The Strat!
One of the most important and greatest inventions mankind has ever created. The design is so brilliant that very little has changed on it. However, In the last sixty six years we as players have definitely evolved. These simple mods have become the most popular ones I do and complement the modern strat player nicely.
Treble bleed
Without getting too geeky, an easy mod for your volume control to get a smooth uniform guitar tone from 1 to 10. More of rounded sound at low volume so if you can really utilize volume dynamics. Its not difficult to install either.
Threaded screws
This mod makes it so you can disassemble and assemble the neck and body as often as one would want. If your guitar has the dreaded heel truss-rod adjustment I usually recommend this. Some people also swear that due to the tighter connection it can increase tone and sustain. Honestly, i don’t know how I feel about that.
Bridge tone
This one never made sense to me and the fact that fender still ships their guitars like this boggles my mind. I guess this came from Leo’s love of western swing music so he wanted to incorporate those bright pedal steel tones into the strat design. Times have changed, by today’s standards its way too bright and pretty useless if you ask me. This one’s an easy one… you simply attach a jumper wire (red) and voila!
7 way sound
This one has become a standard on my guitars. Its and easy and fun way to add 2 more useful tones to your arsenal. I’ve come to realize that although there’s a whole bunch of cool wiring options out there a lot of that it is either gimmicky or just useless. 7 way makes sense to me, it requires no crazy modification and you get 2 more sounds that are actually useful. I like using a push pull as well.
Position 1: Bridge
Position 2: Bridge + Middle
Position 3: Middle
Position 4: Middle + neck
Position 5: Neck
New Positions:
Position 5: Neck + Bridge
Position 4: All 3 pickups
Thread lock
Aight Imma get shit for this and yeah this aint really a ‘Mod’ but I’m tired of people calling me about lost nuts or broken solder wires on their output jacks. SIMPLE SOLUTION! a dab of loctite (blue) and properly tighten the nut and boom! no more loose nuts and broken wires.
Honorable Mentions…
There’s a few more mods that I could of mentioned like removing the finish on the back of the neck or shielding but I’ll save those for another time. As always, holler if you have any question!