Push-button Strat anyone?

[Simon Barden]

Just been perusing through my old stomping ground of the Sound on Sound forum, and came a cross a chap who installed some push-button switches on his Strat. He never used the volume or tone knobs (he prefers an external volume pedal), but wanted to be able to get all the permutations. These particular push-buttons have got LED illumination to show when they're active.



Of course you an get all the permutations on a standard Strat with a single additional toggle switch linking either the neck (like my DG Strat) or bridge pickup to the output of the selector switch. And with no volume pot connection, the pickups are going to sound pretty bright (though you can simply wire in a 250k resistor from the output to ground if you want to get back to the normal sound).

[G-Axe]

I'm very much in favour of paring down to bare essentials, so I like what he's done. Looks clean, elegant and presumably does what he needs it to with no fuss. I bet he could even throw a momentary push kill switch on there if that was his thing.

[nitroburner1000]

Just been perusing through my old stomping ground of the Sound on Sound forum, and came a cross a chap who installed some push-button switches on his Strat. He never used the volume or tone knobs (he prefers an external volume pedal), but wanted to be able to get all the permutations. These particular push-buttons have got LED illumination to show when they're active.



Of course you an get all the permutations on a standard Strat with a single additional toggle switch linking either the neck (like my DG Strat) or bridge pickup to the output of the selector switch. And with no volume pot connection, the pickups are going to sound pretty bright (though you can simply wire in a 250k resistor from the output to ground if you want to get back to the normal sound).

Nice idea, so the switches are basically on-off switches to select or deselect the pickups in place of the std 5 way selector switch, simple and smart. might nick this idea in a future build...

EDIT.... so Simon, would you have to use 9v led switches with a battery pack added on?

[Simon Barden]

All depends on the look. You can obviously use toggle switches, which give a good visual indication and don't need batteries. But this one has latching action buttons with LED indication of when on, which adds a bit of 'interest'. You may get buttons that stand out proud enough when active to be able to tell the switching arrangement with a downwards glance, but you'd probably need to see them first to make a decision as to whether that was sufficient. There's no guarantee that you'd see the LED anyway if it only shone forwards, you'd need to get some where they illuminated round the edge. But at least you could see the LEDs on a dark stage.

Personally I'd also need a volume control as well, or at least an overall kill switch.

[stan]

Really neat install, i like the look of it

[nitroburner1000]

All depends on the look. You can obviously use toggle switches, which give a good visual indication and don't need batteries. But this one has latching action buttons with LED indication of when on, which adds a bit of 'interest'. You may get buttons that stand out proud enough when active to be able to tell the switching arrangement with a downwards glance, but you'd probably need to see them first to make a decision as to whether that was sufficient. There's no guarantee that you'd see the LED anyway if it only shone forwards, you'd need to get some where they illuminated round the edge. But at least you could see the LEDs on a dark stage.

Personally I'd also need a volume control as well, or at least an overall kill switch.

Yes definately need a volume switch, but i was thinking the 3 on off switches would be great to replace a 5 way selector switch. I prefer the look of a toggle switch but its hard to get one with more than 3 positions.
So most illuminated push button switches are 12 volt. Can they be adapted for 9volt?

[corsair]

I would hesitate at the omission of the tone pot as well; how do you find the sweet tonal spot without the pot? I don't see any advantage in a setup like this - I used a volume pedal as well when I was gigging and left the guitars volume at about 95% as I believe that the things got to be running flat out to get full benefit of the pickups, but I didn't want to lose any flexibility.
YMMV, of course....

[nitroburner1000]

I would hesitate at the omission of the tone pot as well; how do you find the sweet tonal spot without the pot? I don't see any advantage in a setup like this - I used a volume pedal as well when I was gigging and left the guitars volume at about 95% as I believe that the things got to be running flat out to get full benefit of the pickups, but I didn't want to lose any flexibility.
YMMV, of course....

I agree, im only looking at it to replace a 5 way slide switch

[wokkaboy]

surely you could get a new pickguard and put the 3 mini toggles to turn on/off each pup and just have a master volume and tone knob

[wazkelly]

I reckon the switches are probably just on-off therefore no need for a kill switch. Lack of a volume control is my only issue but could learn to live without one.

Years ago I had a Jap Strat copy that was modded with 3 mini DPDT switches that were on-on-on and also kept the 3 knobs so that there was a volume for each PUP. In hindsight just one Vol would have been enough and there were lots of interesting sound combinations on offer mainly because I had early Bill Lawrence blade style PUP's that were like many of the similar mini humbucking ones you get today thus allowing series and parallel switching.