How to wire Strat pickups
A friend passed me an old Standard Strat with a dead EMG pickup (EMG 81) recently. Now, since I have obtained the OEM Strat pickups, I intend to replace the EMG with the OEMs but do not know how to go about it. Please enlighten me of where I can get diagrams, tips and techniques. Would appreciate all the help I can get. Thank you.
# 1
Schematics are very easy to find on the internet... go to any search engine, I recommend www.alltheweb.com or www.google.com and type in "fender stratocaster schematics" and browse through the sites that come up. You should be able to find what you're looking for fairly quickly. Fenders are pretty straight-forward with their wiring... but good luck!
# 2
[font=trebuchet ms]While you're at it, you might want to consider adding some shielding to reduce the noise. >Guitar Nuts< has a lot of info, starting with "Quieting The Beast".[/font]
# 3
I forgot to also add that you're going to need to buy new pots I believe active pickups such as the EMG 81's operate with 25k pots... and you'll need 250k pots if you are going to a S/S/S coil configuration...If you're going to to keep the humbucker then you will need 500k pots... the schematics should tell you what kind of pots and switches you will need.
# 4
You might wanna get yourself a copy of the Guitar Player Repair Guide too.
It's about $30 but it covers just about everything you need to know for basic maintenance and there's a whole section on electronics and Strat pickup quirks.
It's about $30 but it covers just about everything you need to know for basic maintenance and there's a whole section on electronics and Strat pickup quirks.
# 5