to turn, then stop now and take your guitar to the guitar shop. It may be that there is a problem with the neck or the truss rod and you may damage the guitar by forcing it. Believe me, you do not want to damage the truss rod. If, instead of tightening the truss rod, you need to loosen it, do so by turning it anti-clockwise (counter-clockwise). Again, a quarter turn at a time. Once you have got the gap to 0.012” (or whatever gap you prefer), you will have finished this step. Feel free to remove the capo at this stage if it is attached.  

2. Check and adjust the saddle height
Adjusting saddle height couldn’t be easier on a Les Paul. Since the bridge can only be adjusted at each end, there is no need to adjust each saddle individually. Firstly check and, if necessary, adjust the low (thick) E string height. Do this by adjusting the height of the bridge at the thick E string end. This is done by rotating the thumbwheel anti-clockwise (counter-clockwise) to raise the bridge or clockwise to lower it. You might be able to do this with just your fingers, but chances are you will need to use pliers. Be careful if you use a tool as it is easy to slip and damage the finish on your guitar. Alternatively you can slacken all of the strings and use your fingers, although this is a very time-consuming process. Finger method

Plier method

The question here is how high to make the bridge. Well, this is personal choice. Find somewhere were the string doesn’t buzz on any fret from being too low, but low enough that you can play up and down the neck easily. There’s usually a sweet spot where you can just start to detect some buzzing and you can leave it just a tiny bit higher than that. Now do the exact same procedure for the high (thin) E string end of the bridge. Play the guitar a little bit to see if any of the other strings are buzzing. If, say, the A string is still buzzing, then raise up the end of the bridge nearest to that string a little bit ( a small amount of buzzing is often OK as long as it doesn't bother you too much and isn't heard through the amplifier - this a bit of a personal choice thing). OK, that’s step 2 finished. Your guitar should be nice and playable now. However, it may not seem to stay in tune very well. That’s because the intonation might be off.  

3. Check and adjust the intonation
The intonation here refers to the forward/backward position of the individual string saddles. By moving the saddles forwards or backwards, we are actually adjusting the length of the strings. Without going into too much detail, if the string is the wrong length, the positions of the frets will not be correct and the guitar will be out of tune on some of them. Adjusting the intonation is not difficult. All you need is a guitar tuner and a tool to move the saddles forwards or backwards. Play an open low E string and make sure it is in tune (using the guitar tuner).

Now play the 12th fret of the low E string. It should also be in tune. If it is too high, then you need to move the saddle back. This increases the length of the string. If the note is too low, then you need to move the saddle forwards. This decreases the length of the string. Using a screwdriver on the high E String saddle:

On a Les Paul, adjusting the saddle position can be a little tricky while the string is tuned to pitch. Sometimes you can get a screwdriver in there and turn it, but often you need to slacken the string and move it to the side. Also note that sometimes the adjustment screws are at the back of the bridge rather than the front. I prefer adjusting the saddle while the string is slack anyway as there is a lot of stress on both the string and the saddle otherwise.

Adjusting the D string saddle after moving the string to the side:

Now check both the open and the 12th fret notes again. You’ll have to tune the open string again because by moving the saddle, the tension of the string will have changed and so will need to be retuned. Once you have correctly moved the saddle so that both the open string and the 12th fret are in tune, you can move on to the A string. Repeat until all of the strings have been done. Note that on this particular guitar, the (thick) E, A and D saddles could not be moved far enough forward to intonate correctly, so I had to swap their orientation to give a bit more distance.

You probably won’t have to do this, but if you do, here’s how to go about it: First, slacken the affected strings and move them to the sides of the saddles. Then take some needle-nose pliers and remove one end of the retaining spring (different styles of bridge will use different types of retaining spring – sometimes there is an individual one for each saddle, in which case you might even need to remove the whole bridge to do this).

Remove one of the saddles that needs attention.

Unscrew the saddle from the screw and then screw it back on in the other direction.

Replace the saddles and screws in the bridge and replace the retaining spring, being careful to make sure it is sitting correctly in the screw slots.

Well, that’s a basic setup done. Hopefully your guitar will now be easy to play and appear to be in tune no matter where you play the note.