Stratocaster Wiring – Tips, Mods & More!

It’s no secret that the Fender Stratocaster® is one of the most popular guitar models of all time. Because of this, we sell a lot of Strat pickups. Our most popular Strat models are our Clean & Clear Vintage Hot and our Thick & Dirty Blues Specials – they simply sound like a Strat should.

Today, we’ve got some useful Stratocaster wiring tips and mods to share. We wanted to go through a few variations of the Stratocaster wiring, as well as some mods you can make to your Strat to super-charge it.

For the sake of brevity, we are only going to be focusing on Fender Strats with three Single Coil pickups, or, ‘SSS’ Strats, but this wiring also can apply to HSS strats as well!


Standard Stratocaster Wiring:

To start, we’re going to discuss the standard Stratocaster wiring that comes on most modern Fender Strats:

Fender Stratocaster Wiring Diagram with Middle & Bridge Tone
Fender Stratocaster Wiring Diagram with Middle & Bridge Tone

This Standard Stratocaster Wiring Diagram features a Neck tone (0.02mfd) and a Bridge & Middle tone (0.02mfd). You can always experiment with different cap values for a different sound, but this wiring is what comes standard on most Fender Strats after 2000.

This wiring is great for Strat players who want a simple and easy operation.

Variation On Standard Wiring:

If you wanted a different tone layout, you could simply reverse the way the 5-Way Switch wiring to get a Neck & Middle Tone and a separate Bridge Tone:

Stratocaster With Neck & Middle Tone and Separate Bridge Tone

This variation allows you to keep the standard functionality of a Fender Strat while experimenting with different tone values for your Bridge Tone.

Lindy loves to have a Magic Cap (0.0015mfd) on his Bridge. This cap doesn’t act like a normal tone cap. Instead, it makes a Fender Bridge sound more like a Humbucker.


Modified Fender Strat Wiring:

At Fralin Pickups, nobody loves tinkering with wiring options more than Lindy himself. Over the past 30 years, he’s developed quite a few mods that take the Strat to the next level, without getting too technical and crazy.

Blender Pot Wiring:

For those in the know, the Blender Pot is one of the most potent mods you can make to your Strat. At under $15 and a super-easy installation, you can take your standard 5-Sound Strat into new sonic territory. For those who want to tinker, even more, our Half-Blender wiring is another great option too.

Fralin Pickups Blender Pot Wiring For Strat

With the Blender Pot modification, you sacrifice having two independent Tone Pots, and opt for a Master Tone instead.

In our previous article, we discussed the Half Bender Modification. This modification uses the same Blender Pot, but wires it a bit differently:

Fralin Pickups Half Blender Pot Modification

Unlike the Standard mod, the Half Blender only works in Positions 1 & 2 of the switch: the Bridge, and Bridge + Middle Positions.

How is this useful? Well, for one, you can have a ‘Telecaster’ type tone in Position 1, then with one flip of the 5-Way switch, full Strat Neck tone: no knob-turning required!


Variation of Blender Pot Strat:

If you love your Blender Pot but miss having two tones, you can opt for a 2 Tone Cap Modification.The 2 Tone Cap Mod is a Push-Pull mod that allows you to achieve one tone cap in the ‘down position,’ and another tone cap in the ‘up position.’

Check it out here:

Two Tone Caps Push-Pull Pot - Fralin Pickups

To wire this up, follow the above Blender Pot wiring diagram and replace the Master Tone with this Push-Pull Pot Modification.

For more useful Push Pull Pot Mods, check out our in-depth article here.


Baseplate:

The Lindy Fralin Baseplate is a Steel Plate that installs beneath your Bridge pickup. It’s designed to provide a more powerful Bridge pickup tone by making the pickup slightly more efficient.

Lindy Fralin Pickups - Strat Baseplate

For $12, this is a great mod for those who want a slightly thicker and more powerful Bridge tone, without having to rewind the pickup to hotter specifications.

RELATED PRODUCTS:

Tips & Tricks:

We’ve wired hundreds of Strat Pickguards due to the popularity of our Prewired Pickguards (they were our best-seller in 2019). Because of this, we’ve got a few tips and tricks up our sleeve to make installation a breeze:

Tip #1: Control Your Wires

If you’ve ever wired a Strat yourself, you might understand the frustration of getting all wires to sit neatly in your control cavity. Due to the routing of the Stratocaster Body, you might only have a narrow channel to lay your wires.

