Strat Wiring Head Scratcher

[kysrsoze]

... Well, it is for me. I've got my MIM strat dialed in almost perfectly, with one problem. When I select both middle and bridge pickup at the same time, the volume level of the D string drops much lower than the others. It's as if it disappeared, even when played by itself.

The overall volume is lower in positions 2 and 4 too. From some reading, I've gathered that the 50's wiring/Jimmie Vaughan mod tends to help a lot and people seem to like it. I'm wondering what anyone here thinks of it. The major difference is moving tone control #2 to the bridge pickup instead of middle, but a few people said they liked wiring both middle and bridge pups to tone control #2.

Your opinions are welcome on this one. Thanks.

[Pinkie]

I do that mod, I like having tone control on the bridge pick up.
The middle I leave with no tone control and it has a much woodier open sound.

[kysrsoze]

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up opening it all up again today. The previous owner did a bad job with the wiring. One solder came undone while I was inspecting things, and another appeared to be shorting itself on the switch. One nice thing - I saw he did spring for CTS pots too.

Anyway, everything's all prettied up and I did swap the tone control to the bridge pickup, and I really like having that control. The volume is much more uniform over the range of switch values, and there isn't quite as much a dropoff on the D string as before, though it's still a little lower than the others but livable.

The wide-open middle pup is nice, but it's taking a little time getting used to it. I'd almost like to be able to have both the middle and bridge pups controlled by the 2nd tone control. Ever done this? If so, does it more or less double the amount of attenuation? I don't want to muffle it all.

Thanks.

[Pinkie]

It tends to have a vol drop that way.The wide open middle pick up is the way to go IMO.