Custom HotRod Strat Build.

[DrNomis_44]

I was just thinking that if the normal series mode did sound a bit thick, you could try just wiring them in parallel, which should still be hum- cancelling (I think) but get you closer to a true single coil sound. Obviously, having the two modes switchable gives you more options, but sometimes I find its easier to stick with basic sounds and swap to another guitar if I want a different one (also give you an excuse for having a lot of guitars). My Jimmy Page model LP has 21 possible switching combinations, but I've only ever used seven of them.

I guess the sky's the limit when it comes to series/parallel pickup wiring, my mate's Bird guitar has tons of options with regards to pickup wiring, he got me to replace a 4PDT toggle switch on it for him, that was a job and a half, fortunately I had the foresight to draw a wiring-diagram before de-soldering the switch, otherwise it would have been a nightmare to sort out, my LP Studio has coil-tapping incorporated in it so that when you pull the two volume control knobs up from the body, the two humbuckers become single-coils, to my ears the tone becomes a bit Fender-like, but what is surprising is that there doesn't appear to be a substantial drop in signal-level, which I would have expected.


I think my white Ibanez RG350DXZ incorporates Series/Parallel pickup wiring in some of the selector-switch positions, they sound a little different to the stock Fender tones, I think it's more a case of experiment till you find something that sounds good to your ears, but the thing is, what sounds good to one person may not sound good to another, but that's the great thing about our modern society, no two people will like the exact same thing, just imagine how boring the world would be if we all liked the same thing?, that's basically my attitude, besides, it's way more fun coming up with your own sound anyway, Brian May did it really well with his home-made Red Special, funny thing is, the guitar was made of bits and pieces he and his dad managed to scrape together cause he couldn't afford to buy a factory-made guitar, and now commercially made copies of his Red Special go for a fair few pounds, he and his dad obviously got something right, I always wondered how he managed to get that tone out of those Bourns pickups on his Red Special, he was obviously a smart cookie, and I think his dad was an engineer.


The next thing I'm going to have to figure out is how to make a headstock logo for the HotRod Strat, been looking in a few places in Darwin for the Waterslide Decal film I need for printing-out custom decals, no luck so far, but I'm not about to give up yet.