A good project for a snowy day

[Matt_B]

Since my area is currently getting hammered with snow, I thought today would be a good day to install a new pickguard that I bought on eBay in my Fender Strat Deluxe.

As you can see in the pic below, it has a few switches but since the pickguard came "pre-wired" installation was a breeze. All I had to do was remove the three pickups from my current pickguard (Dimarzio VV 54 Pro and two Area 67s) and plug them into the solderless connector on the circuit board for the switches. All in all it only took me about an hour from start to finish. I had to change strings as well. It might have went quicker if my wire stripper was small enough for the pickup connections.



There are 3 switches for on/off/on for each pickup (these also reverse phase for each pickup) and 3 switches for series/parallel for each pickup. In total there are 35 sounds in there including the basic Strat sounds, some humbucker-ish ones and the ones that interested me the most, the Brian May-esque tones which are pickups run in series and out-of-phase.

The manufacturer (Awesomeguitars.com) sells this pickguard on their site for $179 but I got in on their eBay auction for $92. Considering the pickguard is $30 and the electronics are $40 it was a good deal.

[Axewielder]

Wow and I have enough trouble just trying to flip my three mini-switches quickly and accurately!

[Matt_B]

Wow and I have enough trouble just trying to flip my three mini-switches quickly and accurately!

Well, I'm still learning to work with all the switches and I'm not gigging out any time soon so it's all good. The tricky thing is it is possible to get no sound if the switches are in the "wrong" positions. Even though there are 35 sounds I will end up liking just a few.

[leftykingv2]

That is an awesome machine you've got there bro! How did you come up with the switching idea? Did you see it somewhere else or just come up with it on your own? I would love to noodle around with that thing. You pretty much have endless tonal options there. Killer Strat by the way too. I like the new pick guard better by the way.

[Matt_B]

That is an awesome machine you've got there bro! How did you come up with the switching idea?

I didn't come up with it. If it wasn't clear in my original post, I bought it pre-wired - the switches and pots were all hooked up so all I had to do was wire in my pickups which was easy because it uses solderless connections.

Killer Strat by the way too. I like the new pick guard better by the way.

Thanks. The pickguard is almost the same as the old one. The new one is white pearloid and the old one was aged pearloid.

[Brandenburg]

to many switches.. would rather have a blade switch and 3 or 4 toggles I think.. still kool though


not trying to hijack a thread but here is one of my projects I have dreamed up

i have several wiring projects on the drawing board such as this one..this one is for my esp ltd m107.. Since I rarely play this guitar, so the priority is low.. My jackson wiring needs to be tweaked a bit and it is priority

parallel and series
coil split
phase ( used with the coil split, you can choose which coil to have active.. The north or south) I havent figured how many combinations but its quite a bit

[Matt_B]

to many switches.. would rather have a blade switch and 3 or 4 toggles I think.. still kool though

I looked at a lot of options in terms of blade switching and push/pull pots but nothing but lots of little mini switches could get all the possible combinations I wanted. So far my favorite tones, asides from the traditional Strat ones, are all three pickups on in parallel and all three on in series with the bridge out of the phase. The later gives this screaming singing tone that's awesome.