Stratocaster Wiring – Tips, Mods & More!
It’s no secret that the Fender Stratocaster® is one of the most popular guitar models of all time. Because of this, we sell a lot of Strat pickups. Our most popular Strat models are our Clean & Clear Vintage Hot and our Thick & Dirty Blues Specials – they simply sound like a Strat should.
Today, we’ve got some useful Stratocaster wiring tips and mods to share. We wanted to go through a few variations of the Stratocaster wiring, as well as some mods you can make to your Strat to super-charge it.
For the sake of brevity, we are only going to be focusing on Fender Strats with three Single Coil pickups, or, ‘SSS’ Strats, but this wiring also can apply to HSS strats as well!
Standard Stratocaster Wiring:
To start, we’re going to discuss the standard Stratocaster wiring that comes on most modern Fender Strats:
This Standard Stratocaster Wiring Diagram features a Neck tone (0.02mfd) and a Bridge & Middle tone (0.02mfd). You can always experiment with different cap values for a different sound, but this wiring is what comes standard on most Fender Strats after 2000.
This wiring is great for Strat players who want a simple and easy operation.
Variation On Standard Wiring:
If you wanted a different tone layout, you could simply reverse the way the 5-Way Switch wiring to get a Neck & Middle Tone and a separate Bridge Tone:
This variation allows you to keep the standard functionality of a Fender Strat while experimenting with different tone values for your Bridge Tone.
Lindy loves to have a Magic Cap (0.0015mfd) on his Bridge. This cap doesn’t act like a normal tone cap. Instead, it makes a Fender Bridge sound more like a Humbucker.
Modified Fender Strat Wiring:
At Fralin Pickups, nobody loves tinkering with wiring options more than Lindy himself. Over the past 30 years, he’s developed quite a few mods that take the Strat to the next level, without getting too technical and crazy.
Blender Pot Wiring:
For those in the know, the Blender Pot is one of the most potent mods you can make to your Strat. At under $15 and a super-easy installation, you can take your standard 5-Sound Strat into new sonic territory. For those who want to tinker, even more, our Half-Blender wiring is another great option too.
With the Blender Pot modification, you sacrifice having two independent Tone Pots, and opt for a Master Tone instead.
In our previous article, we discussed the Half Bender Modification. This modification uses the same Blender Pot, but wires it a bit differently:
Unlike the Standard mod, the Half Blender only works in Positions 1 & 2 of the switch: the Bridge, and Bridge + Middle Positions.
How is this useful? Well, for one, you can have a ‘Telecaster’ type tone in Position 1, then with one flip of the 5-Way switch, full Strat Neck tone: no knob-turning required!
Variation of Blender Pot Strat:
If you love your Blender Pot but miss having two tones, you can opt for a 2 Tone Cap Modification.The 2 Tone Cap Mod is a Push-Pull mod that allows you to achieve one tone cap in the ‘down position,’ and another tone cap in the ‘up position.’
Check it out here:
To wire this up, follow the above Blender Pot wiring diagram and replace the Master Tone with this Push-Pull Pot Modification. If you’re looking for more Push-Pull pot mods, check out our article below:
Baseplate:
The Lindy Fralin Baseplate is a Steel Plate that installs beneath your Bridge pickup. It’s designed to provide a more powerful Bridge pickup tone by making the pickup slightly more efficient.
For $12, this is a great mod for those who want a slightly thicker and more powerful Bridge tone, without having to rewind the pickup to hotter specifications.
Tips & Tricks:
We’ve wired hundreds of Strat Pickguards due to the popularity of our Prewired Pickguards (they have been our best-selling product since 2019). Because of this, we’ve got a few tips and tricks up our sleeve to make installation a breeze:
Tip #1: Control Your Wires
If you’ve ever wired a Strat yourself, you might understand the frustration of getting all wires to sit neatly in your control cavity. Due to the routing of the Stratocaster Body, you might only have a narrow channel to lay your wires.
The best way to make sure your wires stay nice and neat is to use some Masking Tape or Shrink Tubing on your pickup wires like so:
Tip #2: Don’t Over-ground
Take a look at the following image of a Strat – notice how each part connects to ground once. Notice any jumpers? The Shielding on the back of the pickguard is connecting everything. If you were to add jumpers between parts, you’d be creating a “Ground Loop” and introducing noise into your circuit.
Notice the A-F points. These mark the locations of parts that need grounding. You don’t see any jumpers between the parts because it’s the shielding that connects them all.
What you do see, however, is a common ground point (Volume Pot) where all grounds lead. This is called Star Grounding, and is the best practice for grounding your Strat.
That about does it for Stratocaster Wiring Tips & Tricks! I hope you found this article helpful, and as always, let us know what you think below!
