Custom tone pot and caps (and anything else)

[8donovang]

So, I've been adding stuff to my strat for a while, but there's one thing I've never managed to do. I've heard about it vaugly, but never about how to do it or figure it out, nor have I found the right parts.

I got custom pots and everything in my strat, but I've never change dthe caps that came with the custom pots. They sound great and fine, so I nevre went to change them, you know?

But I've decided it's time. I plan to make the tone knobs not only seperat, but different. I've already kindafigured out half of it, but there's more to be found out.

The biggest part is, I want to change one from a Tone knob to a Distrotion knob, or maybe an Overdrive knob. In fact, I'm considering getting a concentric pot so that it could do both. I've been told that caps or resistors exist that actually let you add dostortion or overdrive, but I'm yet to find any for guitars. I've foudn them for amps, but I doubt any of them would work correctly. not to mention they're large and with everything I've added, space is limited. I've already got a battery velcroed to the bottom of the space the runs the LEDs the show around the humbuckers. There's more stuff in there than I can explain, btu you get the point. I could bareley fit a concentric pot, let alone a one-inch wide and two-inch long cap for an amp.

The second thing is how I can have the two tone knobs going through different caps (I've figured that much out..) but also how to have every pickup running through them. The only idea I've had so far is to have all the pickups go from the 5-way switch to the volume pot, and then take the wire that goes from there to the output jack and run that to the nearest tone pot, and then the output wire from that to the next tone knob [and if I'm using a concentric pot the output from that to the neck input) and then the output from that to the output jack finally. I'm not sure if that would work normal or have problems, and I was wondering if possibly I should run the wires through all the tone pots and then through the volume pot, and then to the output jack.

Either way I want every tone knob to affect every pickup, instead of depending on the 5-way switch.

I'm also openn to any other suggestions of ideas to do. I've alread added a switch that will turn on the neck pickup (My strat is an HSH) so that I can also have neck-bridge pickups on, or all three pickups on.

If it comes down to it, I can just grab my dremel and do some routing and make plenty more space. I mean, the pickguard on a strat follows half an inch from the edge on teh bottom of the guitar, and yet there's only a little spot routed.

There is one other limit- money. Being just another musician, I obviously don't havemuch money, expecially since I just put a few humbred pucks of electronics into my bass, and since a lot of my money is going into the BC rich warlock I'm building (this things kicking my ass- I'm going through bondo, primer, and sandpaper like cheap toilet paper..).

So, obviously if it exists, a cheap version of it exists, too ^_^

I've never thougt two tone knobs were very nesissary, so I figure first thing would be to replace with with a concentric pot with distortion and overdrive. I wouldn't mind putting in a bass knob and a trebble knob, but they'd have to be small.. possibly just a two-way seitch that one way adds trebble boost, one way bass boost, and the middle adds neither. Or, take out the top tone and add another concentric pot foor bass and trebble. I like that idea a lot.

Yet all I'm looking for now is HOW to do it, and WHERE to get these things. and I'f I'm going to be doing extrarouting and putting in more knobs and switches, I'll probably want to get a pickguard for my strat that has no holes drilled in it yet, so I can put the switch and knobsi n different places, and re-arrange them to fit more in smaller room. if it comes with no holes, that'd be awesome, but if it's gonna have the holes for the pickups it's gonna have to be HSH.

EDIT: Also, a little more info: I mostly play different type of rock, metal, punk, stuff like that. It's pretty general, but I don't play anything really soft, classical, country, jazz, or stuff like that.

Also, I have pictures if you want/need to see them.

And once again, ANy suggestions are welcome, I'm looking to make this thing as awesome as I can.

[8donovang]

It's also been suggested that I put in a full array of things, such as coil taps, out of phase, EQ, boost pots, phaser pots..

I like the idea of the EQ, possibly something like a 5-band right there on the thing. It'd have to be reletively small..

Any other ideas, and any ideas on how I might pull some of this off?