custom strat wiring question

[Shawnee]

I was browsing through some of these wiring threads and you guys are the bomb! I thought that maybe someone could help me with this combination for a strat project. I have three sounds that I use regularly on three different guitars- Full humbucker in the bridge (PRS), neck position single coil (strat), middle position (neck+bridge parallel) on a telecaster. I know that everything is a compromise and I probably won't be able to get all three sounds exactly perfect in one guitar but maybe I can get two of them and the third be decent. I will use two single coil strat pickups in the neck and middle for sure but I'm not sure about a humbucker or single in the bridge. I could split the humbucker or maybe go series middle + bridge (single coil in the bridge). I guess the trick is finding a humbucker that sounds good split.

I have a strat wired with the neck pickup tied to a no-load pot so I can get the neck+bridge in parallel and I like the sound a lot (close enough to a tele sound to cover Rolling Stones in my book and is better than positions 2 & 4 on a stock strat for what I do). I also have a 4-way in my tele and like the series neck+bridge sound (I like a dark distorted sound so what some people consider muddy, I actually like). I use the PRS (bridge humbucker) more than anything and the strat (neck position) about 25% of the time. The fake tele sound would be used maybe 10% of the time. He is what I was thinking (the positions in bold would be the three positions that I mainly use).

S-S-S
1. Neck
2. Neck+Bridge (parallel)
3. Middle
4. Middle+Bridge (Series)
5. Bridge

H-S-S
1. Neck
2. Neck+Middle (parallel)
3. Middle
4. Neck+Split Humbucker (parallel)
5. Full Humbucker

I thought maybe a hot humbucker like a Suhr Aldrich bridge would be good since my favorite humbucker is the PRS HFS (a hot pickup but doesn't come in white). It should be around 8K split and work well with the other single coils.

One of my favorite tricks is to wire the middle pot on a strat to one coil of a bridge humbucker with a no load pot. That way I can blend in the amout of the second coil to give a little fatter single coil sound and reduce some noise too. I don't like having to turn the knob during a song though so a switch may be better if I can switch to neck+split humbucker.

So what do you guys think my best bet is?

[cc9cii]

HSS would be easier to wire. SSS might require a dual wafer super switch. Don't know how either of them would sound, however.

[Shawnee]

cc9cii- I was hoping you would reply!
I would really like to not have anything but a 5-way if possible (a dual wafer super switch is fine though). Could I do either of these setups with the super switch alone?

[cc9cii]

Should be able to do either with a 2 wafer super switch. I'll see if I can make some time later today.

[Shawnee]

Man you ROCK Bro.

[cc9cii]

Second one first. I've selected the tone pot settings arbitrarily.

[cc9cii]

First one next.

[cc9cii]

I have no idea whether your pickups are in phase already or not. Nor do I know their wire colours. And no idea what tone setting you prefer (but should be easy enough to change to suit your taste).

[Shawnee]

WOW....... Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. The tone controls are what I would have done. I think I will use use both setups on two different strats. So on the S-S-S if the middle pickup is not RW can I just reverse the leads?

[cc9cii]

No, that will make the pickup out of phase. You will need a different pickup if it isn't already RWRP.

[Shawnee]

OK I know this thread has been dead for a while but I am freaking out here. First off, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to cc9cii again for providing the diagrams. It took me a while to get the pickups and other parts but I have finished the H-S-S strat. It took two days to get this thing together and tweaked out but it is AMAZING!

I went with Dimarzio's and put an AT-1 in the bridge, and virtual vintage 54 pro's in the neck and middle positions. I started off with a 500K vol pot but it made everything a little too bright in all positions. I tried a .047uF cap to tame it a little but it was still too bright. I pulled the 500K and went with a 300K (that was actually 270K). That smoothed out the humbucker but I lost a little bite on the single coils. I wired the tone pots with separate caps and used the .047uf on the bridge tone and a .022uF on the neck/middle tone pot. I had a hum problem that I faught for a while too. I ended up soldering shield wires on the neck and bridge pickups and it atleast kept it from humming loudly when you touch a pole piece. I resoldered all my grounds and my problem eneded up being at the jack. I fixed that problem and now it's quiet like it should be.

So I tested her against my 1993 PRS CE24 (my bridge position rock tone standard) and the strat sounded better! A little more bite but not brittle with more harmonics. I play through a Splawn Quickrod (hot rodded Marshall type amp into a Heritage 4x12) It absolutely rocked!
Next was the neck postion with a MAZ18 into 2x12 G12H30 celestions set clean and fat. My main strat has a DiMarzio area 58 in the neck position. The 54 smoked it! It was just fatter and had more snap.
Next is the middle position of my Tele into the same MAZ18. It has Amalfitano hand wound pickups and sounds great! The strat sounded just as snappy but not quite as bright or brittle. This was a toss up even though they sounded different, they were still in the ballpark and it provides a convincing position 2 tele sound.

I spent quite a bit of time adjusting pickup heights on all of the pickups to get the tones right and still get volume balance between them. I'm sooooooo happy right now! I could honestly sell evey other guitar I have and be satisfied with the three tones I am getting with this setup. :-)