Wailers Alembicised Stratocaster

[jacko]

Saw this in person on Saturday night and it really is a superb guitar.
 
Graeme

[elwoodblue]

So cool, ; )

[jazzyvee]

I want to modify the wiring in this guitar so that, like my strat Ultra, when the pickup switch is in the middle position, I get the neck and bridge pickups, like a telecaster, rather than the middle pickup which I never use. Also the pickups don't seem to have that out of phase sound in the intermediate positions 2 and 4 so should I just reverse the connectors to the neck and bridge pickups to get that configuration.  
If it's something that's easy to do then I will do it myself otherwise I can take it to a guitar service place and get it done.

[elwoodblue]

I'd start with switching the middle and bridge pickup connections on the switch. That will give you the bridge and/or neck without any major mods.
 
 
 G&L uses a simple spst switch to add the bridge pickup to whatever settings you have, that's a real simple mod that only requires a small hole for the mini switch (they call it the 'expander' switch).

[jazzyvee]

I had this mod done last week at a place across the city that do guitar mods and have an extra switch. In the off-position it is just the regular strat positions on the blade switch. In the on-position the blade switch positions 1 and 5 give me both the neck and bridge pickups together, positions 2 and 4 now give me all three pickups in parallel, and positon 3 is just the middle pickup again. It's a great mod and really gives me a lot of tones without messing with the tone controls on the guitar. The tele positon is superb!!!
I used it at rehearsal last night with a band I'm depping on guitar for and it sounded great. I'm off to a gig now to try it out for real.  :-)

[xlrogue6]

I've done this several times for a customer, his preferred implementation (sometimes via push/pull switch on a pot, sometimes mini-toggle, sometimes S-1 switch) turns on the neck PU in positions 4 and 5 only. That way you've still got 5 distinct sounds on the 5 way.

[edwin]

I'm not sure exactly what I did, since I lost the schematic, but in the 80s I modified my strat so that the second tone control does weird things to each position except the middle. In positions 1 and 5, it adds in the opposite pickup (1+3 or 3+1) and in positions 2 and 4, it sounds like it does something to add another pickup out of polarity, so the tone gets thin and kind of English horney or oboey respectively. Essentially, each position gets to be more like itself. Weirdly, the 1+3 and 3+1 sound different, so I'm not sure what's going on there. The fact that it's on a pot instead of a switch is very cool because you can dial in the amount to taste and quickly back it off if needed.

I wish I could find the article in Guitar Player I took it out of, but it was too many decades ago.