Just a question to you veterans out there. I've been playing my strat plus since 97 and I'm finally going to ask.

My bottom tone pot clicks and sticks at 5. It hits a detent. What exactly is the pot? Is it a tone cut? One way cut's bottom, other cuts high? Just curious as this point. Any way I can find out for sure because my manuals tell me NOTHING.

That'll be the TBX tone control - Plenty of info out there on the net, quite a nifty little option!

Thanks! I figured that would be it after some googling.

The TBX affects the middle/bridge pickups. Neck pickup uses a standard tone pot.

The following is from my website:

The TBX tone control was connected to both the middle and bridge pickups. Older Strats had the lower tone control connected to the middle pickup and the bridge pickup was bypassed all together. This newer design gives a person a lot more tone capabilities. On position #4 you can use both tone controls, one on the neck pickup and the TBX on the middle pickup while having both pickups on.



On the Strat Plus' Fender used what was called a TBX tone control on the lower tone knob. Above you can see the progression of the TBX. The first one is off an early 1987 Plus. Note the big resistor! Wow. The caps on the tone controls were orange up until around 1992-3, then they were a brownish color after that. The 2nd TBX is off a 1989 Plus and the last one off a 1994.

This is not an active system, as some believe, (using a battery as found on the 25db boost on the Clapton Strats), but it is simply a stacked set of potentiometer that cuts either treble or bass, where as the standard tone control only cuts the treble. So we have: T (treble) B (bass) X (Cut) thus TBX. When you turn this knob, you can feel a halfway point (detent)—this is tone neutral (#5 on the knob!). This TBX control gives the bridge and middle pickup a unique variety of sounds! The 1st tone control is a standard Fender 250 k potentiometer as is the volume control.

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The MDX is the active mid-boost circuit and requires a battery in order to function.

@Xhefri

It's possible to mod the Fender mid-boost circuit for accepting 18V or 27V power supplies? We already know that EMGs could be modded to work with two or three 9V batteries.

I really do not know much about the MDX or why a person would even want 2 or 3 - 9 volt batteries in a guitar. One is more than enough pain!

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I loved the MDX on the '83 Elite that I had. The TBX...not so sure about. I have one on my Strat Plus and usually leave it in the detent position.

Thanks, Xhefri. I definitely have a better understanding now. I just ran a full setup on the strat last night and I'm looking forward to firing it up. It's been way too long since I gave it TLC outside of polish and string change.

I was surprised at how low I had sent the action when I installed my Texas Specials. I've been playing it that way for years and finally redid the action after adjusting the truss rod. That was a bit out and the action is definitely better now.

I was backing down the pickups to run the intonation and backed the middle out too far and had to take out the pick guard to reattach it.

While I had it out I took notice to the bottom tone control and sure enough it had a double pot on it. Now that I actually know and understand the workings of it I can take my time and really play around with it.

Definitely looking forward to playing around with the TBX after running the setup on my strat.

I run my TBX on my Ultra and plus at 10 or around 7.5. I like the treble bite it gives. The bridge can sound close to a Tele on 10.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com