MOD GARAGE
DIRK WACKER
Stratocaster Auto-Split Mod
Hello and welcome back to “Mod Garage.”
The auto-split mod can help you avoid a
common problem when using a humbucker
together with the typical single-coil pickups
in a Stratocaster. As you know, the H-S-S
configuration (humbucker in the bridge position and two traditional single coils in the
middle and neck positions) was introduced in
the ‘80s with the superstrats, and is still very
popular today. You can also find Strats with a
H-S-H or even H-H-H configuration, but the
H-S-S is still the most common.
a four-conductor cable, so you have unlimited
access to both coils, giving you the ability to
shut one of them down. You can use a push/
pull or push/push pot for this, but a little
2PDT toggle switch works well, too. I’ll stick
with the basics for now, since I don´t want to
turn this into a column about coil splitting.
We’ll do that in a future installment.
humbuckers. Other companies use different colors, and you need a chart to translate
those colors. For an overview, you can use
the chart from Seymour Duncan: seymour-
duncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/sche-
matics.php?schematic=color_codes
For a deeper look, I highly recommend this
one:
guitarelectronics.com/category/wirin-
gresources.wiring_faqs.pickup_color_codes
Humbuckers usually have a lot more output
compared to traditional Strat single-coil
pickups—in other words, they’re louder. As
long as you use the bridge humbucker or the
two single coils alone, everything is fine. The
humbucker provides a hot output signal to
easily drive your amp into saturation (which
is exactly why it’s there) and the middle and
neck positions give you the traditional Strat
sounds we all love so much, as well as the in-between position of middle and neck pickup
together. The problem occurs when you use
the bridge humbucker together with the middle pickup. Instead of the famous in-between
sound we all know from our Dire Straits, Chris
Rea and Eric Clapton records, you’ll receive
a loud tone, not much different from the
bridge humbucker alone.
A lot of humbuckers sound great when
used as full humbuckers, but not very good
when shutting down one of the coils. On
the other hand, there are some that sound
great when split (e.g. Seymour Duncan SH- 3
“StagMag”), but not so powerful when used
as a full humbucker. It´s always a compromise, and many players don´t need coil splitting, since the single-coil sounds are often
not worth it. So, this is the point where the
“auto-split” mod can help you.
Auto-split just means that when you have the
5-way switch in the middle/bridge position,
you’ll only be getting one coil of the bridge
pickup, rather than the full humbucker. It’s
supposed to be closer to the traditional Strat
“notch tone” than having the full bridge
humbucker active. In the bridge position, you
still have the full humbucker active, so this
mod can give you the best of both worlds.
If you’re more experienced, you can also
use a DMM to verify the colors, but a color
chart is always a good starting point. For a
better understanding, it’s crucial to know
what the colors mean and what they correspond to. Humbuckers have two coils,
looking like two single-coil pickups in one
package. The bottom coil is always the coil
with the adjustable screws, and it’s named
“South.” The coil on top is the one with the
non-adjustable slugs and is called “North.”
Each coil has a start and an end. So, using
the Seymour Duncan colors, we have:
Black = North Start (hot output) / White =
North Finish / Red = South Start / Green =
South Finish / bare wire = Ground
The solution for this is very simple: split the
bridge humbucker to make it a single-coil
pickup. For this, you need a humbucker with
Let’s Get Started
To start, you can download the standard Strat
wiring scheme directly from the Seymour
Duncan website to get a better understand-
ing of the differences
compared to the auto-
split mod. Here’s
the Strat wiring with
the auto-split mod
performed:
With this knowledge and the color charts
above, it should be easy to do the auto-split mod with any given humbucker. We’ll
talk about this subject again, and of course
dip in deeper, when we switch over to Les
Paul, 335 and SG mods. That’s it! I hope
you find this mod useful, giving you the
best of both worlds: powerful humbucker
sounds from the bridge position side by
side with the traditional Strat “notch tone”
with the bridge and middle pickup together
(aka the “in-between” position). Stay tuned
for more Strat mods coming next month.
Until then, keep on modding!
Wiring diagram courtesy of Seymour Duncan Pickups and used by permission. Seymour Duncan and the stylized
S are registered trademarks of Seymour Duncan Pickups, with which Premier Guitar magazine is not affiliated.
As you can see, the
black wire from the
humbucker goes to the
normal input lug for the
bridge pickup, the red
and white wires are soldered together to the
lug of the output stage
and green together
with the bare wire are
going to ground. Keep
in mind that these are
the colors Seymour
Duncan uses for their
Dirk Wacker
Dirk Wacker lives in Germany and has been addicted to
all kinds of guitars since the age of five. He is fascinated
by anything that has something to do with old Fender
guitars and amps. He hates short scales and Telecaster
neck pickups, but loves twang. In his spare time he plays
country, rockabilly, surf and Nashville styles in two bands,
works as a studio musician for a local studio and writes
for several guitar mags. He is also a hardcore DIY guy
for guitars, amps and stompboxes and runs an extensive
webpage www.singlecoil.com about these things.
