• Flexible strat wiring

I read somewhere that a 3 pickup strat has 128 different ways to combine the pickups when you consider having different pickups on, series-parallel wiring, and out of phase combinations. The standard 5 position switch misses 2 of the obvious combinations--neck plus bridge, and all 3 pickups. Some people address this by adding a switch that lets you turn the bridge pickup on at any time, but the more you have to remember, the less useful the system is. That's why I don't particularly like substituting 3 toggle switches--one per pickup--to control the combinations. There are too many switch combinations so you can't quickly determine what setting is in effect.

The diagram to the right show a scheme that uses a 3 position rotary switch to put the guitar in different "modes" and provides 10 pickup combinations in a way that works for me. Mode 1 is a stock guitar. The second mode contains the "missing" settings--neck plus bridge and all 3 pickups. The third mode adds series and series-parallel connections that put out a fairly hot signal.

The rotary switch replaces one of the tone pots, so you don't have to drill any holes.