The best way to make sure your wires stay nice and neat is to use some Masking Tape or Shrink Tubing on your pickup wires like so:

Fralin Pickups Prewired Pickguard

Using Masking Tape or Shrink Tubing to keep your wires neat will ensure your pickguard will lay nice and flat.

Tip #2: Don’t Over-ground

We see a lot of guitars straight from the factory come with a Shielded Pickguard and Ground Jumpers. You don’t need both.

Take a look at the following image of a Strat – notice how each part connects to ground once. Notice any jumpers? The Shielding on the back of the pickguard is connecting everything. If you were to add jumpers between parts, you’d be creating a “Ground Loop” and introducing noise into your circuit.

Grounding Points on a Stratocaster

Notice the A-F points. These mark the locations of parts that need grounding. You don’t see any jumpers between the parts because it’s the shielding that connects them all.

What you do see, however, is a common ground point (Volume Pot) where all grounds lead. This is called Star Grounding, and is the best practice for grounding your Strat.


That about does it for Stratocaster Wiring Tips & Tricks! I hope you found this article helpful, and as always, let us know what you think below!

Comments

33 Comments For This Post

  1. Excellent information. Thanks

  2. Gotta love magnetic research two poles reversible +- and gnd N S that’s eleven options each way

  3. Ur Blues Special pick ups r excellent! Thanx 4 wirering ideas. I know a few myself. Nashville wirering gives u Tele 3 way switch ing with volume on middle pu. U get 7 pu combos! N-N+B-B-M-N+M-M+B-N+M+B! Thanx for inspiration & Ur pu’s! Rock On…
    .
    Y

  4. I came to this page hoping. to find some interesting wiring ideas. Unfortunately, I got annoyed by some of the misinformation. Read below.

    Ground loops aren’t possible in a passive guitar circuit. I recommend you test this out and you’ll find that as long as everything is grounded then you’re good. I’ve tested this ground loop myth and the star grounding myth. Also, star grounding is BS. If you were truly star grounding then you would need to have everything grounded straight to the grounding point on the output jack instead of say the volume pot.

  5. David Doorenbos

    I’ve always been fan of star grounds in my amplifiers but didn’t consider them in my Stratocasters! Great idea.
    Is there a way to cut in/out the middle pickup (a la Ritchie Blackmore) or to sound more telecaster- ish?

  6. fernando

    Hola como estan?consulto existe el digrama y la posibilidad de usar tres potenciometros standard,los cualesuno es volumen master,otro seria el tono master y el tercero se usaria como un balance en vez de llave selectora?, que tipo de potenciometro standard se usaria para dicho funcionamiento???? desde ya muchas gracias y espero una pronta respuestas,saludos.

  7. Holy Roller

    Please help I believe I have vintage hot pickups with volume push / pull tone knobs with wiring that I’ve never seen before. Looks like it has a tiny transformer on neck and middle pickup Tone pot. Please help I can send pictures want to make sure this is the way it came from this company. I had a friend bring it over because there is no sound. The only pickup that works. Is the neck pickup
    Thank you and have a blessed and great day

  8. Stephen Viana

    Great info!!!Ties are great for keeping wires in place as well!!

  9. I am not sure if this is useful. The orange wire in the half blend mod can be equivalently wired to the output instead of the bridge. Then changing two wires can convert the half blend mod to the varied standard wiring, which can be done with a push-pull pot.

  10. Could somebody please explain to me the pink and tan capacitors that are attached to the bridge and middle pots pictured in the standard wiring diagram? I purchased new 250k pots to go along with my new 54s to try and wire my own pickguard but the caps didn’t come with and I’m unfamiliar with this part of the scheme. Thank you

  11. Ralph mastriani

    Nice job ?, very helpful. I just sent in my 67 strat middle pickup in today for repair. Was thinking about getting that baseplate for the bridge pickup. Because the neck sounds alittle louder. Both sound very awesome on my new 1967 old strat ? mahalo

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