3 Volume Stratocaster

[TunerAddict]

I was thinking of going with a volume control for each pickup on my strat build and was wondering if anyone here has done this mod. I usually just end up with tone at maximum, so I'm wondering if the sacrifice of the tone pot wouldn't be an awful loss.

Thanks

[honeyiscool]

There are a few ways to go about this. One is to wire it like a LP (so if one pot is off, the other is off). Another is to wire it like a Jazz Bass (so that turning off one pot doesn't turn off the volume completely). You could also make a configuration where there is no switch at all so you can have all three pickups at once. If you've ever heard all pickups on at once, it's some of the quackiest quack you've ever heard.

That said, I think independent volume controls seem so much better on paper than they do in real life. On a Les Paul, I feel like you get maybe three distinct sounds in the middle position, at the cost of making the guitar harder to use (IMO), and really, of those three distinct sounds, I feel like two of them just basically sound like the bridge and neck anyway. A Strat with three volume knobs can make it even more difficult to use. Keep in mind, if you like quack, and you're in Position 4, and you want to turn down the volume but still have the same quack, you're going to have to make sure that two of the knobs are in the exact same position with the volume slightly rolled. Even slightly different and the quack mostly disappears.

[TunerAddict]

As far as switches go, I'm wiring it with a switch for each pickup. Off/In Phase/Out of Phase.

[tlbonehead]

I'd hate a Strat w/o a tone knob available for all three pickups (meaning shared)

[wagdog]

Yeah, fwiw, I wire my starts for 1 vol and 1 tone. Just easier to deal with plaing live. All those options sound like a good idea (been there), but in actual use they can make the guitar frustrating to deal with.