I own a MIM strat that I replaced pickups to Dimarzio Area 58, 67 & 61. They sound great , but I notice I lose tone as I roll back volume. If I go to 6 or 7is like if I turn tone in half also. Is this normal? Can this be improved by replacing the electronics (pots, caps, wiring)????
I've been looking online and found some companies like TFN Technologies that offer prewired harnesses for strats. Some of the options include the S-1 switching with wiring options like what comes with the Deluxe Strats. See below:


http://home.earthlink.net/~tfntech/id20.html

Is this worth it?

That's odd.....I own numerous Strats with DiMarzio Area series pickups and I have experienced no such thing!
The pickups sound wonderful at top volume as well as rolled back for quieter passages.
Got me................................

_________________
I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

I would try this out first:
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/I ... aster.aspx

I convinced a buddy of mine to be the guinea pig and wire his HWY 1 Strat this way, and it made a noticeable difference in treble loss when the volume knob is rolled back. Worth a shot before you start spending money, for sure.

yeh...when you turn down the volume ther is a small loss of high end. if you feel it nessisary install a treble bleed cap on the volume pot. the're are some different suggestions about which one you should use. check the web and make up your own mind. some of the treble bleed mods include a resister in paralel with the cap. you are not loosing tone just changing the dynamics of the output of the guitar. i like to have my tone control set at 5 or 6 when my volume is full and turn the tone towards 10 with the volume lower. just experiment before you go digging into your guitar.

I have all my guitars wired vintage 50's Gibson style: Strat, Tele, humbuckers. Works great with all. I also use these pots for volume control as they have a smoother curve, more 50's type than modern audio tapers:

http://store.rsguitarworks.net/RSG4.html

They also come in solid shaft and 500K versions. They occasionally go on sale for half price. I won't use a regular CTS pot anymore.

_________________
Bill

There is definitely a rolling off of the highs when you roll off the volume, and you've heard the two approaches to "fixing" it. Either go to "vintage" wiring or use a treble bleed circuit. By the way, I have the same pickups as you.

I went with the treble bleed approach and have been very happy with it.

My Strat is wired with the first pot as the master volume, the second as a master tone, and the third as a "blender" pot (allowing the neck and bridge pups to be used together and allows all pickups on at once).

I got the complete wiring kit with instructions here:
http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/Wiring-K ... P1168.aspx
I have little or no knowledge of guitar wiring, but was able to have mine work perfectly on the first try. Good kit and instructions. Saved me the trouble of being sure I chose the right pots, etc.

The supplier allowed my to swap out the .047 orange drop capacitor with a .022, so using the tone control isn't so dramatic. I like it.

The did a good job of choosing the right value for the capacitor and the resister in the treble bleed circuit. Works very nicely with the Area pickups. When I roll of the volume, my tone keeps it's sparkle.

If I recall correctly, I used the instructions from the kit as well as the wiring diagram from the Dimarzio site to get everything right.

Thank You all for your input! Think I will try first the 50's wiring because it looks pretty simple and will cost nothing and see how it goes.
I'm still trying to make up my mind on something else. When I originally replaced the stock pups on this guitar; I did Area 58 & 67 neck and mid, and used a Seymour Hotrails on bridge. I was missing my strat sound so installed a push/pull to coil tap the Hotrails. Then I was using it all the time coil tapped so replaced the Hotrail with a bridge Area 61 and used the push/pull for series/parallel wiring and now I have neck/mid or bridge/mid in series with pull out on positions 1 & 5. Not sure I have much use for this option. Need to use it some more.

I used a CTS 250k push/pull volume pot for this, and from the first day I noticed a volume jump once you pass 8.5 or 9..............not as smooth as the stock vol pot.
So..... I'll try the 50's wiring and maybe remove the push pull and forget about the series wiring.

Agreed; there is definintely a treble loss when you roll off the volume. I work at a repair shop, and have installed countless treble bleed and custom tone circuits. In that time; ive managed to convert a lot of people that just hated volume kits they've used in the past, and now swear by them.
The reason why they didnt like them; they were done wrong. By wrong, I mean they installed them using instructions that basically told them what values to use; this is problem #1. They also were told to wire resistors in parallel with the caps (1 leg of the resistor connected to 1 leg of the capacitor, and the other leg of the resistor to the other leg of the capacitor); this is issue #2.

To successfully install a volume kit requires 2 things; several different values of capacitors and resistors, and the patients to try several different combinations. Also, know that its going to change the taper of the volume pot, the value of the resistor you use, and how its connected to the cap will be the major influence on how the taper is affected. I've had several people tell me they love the taper after i installed the kits for them. The last guy said the amount of play he gained in the taper was awesome, he had much more sweep in the pot compared to stock.

I personally find that with single coils, more often than not; connecting the cap to the resistor in series (connecting 1 leg of the cap to 1 leg of the resistor, and leaving it that way, so its longer. When you solder them to the lugs of the volume pot you're going to solder the open leg of the cap to one lug, and the end of the unconnected leg of resistor to the other leg to be ideal, but this is subjective, and is influenced by the pot you have, the wiring itself, and the values you use.

