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one of the major annoyances for me with strats is the fact that there are 7 possible pick up variations that could be selected, but only a 5 way switch. i like the flexibility of a 3 pickup guitar, but having more options for switching would be nice without having to re-wire the guitar. i was hoping someone could tell me if this would work...

wire the pickups to a 3 way selector switch, positions "bridge mid" "all" and "mid neck"

wire one volume pot to the bridge and neck pickup, another to the middle pickup, and one master tone for all pickups.

the idea here, would be the ability for the middle pickup volume to put the pickup in or out of the mix, sort of like a blend knob, and the ability to pull the neck and bridge pickup out of the mix in a similar fashion using their volume pot.

this may seem a bit confusing, but i *think* this is how it would work...

no middle pickup:
neck position, middle volume off = neck pick up
middle position, middle volume off = neck and bridge pick up
bridge position, middle volume off = bridge pick up

middle pick up engaged:
neck position, middle volume on = neck and middle pick up
middle position, middle volume on = all pick ups on
bridge position, middle volume on = bridge and middle pick up
any position, neck and bridge volume off = middle pick up only

now i would guess that there would be a bit of bleed through as the pot probably wouldn't cancel all of the signal on the pickups, but would this wiring not work to allow the above flexibility?

Theoretically as long as the pot you are using to turn the middle pickup on/off is before the 3 way I think it should work. You could probably also have dedicated toggles for the pickups, or if you don't need all those knobbies I'd suggest using a rotary switch like the squier 51 has (except you'd have to find a 7 way). I think it'd be pretty cool to have a varitone, rotary selector & volume pot on a strat.

I recently wired a 3-pickup JM with a 6-position rotary to give everything except all three in parallel (would you ever really want that?) - I can post a diagram if you'd like. A jag plate with 3 individual switches for the pickups would work, too.

My burns cobra has a push / pull tone knob that engages the neck pickup in every position allowing the 5 standard Strat positions plus bridge / neck and all 3 pickups. This does away with the need to add any more sliders or toggles

why not just wire in a DPDT on/on toggle switch which acts as a Bridge on switch....

or use a push pull pot...

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wi ... witch_f_bp