Why Fender Strat controls suck — and how to fix them
The Fender Stratocaster has earned itself the reputation of being perhaps the most versatile guitar available — for good reason.
I won’t go into detail about its comfort or the variety of tones it can produce, because enough has been written about those things over many, many years.
The combination of three pickups and a five-way selector switch means the Strat can do almost anything you want it to. But it isn’t perfect.
Let’s take a look.
The Strat typically has three pickups, and three knobs.
One of those is a master volume (meaning it controls the volume for all 3 pickups).
The other two are tone controls.
This is confusing: with a master volume control, you may expect master tone as well (which is how the Telecaster works). Instead there is a dedicated tone control for two pickups — but not all three!
You might reasonably assume that one controls the neck and the other controls the bridge.
If so, you’d be wrong.
There are exceptions, but typically the Strat has tone controls for the neck and middle pickup, meaning you have no tone control for the bridge at all.
If this bothers you, then I’m going to explain some of your options. First, if you’re still unsure about how the knobs on electric controls work, and how they differ across different guitar models, I wrote a detailed article covering that:
What to do about those Strat controls…
If you dislike the tones you get from your Strat bridge pickup and want to get around the limitation of the default wiring, here are four options, starting with the least appealing.
Get used to it
Lots of people leave their Strats completely stock, and you can roll back the volume or use various pedals to influence the sound.
Set your amp EQ to your liking on the bridge
Instead of dialling in your amp to the neck pickup, do it with the bridge. This way, you know you’ll like the bridge pickup sound. Then you adjust the height of the neck and middle pickups accordingly, and can more directly influence their sounds with the dedicated tone knobs.
Raise the bridge pickup
This is a highly neglected ‘trick’ for all guitars, but changing the height of your pickups can drastically change their tone. Raising the overall height will give a thicker, hotter tone, and changing the angle so the bass or treble side is closer or further away from the strings will change the influence of those strings too. For example if your tone is too bassy or muddy, slightly lower the bass side while keeping the treble side higher.
Rewire a tone pot
By rewiring a tone pot, you can allocate the bridge its own control. Typically, people will remove the control from the middle pickup, giving a dedicated tone knob for the neck and bridge pickups. Of the four options mentioned here, this one gives you the most flexibility with what the bridge pickup can do — and if you combine it with adjusting the height and dialling in your amp’s EQ, you’ll have a tone you love in no time!