Prepped Baseplate
$16
Installing a Baseplate on your guitar will increase the power and bass of your Strat’s bridge pickup. We do all the work for you, all you have to do is follow some simple instructions below for installation.
Available! Estimated Lead Time: 2-3 Days
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Prepped Baseplate Info:
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Features
The Prepped Baseplate adds power and bass to your Strat’s bridge pickup. This easy-to-install modification will provide a slight boost in volume and power when installed. You’ll notice more low-mid frequencies. This mod works on our Vintage Hots, Blues Specials, Real ’54s, and High Outputs.
The Fralin Prepped Baseplate can install on most Fender-style Strat Pickups. It will not work on pickups with bar magnets or steel screws. This Baseplate will not work on the following products: Split Blade® Strat, Steel Pole 43 Strat, Steel Pole 42 Strat, Split Steel Pole Strat
Installation
The Prepped Baseplate is easy to install. All you need is the following:
- High-Powered Soldering Pencil
- Wire Cutter
To install, start by identifying the ground connection of your Bridge Pickup. On most pickups, the ground connection is where the Black Lead connects to (Step 1). Position the baseplate on the back of the Bridge Pickup and line up the ground wire with the ground eyelet on the back of the pickup (see Step 2).
Using your soldering iron, solder the grounding lead to the eyelet, and clip off the excess grounding lead. Be careful not to ‘overcook’ the eyelet. Your iron should be hot enough to ‘flow’ the solder quickly.
Lastly, you’ll need to melt the wax on the baseplate. You can do this a few different ways, but the easiest is to use your soldering pencil to heat the baseplate up enough to flow the wax. Let the baseplate cool and cure.
Customer Reviews
45 Genuine Reviews for Prepped Baseplate
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I have a 1963 Strat that I have had since 1968. The pickups have always sounded a little thin and didn’t take gain very well. It is virtually all original so I didn’t want to modify it significantly. Since the baseplates are held on with wax and only one small solder, I thought I would try one. I actually put one on all 3 pickups and it made a significant improvement in tone and output of all 3 pickups. It did change the bridge tone giving it a bit of a tele honk which is fine with me. It’s not a massive transformation but it helped these low output pickups a fair amount. If you have lower output pickups, the baseplate will give them a boost.
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Pleasantly surprised with how much of a difference this made!
I actually was already a big fan of the bridge pickup sound in my Strat for a while, until a buddy of mine let me try out his Tele and I realized the low end I was missing out on in comparison (the ignorance was bliss). This plate rounds out the low end nicely without losing too much of the pickup’s natural bite. I also went ahead and wired the middle pickup tone pot to control the bridge pickup as well, which is another nice little mod to compliment this plate.
Installation was super easy, anyone with a solder iron and internet connection can figure it out.
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Easy, easy to install, made a big difference. No-brainer.
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Easy install (with mediocre soldering skills) and great result. The plate clearly thickened the mids and bass of my Strat bridge pickup. It’s much more Tele-like now. An easy and effective mod! Order was shipped quickly.
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I always loved my MIJ ’54 Strat, with the exception that it was way too noisy (60-cycle hum) and the bridge pickup sounded too thin. (The only use I found for it was with a ton of fuzz that got me some nice Jimi tones.) My solution was to install this baseplate along with a switchable dummy coil to cancel the hum. These two mods gave me my perfect Strat. The bridge pickup now sounds a lot beefier, similar to the bridge pickup on a tele. With the dummy coil on, I can layer on a lot of gain and it gets me into humbucker type sounds, but still with a Strat flavor.
For me, this is a way better option than adding a humbucker to a Strat, as it retains most of the classic Strat character.
Check out my installation video with sound samples here: https://youtu.be/lUQiatfh1OM?si=bSjpoSlkB2XWMNy9&t=1463
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