I actually build "keys' and leave them at the shop so when im not there, the guy that owns the shop (who is an artist when it comes to repairing and restoring the guitar itself, but doesnt like dealing with the electronics aspect as much; whereas im the opposite) can just attach a set of leads to the lugs, screw the pickguard down with the leads hanging out, tune to pitch, and start connecting the keys i made (the keys are just different combinations of caps/resistors all with different values, some soldered together in parallel, the others in series.

Start with 100ohm resistors, and a low cap value. do what my buddy does; attach leads to the lugs you're going eventually solder the volume kit to. CLose up the pickguard, tune to pitch, then start using different combinatinos. If you can have an assistant to help you, it will make iteasier. To get a good idea of how it will work, with each combination; have them slowly raise the amp volume as you lower the guitars volume. This will help you compare how much treble you're loosing when you cut the guitars volume by keeping the overall volume equal by raising the amps volume. Id start by trying using just the cap first, then add a resistor if you dont like the taper. Try to keep the cap value as low as possible. DO NOT buy tthe premade kits off ebay, they may work fine in 1 guys (or girls) guitar, but may not work as well in yours. If you use a vlue too high, instead of just midigating treble loss, it willactually raise the treble as you roll off the volume; this will give you a ver thin sound..

Some people swear by silver mica caps. The mica caps fors some reason (im not an electrical engineer, so i dont know why it does this), tends to help reduce the hum of the pickups. Using the Area pickups you use (and I myself use them too, I work at a shop where we're a distributor for Fralin, Dimarzio, Lollar and a couple other boutique pickups. I put countless picups in , from Fralins to Fender Custom Shops, and the Area 61/58/58 were IMO by far the best sounding, most dynamic pickups i tried, and werer quieter than all my regular humbuckers. Since you dont get the hum from them; you'll be fine uing a poly, orange drop, or even ceramic cap.

Try as many combinatnos as possible untill you're happy. I like the vintage wiring on my Les Paul, but with strats i dont. I use a tone circuit i build for my guitars (very similar to the greasebucket cicuit, and this wont work with the vintage wiring.

I was going to order the Treble Bypass Mod from Don Mare pickups http://www.buckcannon.com because I noticed the same thing. Any pros/cons?

Treble Bypass Mod ITEM#: GPTRBLE
They are highly recommended with all of our pickups- It allows you to turn the guitar's volume knob down and still retain all the quality of our pickups at the lower volumes- a must have item!

This kit consists of a capacitor and a resistor, which are wired in parallel across two
of the lugs on the volume pot in order to prevent treble loss as the volume control is
rolled down. The values are 680pF/220K (single coils)

Price: $3.00

^ This ^

I would save the $3; go to radio shack and buy an assorted bag of ceramic caps, an assorted bag of resistors, and make one. It will cost you probably $12, & you'll get groups of 20 different values. Then you can make one using the right values, and you can change it later on, or make ones for other guitars. Plus, it's always good to have extra caps around anyway.

All that kit is, is a cap and resistor wired in parallel. You could make that exact kit in 7- seconds, for like 28 cents.

Sounds good. Thanks bro.

Calling that a, treble bypass is a misnomer. The tone pot is still in the signal, so nothing is bypassed, but you can make one very easily. Essentially its a no-load tone pot like on American Deluxes, where when you put it at 10, it bypasses the whole tone pot and removes it from the signal. This will give you more high end and output.

All you have to do is open the put up by lifting the 4-tabs that are folded down. Make sure you pay attention to where everything goes. Then place the knob back onto it so you can see the 3 or 4 copper leads that hang down, and make contact with the horseshoe shaped, metallic surface. Turn the knob to 10 so you can see hwere the leads come to a stop & where they sit on that metallic surface. The 2nd to last thing you do (last being reassemble the pot) is to stop the leads and surface fr making an electrical contact. You can do this by filing, scraping or grinding tghat part of the metallic surface. I use a clear acrylic nailpolish, its just faster & quicker.
One thing to beaware of is to just remove the section the leads rest on @ the 10 position, you don't want to remove 7-10, or you'll lose the ability to set the tone at, say;8. It will all be bypassed if anymore is removed.

Its an extremely easy mod to do. Take note though that this only works on tone pots. You can't do the same thing to the volume, it doesn't work.

Good luck, save your $$ & DIY. Its a good way to learn how everything works, amd the more info you have on how the electric guitar functions, the more you'll be able to customize the electronics to your liking.

This happened to me a couple of months ago. What happened with my G&L Legacy was that I sheilded the inside of the guitar and the pick-gaurd. When I installed the pick-gaurd assembly one of the legs of one of the tone pots was grounding out causing the same prob you discribed. I just cut the leg that was grounding off of the pot(not needed). You may want to check and see if a wire or pot or a loose bit of soider is grounding out the circut. Also check how your circut wires are laying down as you are placeing the pickgaurd on the guitar body. The wiring may check out okay when the pickgaurd is not on the guitar body. But when you in stall the pick gaurd the wiring lays down in such a way that the circut grounds out.
PS...Once I removed the grounding pc. of the pot everything was okay.

"Treble Bypass" looks like simply the wrong term for what is actually a "treble bleed" circuit already covered earlier in this thread.