suggestions, input, ideas

[Faux Hog]

I'm building a new strat as contracts are still hard to come by in this economy and I find myself around the house a little too much lately. It's going to have a master volume and tone because I do a lot of swells with both, however I want to keep the guitar vintage stock in appearance. So what to do with the extra pot? Hmmm. I own a few strats and I only use the bridge and nick pickups, to the point I might even load a mock-up in the middle and save the coil wire. So if you had a pot and the unused space on the switch to work with what practical mod would you go with?

[Chuck H]

A push pull pot (I know,... boo, but I like 'em). The switch would be a phase switch for the combo pickup configs and the main pot operation would be a midrange control ala Torres (or the Gibson LS-5 that Torres got it from).

Chuck

[tribaltattoos]

I know it wouldnt appear stock but a kill switch would be cool.

[Faux Hog]

I could do the phase switch on one of the legs of the 3/5 way switch. Pull puts just look so awkward on strats especially just one. The mid sweep is interesting.

I'd like my tone pot to have as much wah sweep to it as possible, does anyone know if there is such thing as a pot with a momentary off switch on it? That would be interesting on the tone pot for a kill switch.

Good Ideas. Keep em coming.

[axpro]

I've done a few strats with 3 ways and master volume/tone. Use the 3 way for bridge/neck switching and the extra pot to blend in middle pickup.

[David Schwab]

I only have two pots on my Strat. I also dislike where the stock volume control is.. it's too close to the strings and gets in the way of my picking hand.

[Faux Hog]

I never had a problem with the volume pot position, but I have to cut the switch slits perpendicular to the strings on my strats. Otherwise I inadvertently flick the neck pickup into a different position every time, never fails. On the one strat that has a stock guard on it, I turn the switch all the way around to avoid this. It would seem that whenever using the bridge pickup I tend to play tighter, if that makes sense, so I never have the opposite problem. Plus its always fun to hand that guitar off to some unsuspecting pal.

[David Schwab]

I rest the fingers of my picking hand right by where the volume knob is. I don't move my picking hand much, so I'd never hit the switch by mistake. It's all the way on the other side of the knobs.

I laid out my Tele controls this way.

[jakeac5253]

This!
GuitarHeads Underdrive Onboard Distortion Mod

Also, I am not a fan of strat middle pickups either, but what I like to do is wire the middle pickup reverse polarity for some interesting phase cancellation. I still never use the middle pickup by itself... but it sure does make the in-between positions sound a lot creamier and interesting