Love the new 2010 Am Deluxe HSS with the Passing Lane button, but there is only one level, WAY TOO LOUD! Its useless with a band as it blows everything else away....anyone know how to tone it down a little bit?
Also, anyone know where to get the wiring diagram..not on the Fender site yet.
Many thanks!

Sorry I can't help you, but I couldn't resist looking up "Passing Lane button" and was surprised to see it's a real feature on a Fender! HaHaHa. Gotta love the Fender marketing and their tradition of cheesy hotrod themes.
"The all-new "passing lane" switch instantly routes your signal from any pickup position to the bridge position with the tone circuit bypassed, blasting overtones and volume straight into the Strat-osphere."

I can imagine a humbucker bypassing the tone control would have a lot of oomph to it. All I can suggest is don't use it, or roll the volume control on your Strat back a tad when you do use it. Maybe putting a resistor and/or a capacitor in line would tame it a bit, but I have no idea what values to use. Good luck.

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

thanks for the reply...I called Fender Tech Rep and he told me the button indeed bypasses everything and puts the HB in series directly connected to the output. He said its suppose to be for those 'mind melting leads'....and there is no way to control it. I suggested a foot volume control cuz the volume on the body has no effect on it at all (nor does anything else)...he thought that would be fine...or adjust the amp. Its a little lame but the guitar is sooooo darn nice in every other respect, I think I ll just learn to 'live with it'...
:--}

Wow the humbucker bypasses the volume control too!!! Well I learned something else new today. Thanks.
Sounds like things could get out of hand easily without even a volume control. Do you think this feature is practical at all at a gig?

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

Yeah, they need to put this on all of the guitars. Might cost a few bucks for them (literally) so, they might not do it. It would be possible to put a capacitor to tame it a little bit, as there is A LOT of treble. It really does make your guitar scream though. The new N3 pickups are much better than the SCNs, still a bit off though. I don't even touch deluxe because of the SCNs, feels like I am playing with a MIDI controller. The N3s have a better attack, a bit more glass. Couldn't get the right about of quack using two pickups, but I usually only use the neck pickup. On the new deluxe, I really liked the middle pickup much more than usual. You can get a boat load of sounds out of this thing.

The N3s are a pretty nice improvement over the previous noiseless pickups, although they're not perfect. VNs and SCNs are extremely awful-sounding.

Thanks for the other posts...well, I bought an Ernie Ball Jr. volume foot pedal (quite nice).....thinking I could use the P.L. button. Turning down the volume on the guitar before engaging the PL button has no effect.
Alas, it still screamed way too loud and adjusting with the foot pedal is just a pain.
My guitar repair guy says he ll wait till the schematic diagram comes out and figure out a way to add some control to it...otherwise, I m quite happy, its a really great sounding guitar!

It is not adjusting the volume on the guitar you are only perceiving it as such because it is no loading the Hum bucker removing the tone circuit. It is like using a no load tone pot and tuning to ten it now has no tone load making the pickup sound brighter and louder. The passing Lane switch is taking the place of a no load pot and at the same time it by passes the pickup switch to the bridge position. I still have to look at the wiring diagram to see how the do it and the S-1 wiring.

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John Suhr uses a similar feature on his guitars, the "blower" switch.

The "blower" works exactly like the "passing lane"; it bypasses the volume and tone controls and automatically routes the signal to the bridge pickup from any position. Both the "passing lane" and "blower" switches are useful for screaming lead tones whenever you need them.

My Yamaha RGX-420S has that "blower switch" as a stock feature, and I think it is pretty cool. It is great for lead solos. I think Fender is jumping on this a little late, as many other companies have used it for years.

I don't know if this would work or not, so might sound stupid but....
I saw a guy once wire up a Clapton midboost to a pedal so that he didn't have to put it in his guitar and he just used it as a pedal.

So maybe you can make your own pedal and wire a volume pot, on/off switch, and maybe a tone knob, and you can run your guitar thru that and you could preset the volume and just turn on it when you switch it to the passing lane.
Like I said I don't know if it would work, or if that would make switching to the passing lane setting pointless. other's might be able to say whether that would work or not.

Great guitar. Picked up at the Guitar center last week. Was debating on swapping out with the SSS as most guys on the forums tend to prefer the sss but I mainly play with the center pick up. Also I think the roller nut is a nice feature and really helps you stay in tune. The SSS version does not have it. Yea the assing lane sure does crank up the humbucker.

BTW are the N3s supposed to be totaly silent? I can still here some hum even in clean mode but don't have a non noiseless guitar to compare to.

Fender tech said "its suppose to be for those 'mind melting leads." Mind melting is an understatement. Might be OK for an outdoor performance or a very large indoor venue. I often have my amp set to a low volume for practicing in the house; however, if I press the Passing Lane button the volume goes thru the roof. By the way, bought my Strat Deluxe HSS yesterday. Love the action and the single-coil sound. Jury is still out re the H in HSS, tho.

The Passing Lane switch is not strictly an American Deluxe feature.

I saw a FSR Charcoal Grey (matte finish) Mexico Standard loaded with most of the features you might expect from the Blacktop HSH featuring a hardtail bridge, a matching headstock and the Passing Lane button.

(the pictured guitar is not mine)



I think it's a special order commissioned by Thomann.

Hi mjrnvc: I don't have a Strat with the Passing Lane switch, so I'm still a little unclear as to whether it is bypassing the volume pot as well as tone, or not.

But regardless, there are a couple of possible approaches you could take without touching the guitar's innards. The first is to play most of the time with the guitar's volume set to about seven or eight and adjust the amp's volume to achieve your final desired level. That way if you engage the switch and suddenly jump to full volume it won't be such an enormous leap, just a bit of a boost.

And that word "boost" is the key to an alternate approach. Rather than using a volume pedal to tame the guitar, use a boost pedal for your "mind melting" solos - don't bother with the Passing Lane switch at all. You can set a boost pedal exactly the way you want.

Cheers - C

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