Hey hey,

This one kinda goes out to the "experts" but im looking to upgrade my wiring scheme on my MIM strat, I love the sound of the guitar but i find the 2 tone system rather lame in comparison to some other applications the tone knob could be used for. So..i've been looking at this setup for a while now and the only reason i havint jumped on it yet is well..the cost.

http://www.guitar-mod.com/rg_kit_strat.html

I'm looking at the voodoo strat kit, which would have 1 master tone knob and a midrange shaper as a second knob...Although i do believe they would be shipping me quality parts..im pretty sure i could assemble a very similar kit via individual parts for considerably cheaper, list price is 65$US.

the kit comes with:
2 CTS pots - 250k (1 pull push pot for neck on)
an RG500D (mid shaper) - which retails seperate for 30$US
a 5 way switch
a .022uf cap - Orange drop
and a premium volume kit ? (what would this consist of?)
and of course some vintage cloth wiring to string it all together.

So i'm assuming i could easily get these parts from a site like stewmac and achieve equal results ?


Cheers,
Jack

I didn't buy his kit, but I did buy the midrange shaper so I essentially have the same setup. I really like it. I use the midrange shaper much more than the tone control now.

-Eddie

I've never tried the midrange shaper.

I did put a Black Ice on one of my strats. it replaces the capacitor on one of the tone controls, and essentially turns the tone control into an overdrive control. By adjusting the knob, you can add some overdrive into a clean signal.

Its pretty cool. I use it to add a little distortion to a clean signal, to get a more bluesy sound. I also use it with a heavily distorted signal to get an extreme amount of distortion.

Just another option of what you could do with a second tone control.

here's the link to StewMac's page for the Black Ice.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... drive.html

Next to where it says premium volume kit it says the following;
(1000 pf Mallory 150 series cap w/150K resistor)

And that is just a metal film cap you can get them for as low as 1.00 from torres.

_________________
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I've been wanting one of those, but had been waiting to hear someone else's opionion on them. You like it though? How does it sound? Also, did you just make the remaining tone knob master tone? If so, could you send me a wiring diagram if you have one?

Yeah, I like it.

Its sound is pretty nice. At about halfway, it sounds similar to a slightly overdriven tube amp. At full clipping, it sounds more distorted than a natural tube amp, but not quite enough to where I would call it heavy. I say its similar to a tube amp, because of course, its a solid state diode, so its not going to be exactly the same.

As for the remaining tone knob, I didn't make it a master tone. I wired the neck and bridge pickups to it. I leave the middle pickup alone on my guitars, I never use it that much, and when I do, its for clean picking, so I don't really need to adjust the tone much.

As for a wiring diagram, I don't have one. I don't really use them at all when I wire guitars. I like to just sit down and figure out where everything needs to go. I use them on amps, cause there is a bit more danger involved with miswiring an amplifier. But anyways, I'll see if I can draw you one up in the next few days.

that black ice does seem quite interesting, im considering putting it into the strat ill build over the summer since im still pretty set on a midshaper for my current setup.

Another goofy question, would a midshaper yield similar results to the JM big dipper pups if im running clean vintage pickups that are meant to simulate 69 sound ? (suhrs) I just cant get enough of his overdriven tone in his trio stuff. How can you describe the effects the midshaper has on your tone Eddie ?

Cheers,
Pat

You make make one pretty easily (The Black Ice that is):

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/blackice.htm

I'm pretty much sold. Thanks.

Edit: Nevermind the wiring diagrams. StewMac has what i want and quite a bit more.