I just purchased a American Standard Strat and have been playing it alot. I am curious about the pickups. I know I have read this before and I'm sure its been talked about alot in the Fender Lounge. Which pickups do the two tone adjusters control?

It seems like the neck(5th position) pickup is controlled by the lst tone adjuster. It sounds like both tone buttons are able to change the 4th pu position. Is the middle pickup controlled by both tone buttons? Is the 2nd pu positon just controlled by the 2nd tone button?

I think I must have dreamed this but I saw or read that the bridge pickup didn't have controll with either tone button. The 2nd tone button does change my bridge pickup and it actually sounds pretty good when you place the 2nd tone button to 1. It actually sounds somewhat like a humbucker pickup.

Thanks, Shane

Traditional strats are wired with no tone control for the bridge, and with the first tone controlling the neck and the second for the middle.

The American Standards/Series and certain other strats are wired where the 2nd control is for the middle and bridge.

And you are correct that on an American Standard (and any other Strat with the "modern" wiring) the neck/middle position is affected by both tone controls. Here is a breakdown:

Position 5: Neck pickup, upper tone control active
Position 4: Neck/Middle pickups, both tone controls active
Position 3: Middle pickup, bottom tone control active
Position 2: Middle/Bridge pickups, bottom tone control active
Position 1: Bridge pickup, bottom tone control active

Yogi and John C,
I appreciate your responses and it helped me get a better understanding of the tone controls and pickups.

One question: Why is the neck/middle pickup connected to both tone controls?
Shane

Hi Shane,
The answer to this riddle is the strats lack of 3 tone controls. With only two tone pots at our disposal, we must run one pickup with out a pot, or double 2 pickups on one pot. You can alter the setup to your liking with basic soldering. The answer as to why the American strat is wired this way is a question for Fender.
The Eric Johnson Strat's middle pickup bypasses the tone pots. Thus designated one for the bridge, and the other for the neck.
Having messed around with both setups, the EJ setup is more useable.

There are a few "better mousetraps" out there from other builders as well.

John Suhr has a pretty cool wiring scheme, but according to things he has posted you have to use a "superswitch" (one that is also used on HSS and HSH guitars to automatically split the pickup coils in positions 2 and 4) to do this. He sets up the top tone to control positions 2-5 and the bottom tone to only function on position 1 (bridge pickup only) so you can have two different settings on your SSS guitar - you can set up a fatter tone on the bridge pickup and have a bright tone to play rhythm on position 2 (bridge & middle).

I appreciate all you guys who spend time on this forum. I am always learning things every day.

I had mentioned that I was impressed with the sound of the bridge pickup when I turned 2nd tone to 1 and it had a humbucker-like sound. I learned something new just assuming that it would sound the same with most tube amps. I found out that is wrong. I plugged my guitar up to my Fender Blues Junior and it did not sound the same, in fact, it didn't sound good.

The amp I was referring to, that sounded good, was my Mesa/Boogie Express 5:25.

Shane