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This guide has taken away any self doubt on the last frontier which to me is wiring salvaged electrics of unknown previous life into a 50$ subsonic I had intended to transplant wiring into a hand built cicarbox but it was too much fun and it finally dimmed on out. I doing 3 p.u. 3 knob &5 way switch. Appreciation heart felt. Be safe
another question. my strat pickups are pretty far away from the strings. how will it affect the tone if i move them higher?
You’ll get more of the pickup’s voicing if it’s closer to the strings.
This is awesome i have a 74 strat that ive owned since it was new, but i hate the muddiness of the stock tone pots, so i took them out, as i never ever used them. That enabled me to move the vol pot to the middle hole, farther from the strings so i dont accidentally turn it down. Anyway I would like to put a master tone pot in, leave the vol in the middle hole and a dummy pot in the top hole for looks. I would also like to explore options for the 5 pole switch that i installed a few years ago. Culd iit be wired for 1- bridge, 2- bridge + middle 3- middle, 4- middle + neck and 5- neck? This site is just what ive been looking for, thanks
The design of the five position switch is a great design except for the stupid terminal location. From common to
the first terminal should be #1 respectively on both poles For what possible reason the designer put #1 terminal on the #2 pole three terminal down from the common makes no sense at all
Hi.
I have a 59 Tele neck that I’ve owned for over 40 years. I’m building an Esquire with it using a 2-piece swamp ash Tele body.
I’m exploring options for harness with one of your bridge pickups, but haven’t decided which pickup yet.
I’ve heard pros/cons about the Eldred option, and also using a 4-way switch that incorporates the traditional Esquire setup with the Eldred.
I spoke to one of your people a while back but can’t remember our conversation very well. An argument for having conversations written. ?
Thanks.
Giulio
With the 2 cap wiring above I cannot turn the volume all the way off. ???
Thank you very much – very helpful!
I am wiring a double neck with 3 tele pickups on top guitar and the bottom strat has 3 humbucker pickups.
Using a 3p3t to select between the top and bottom pickups which will feed the 5 way switch with semi standard wiring of Neck & Middle Tone and a separate Bridge Tone.
Thinking of using the super switch to get the Tele Bridge + Neck and the other series and parallel combinations
overground ??? lol, that’s new to me
I have a customer that wants me to wire his Strat so that it can have the switching set up to be able to have neck and bridge on. As well as the switching to be able to have all pickups on.
If you can be of any help it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Kentucky.
All I want is a 3 way blade
Master tone
Master volume
And put them in where the tone knobs usually go as the volume is too close and I hit it
Great tips Tyler as the Fralin Pickups, the best pickups for stratocaster!
Very useful article!
Back to the comment Doug H made back in March,” Adding a single tiny jumper wire from the neck tone tab to the unused bridge tone tab can give you tone control for neck and bridge pickups (they are not on at the same time).” Does this really work
Hi. I have bought the blues special and I would like to connect them according to the second scheme, the variation of the standard. And I want to use the magic cap. But I have a question. Lindy puts this cap on the bridge pot, but on the other tone pot, what cap does he recommend ?, another magic ?. Thanks.
i put in a new seymour duncan in the bridge. However now my middle pickup sounds bad. My original neck and middle PU are noiseless. 2001. I notice on the black leads to the pot, there are two blobs of solder. Any the middle pickup is connected to each blob of solder. is that the cause?
I have no use for a tone! Is there any way I can have three volumes and a 5 way? Can’t find a diagram anywhere!
I’ve never had a need for tone control pots, so I took both out of my Strat. Also, I never use the mid p/u by itself–don’t like the hollow sound. From neck to bridge, my p/u config is S/S/H. My question is, with my existing 5 way switch, can I possibly get this setup? First pos-Neck, 2nd pos-Neck/Mid, 3rd pos-Mid/half HB, 4th pos-Half HB, 5th pos, full HB? If this will not work, what do I need to do to get this configuration?
Is there a way to blend a reverse wound Strat middle pickup with a regular wound bridge pickup via a tone control for a fatter type of Humbucker sound?
Sorry if this a redundant question
I’ve never found a wiring diagram for this. If anybody would know it would be y’all. PJ
Patrick,
You can use our Blender Pot to achieve this. Instead of wiring to the Bridge and Neck, you’d wire to the Bridge and Middle.
Fantastic pickups and quality workmanship ! I had Lindy and his experienced tech’s rewind a 1958 pickup I had in my 58 strat , along with my 50th anniversary Tele neck position pickup I replaced with a Lindy Fralin, and it’s been there ever since ! I can’t say enough about the tone , output and quality ! TOP NOTCH !A+++
Standard Strat wiring from Fender has NO tone control for the bridge pickup. Adding a single tiny jumper wire from the neck tone tab to the unused bridge tone tab can give you tone control for neck and bridge pickups (they are not on at the same time).
Great information, as usual. Thanks for posting this. Lindy rewound some pickups for me a few years ago and he did an amazing job.
He is the expert when it comes to quality pickups and rewinding.
I