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10-Way Stratocaster Wiring Diagram

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Do you want to wire your Strat to have 10 options that are truly meaningful but can’t afford a Freeway switch? Here’s a way to do it with a super switch (a quality one from AliExpress will set you back only ~AUD$10). How does it work? It takes the standard 5-way super switch wiring for a standard 2 pickup Telecaster and applies it to the middle and bridge.  Then it wires your neck to a separate volume (tone pot is shared). Both your neck and whatever you select with the switch are “always on” but you don’t need to fret: if you don’t want one or the other, you turn the relevant volume knob to zero. Otherwise you get at least 10 positions: Without neck: Bridge (the classic No. 1 position) Middle and Bridge in series but out of phase or “OOP” (a gloriously scooped but powerful tone, where series restores the volume that OOP attenuates) Middle and Bridge in parallel (the classic No. 2 position) Middle and Bridge in series (a powerful sound that is as close as you’ll get to a humbucker)...
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5-Way Telecaster Wiring Diagram

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 If you’ve ever wondered, you can actually get 5 incredible tones on a standard 2 single coil Telecaster. You just need an Oak Grigsby type blade super switch (a good quality one from AliExpress will only set you back ~AUD$10). What do you get? The following positions: Bridge  Neck and Bridge in series but out of phase or “OOP” (a gloriously scooped, clear, and chimey tone that is easily my favourite of any guitar pickup - where the series restores volume lost through the OOP) Neck and Bridge in parallel (the classic middle position) Neck and Bridge in series (like the middle position on steroids: thicker, louder punchier) Neck That’s 5 extremely usable positions! I will post up audio samples soon. Let’s just say I haven’t been able to put the guitar (nicknamed the “Domicaster” after my mate Dominic who built and wired it) down since it was completed a month ago. What I especially love about the 5 positions is that they genuinely feel like a natural gradient: position 5 is the...
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Free Online Utility: Guitar Pickup Evaluator Lite

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Finally - a "horsepower rating" for guitar pickups! If you’re a guitar enthusiast, you know the struggle of finding your perfect tone - the one that fits your playing style and your instrument. For electric guitars with passive pickups, evaluating them usually boils down to one metric before you’ve even heard them: DCR (resistance in kΩ) . Unfortunately, DCR alone tells you almost nothing about output or tone. The real picture depends on: Inductance (L) - in Henries Capacitance (C) - in nanofarads Magnet type - Alnico 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, or Ceramic Pickup geometry - bobbin width, length, height, number of coils After months of studying sine wave curves and logarithmic formulas, I created a 6-sheet Excel workbook that fully analyzes pickups given their L, C, R, and magnet type. It’s robust, but a bit heavy for casual use. That’s why I developed a “quick and dirty” metric - one number that gives you: Relative output (volume) - taking L, C, R,...
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Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz

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Broadly, when we talk about “overdrive”, distortion” and “fuzz”, we are talking about wave clipping , which happens when the signal exceeds the headroom of the amp.  Soft clipping is normally called “overdrive” and mimics the gain on your amp being turned up. Hard clipping is more aggressive, cutting the peaks flat. This is called “distortion”. When the wave form is so clipped that it turns a sine wave into a fully square shape, this is called “fuzz”. Here’s a diagram: Overdrive can be likened to a boost: it drives your amp harder so that the amp (rather than the effects pedal or app) creates the distortion. Think of overdrive in the way you might think of the gain on your amp (or the “power knob” if you one, which affects how much the gain knob drives the amp). Obviously some “overdrive pedals” are just weaker distortion pedals (because they do more than drive the amp).  Likewise, some “distortion pedals” are really more like overdrives because they really don’t introduce a c...
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Tenth Anniversary (Special) Second Edition of The Mirror Image of Sound!

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It's been 10 years since my debut novel The Mirror Image of Sound was first published by Pikkeljig Press. I'm proud to annouce that, as of today, the special anniversary Second Edition is now live on Amazon and available for purchase! Please note that it replaces the First Edition. You may wonder why a second edition was necessary...   Over the years I have had small errors (typos, etc.) pointed out to me and I have stored these up.  I also regretted the subtitle almost as soon as it was published. The new subtitle is “A novel about second chances”.  Finally, and most importantly, some minor extraneous minor scenes that bogged poor Dan’s story down in the first act have been excised, speeding up the pace without any loss to the story. Conversely, some small scenes cut from the original second act have been partially restored.  Basically I have had ten years to consider my second edition and create a “Director’s cut”! I invite you all to buy: your paperback copy...
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Harvest Breed - new novel published today!

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My first novel since 2016 has finally been published today! Harvest Breed is a psychological thriller that also explores the human condition through the lens of 2 characters who are both survivors of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. It is part murder mystery, part espionage tale, part character study that has been 15 years in the making. The novel's blurb reads as follows: "A probationer monk apparently commits suicide. His sister seeks the truth but the only person who can help her is a troubled man hiding from his own past. The ghosts of the Cold War creep into the shadows of the present in this political and psychological thriller. Spanning five decades and three continents, the story reaches its finale on an isolated estuary island in Western Australia's deep southwest. There, two strangers with linked destinies must learn to trust each other if they are to untangle a complex web of lies - including the biggest lies of all: the ones you tell yourself." As with...
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A Cycling Cliché

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Most people know the “angry cyclist” stereotype. I’m starting to wonder if it’s more than that. My family and I suffered a road rage incident today. My wife was taking me to a bus stop so I could get to the hospital for a day procedure - and she could get to work on time. My daughter works at the hospital so I was going with her.  We were driving through the morning crush - peak hour traffic in the busy café district of Leederville. As we were nearing the relevant bus stop, my wife stopped at a yield sign so my daughter and I could climb out (there was literally no where else to stop, never mind park).  We had passed a cyclist in a parallel bicycle lane about a minute before. Obviously he’d caught up as I fumbled the childproof lock. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” He shouted as I got out. It seemed he’d lost momentum coming in to the shared part of the road - indeed, horror of horrors, he’d actually had to stop (as if car drivers like me don’t regularly accept the necessity of slowing ...
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