Moving the Middle Tone to the Bridge

This modification does not alter the appearance of your guitar.

Consider the stock shielded Strat schematic below:

Shielded Stratocaster -- Stock Tone Controls

Note the way the two tone pots and the pickup select switch are wired. The "bottom" tone pot (R2) is connected to the middle pickup and the "top" tone pot (center pot of the three, R3) is connected to the neck. So, the stock tone controls work this way:

Notice that there is no tone control in the bridge only position. And that both of the tone pots are wired in parallel in the neck/middle position. I don't like either of these things. It's a matter of taste, but I often use the bridge pickup alone and almost never use the middle pickup alone -- so I would like to have tone control on the bridge. I also do not like the sound of the neck/middle combo because the parallel pots cut the treble way down.

By moving just one wire, as shown in the schematic below, we can get rid of the parallel pot problem and put a tone control on the bridge. Of course, we do lose the tone control in the middle only position.

Shielded Stratocaster -- Bridge Tone Control

New Pickup / Tone Switching

Switch Position	Pickup(s) Selected	Tone Pots Selected
1	Neck	R3
2	Neck/Middle	R3
3	Middle	NONE
4	Middle/Bridge	R2
5	Bridge	R2

This modification isn't for everybody, but I happen to like it. It's also very easy to undo (just move the wire back). Note that, if you perform this modification, you will probably want to decrease the value of the tone capacitor. If you don't, you will lose some of the bridge "punch." If you want to add this bridge control, but you are already happy with the tone control for the neck pickup, then I suggest you look at the modification for splitting the ranges on the tone controls. That modification, combined with this one, will allow you to put a small capacitor on the bridge for good punch and the original capacitor on the neck.

The schematic below shows both this "bridge tone" modification and the "tone split" modification -- this is the configuration I recommend and use on Strats when I don't go to a more "exotic" pickup select mechanism .

Shielded Stratocaster -- Bridge Tone with Split Controls
C2/R2 sets tone for bridge and middle/bridge. C1/R3 sets tone for neck and neck/middle.