What is it?

Gibson 50's style wiring harness with blender for SSS Fender Stratocaster. Direct replacement for American and Mexican Fender Stratocasters. Hand wired with the highest quality parts and cleanest solder connections from a professional guitar tech.  This wiring harness will give you the clearest signal possible with even and balanced volume/tone roll off.  The middle tone is wired as a master tone for all three pickups. The bottom knob is a neck/bridge blender.

Gibson 50's Style Wiring

Electronically, there's nothing too out of the ordinary about this wiring; it simply connects the tone pot to the output of the volume pot (middle lug) instead of the input. All the late-fifties Gibson guitars were wired this way, but you can do this with every guitar—and this month we'll do it with our Strats. So what's the big deal, you ask? The '50s wiring will have two major effects on your tone:

First, the overall tone gets stronger and more transparent. It's difficult to describe, but perhaps saying it's more “in your face" would be a good way to describe it. Second, the typical treble loss that occurs when rolling back the volume is much less, and both the volume and tone controls react more smoothly and more evenly, without the typical hot spots. As a side effect, it's easier to clean up an overdriven amp by simply rolling back the volume on your guitar a bit. As always this is a matter of choice, but it's definitely worth a try. It's easy to do, requires no cosmetic changes, and it's easy to switch back to the standard wiring. We'll talk about this wiring again when we switch over to Les Paul and Telecaster mods.

So, before we heat up the soldering iron, let's have a closer look at the tonal effect of the '50s wiring. I'm sure you've heard about the magical tone of the late-fifties Burst Les Paul guitars; we all know this tone from our old records. Part of the magic is the '50s wiring, which makes the tone very transparent and more “direct." The guitar responds much better this way. Without this wiring, it's difficult to get the same bloom, meaning the notes open up after they've “left" the guitar. It's always difficult to describe such tonal flavors, so I suggest you give it a try and to see for yourself if you love it or not.

The other effect has to with a problem we all know from our passive volume controls—the idiosyncrasy inherent in passive single-coil pickup systems like the Stratocaster: when you turn down the volume (even just a bit), the high end or treble loss is disproportionate. In other words, a small cut in volume creates a far greater loss in your guitar's treble response. You can get rid of this problem by installing a so-called treble bleed network—a combination of a capacitor and a resistor in parallel or in series—on your volume pots, but maybe the '50s wiring will make this unnecessary for you. This wiring will greatly decrease the treble loss compared to the standard wiring.

Blender

-Features a blender bot in place of the bottom tone (middle is a master tone for all pickukps).  Gives you the option of 7 different pickup combinations!

1. bridge
2. bridge/middle
3. middle
4. neck/middle
5. neck
6. neck/bridge (In 1 or 5 of 5 way with blender turned down)
7. neck/middle/bridge (In 2 or 4 of 5 way with blender turned down)
 

-The bottom tone has been changed into a blend pot that allows you to blend the neck and bridge pickups together.  This produces a unique tone similar to a tele in the middle position.  It has a balanced bass and treble response with a softer attack.  Sounds great for rhythms.  When the blender is all the way up on 10 there will be no effect on the tone. The more you turn the knob down the more the neck and bridge pickups blend together.   In positions 2 and 4 on the 5 way, with the blender turned down to 0, all three pickups are active.  Note: the middle tone knob is now a master tone.

Includes:

-2 x vintage style brass shaft CTS 250k pots 1/4" threaded bushing (CTS makes the highest quality potentiometers with consistent and reliable readings).

-1 x CTS 250k no load blender pot

-V/T/B (master volume, master tone, blender)
-.022mfd Orange Drop capacitor (produces a smooth and even treble roll off when cutting back on the tone controls)
-Vintage style pull back cloth wire (7 strand 22 gauge wire for the clearest signal path)
-Fender Vintage Stratocaster Aluminum Shield
-Oak Grigsby 5 Way
-Wiring diagram included