A high quality electronic replacement / upgrade for Stratocaster style guitars with 3 single coil pickups (S/S/S) or 1 humbucker and 2 single coils (H/S/S). This controll plate is an exact fit for Fender USA/MEX as well as Squier pickguards and pickguards we sell at Valley Sound. We can not guarantee it will fit a pickguard that has a different layout or made by a different company. The distance between the pot holes must be exact.
The Gilmour mod is where the neck pickup can be activated via Push/Pull pot while in any position, giving you 2 extra pickup configurations. Meaning you can now have the Neck and Bridge combination or all 3 pickups on at the same time.
Switch assignment:
Push/Pull in (normal):
Position 1 = Neck
Position 2 = Neck+ Middle
Position 3 = Middle
Position 4 = Middle + Bridge
Position 5 = Bridge
7-Way Push/Pull pulled:
Position 1 = Neck
Position 2 = Neck + Middle
Position 3 = Middle + Neck
Position 4 = Middle + Bridge + Neck
Position 5 = Bridge + Neck
Required body cavity depth for push/pull pot: At least 30mm
Comes standard with a Karman Vintage Style 5 way switch, Full Sized Brass Shaft Potentiometers. Complete with all electronics soldered with vintage spec cloth wire, neatly wired up and installed on a rigid aluminum grounding plate (helps eliminate electrical noise at the same time) all you need to do is disconnect your pickups and output jack from your old electronic assembly and fit this electronic assembly to your pickguard and reconnect the output jack and pickups to our solderless connector. It is easy to do, the connector is spring activated so you just press on the orange part with a screwdriver, insert the wire and release. All the ground wires go to the bottom terminals and each hot goes to top terminals. They will be colour coded so you know where to put the hot of each component:
Output jack hot gets connected to the white terminal
Neck pickup to the blue terminal
Middle pickup to the red terminal
Bridge pickup to the yellow terminal
Please note - You would need to add an extra 24 - 48 hours to the lead time when ordering our prewired pickguards or electronic assemblies as we make them specially for each order. Please order via our Valley Sound website in order to select from these customisable options (alternatively make your purchase then email us your options):
Switch tip colour options:
- Cream
- Black
- White
Potentiometer knobs are not included, please purchase them separately should you require.
Unsure of what Pots, Capacitor and Tone control configurations to choose? Here are some examples below:
Example 1 (Standard USA S/S/S Strat configuration)
Volume: A250K
Tone 1: (Controlls Neck) A250K
Tone 2: (Controlls Middle) A250K
Capacitor: 0.022uF
This is the original standard from USA Fender
Example 2 (Most other Strat style guitars with S/S/S configuration)
Volume: B250K
Tone 1: (Controlls Neck and Middle) A250K
Tone 2: (Controlls Bridge) A250K
Capacitor: 0.047uF
With this variation to the USA standard you change from an Audio Taper pot to a Linear pot for more even roll off of the volume and the higher value capacitor tames the highs of the pickups slightly to make them less bright.
Example 3: (adding a treble bleed)
Volume A250K: with Duncan Treble bleed
Tone 1: (Controlls Neck and Middle) A250K
Tone 2: (Controlls Bridge A250K
Capacitor: 0.047uF
Treble bleeds prevent your sound from losing treble as you roll the volume down, the catch is they affect the taper of the pot, making an Audio Taper pot feel more Linear, to most people this is a good thing. To the purists, it is as offensive as a Disney remake.
Example 4 (Increasing Pot and Capacitor Values)
Volume: A500K with Duncan Treble bleed
Tone 1: (Controlls Neck and Middle) A500K
Tone 2: (Controlls) Bridge A500K
Capacitor: 0.022uF
Single coils are by nature much brighter than humbuckers, 250k pots are used to tame some of this brightness, but maybe you prefer a bright pickup? You could always make it less bright by rolling back the tone, if you go 250k you can't bring that brightness back.
Example 5 (Increasing Pot and Capacitor Values to accommodate a humbucker)
Volume A500K
Tone 1 (Controlls Neck) A250K
Tone 2 (Controlls Middle) A250K
Capacitor 0.047uF
Humbuckers are generally paired with 500k pots since they are darker, single coils with 250k since they are brightness, so what if you have a HSS guitar? Well with this configuration you have no tone controll on your humbucker so you are unleashing its full brightness potential, if it becomes too bright you could always roll back your volume since this configuration dropped the treble bleed.
