Demystifying the 5-way Strat Switch

The 5-way Strat switch can be a confusing thing. While a wiring diagram that tells you which wire to solder to which terminal can get your guitar sounding as it should with all the pickups working in proper order, it doesn’t go a long way in explaining just exactly what the heck is going on inside that mysterious mechanical device. Hopefully this article will shed some light on what goes on inside this switch and exactly what it does mechanically and electrically.

One of the most confusing things about the switch to most people is the fact that a five way switch has eight terminals; four on one side and four on the other side. How does four and four relate to five different positions? Then to make it even more confusing all the terminals aren’t used in the typical Strat wiring scheme.

The first thing to know about the Strat switch is that it is actually two switches in one. The four terminals on one side are one switch and the four terminals on the other side are the other switch. Each side is called a ‘bank’. Each side also has a single common terminal that connects in turn to one or more of the other three terminals on its side as the switch is pushed through its five positions. For naming convention, I’ll call the terminals on a side ‘common’, ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘3’.

In the first position, common connects to terminal 1. In the second position common connects to terminals 1 and 2. In the third position, common connects to terminal 2. In the fourth position, common connects to terminals 2 and 3. And in the fifth position, common connects to terminal 3.

This means that on the pickup side of the switch, the first position is selecting the neck pickup, the second position is selecting the neck and middle pickups, the third position is selecting the middle pickup, the fourth position is selecting the middle and bridge pickups, and the fifth position is selecting the bridge pickup. So on each position, one or more of the pickups gets connected to the common terminal on the pickup side of the switch.

This becomes relevant a bit later.

Now on the other side or bank of the switch, each position of the switch is connecting a tone control to the common terminal. However as we only have two tone controls on a standard Strat, the terminal that would go to the bridge tone control is left unconnected and connections are only made to the neck and middle tone controls.

Now here is the part I mentioned earlier that would become relevant. The common terminals on each bank are connected together. What this does is to connect a particular pickup or combination of pickups determined by the switch position as described earlier to its appropriate tone control. The exception is the absence of a bridge tone control as noted above.

While there are other components involved in the overall wiring schematic such as the volume control and the output jack, this article explains the main role of the 5-way Strat switch.

The following diagrams should also help clarify exactly what is happening mechanically inside the switch as it is set through each of its five positions.








The following diagrams show which terminals are connected for each switch position. Bear in mind that the terminals on the left side of the switch are not connected to the terminals on the right side of the switch until the left and right commons are wired together.
     


Position 1




Position 2




Position 3




Position 4




Position 5

Tale of Two Teles

I had an opportunity to play a couple of Telecasters this past weekend in between shopping for shoes and lunch.

The first one I played was a Fender Deluxe Nashville Tele. A Tex-Mex™ Strat® pickup between two Tex-Mex Tele pickups and a five-way switch gave a lot of tonal possibilities. Oddly enough, the pickups weren't quite as hot as I expected but had a nice twangy sound with a good amount of sensitivity to pick attack and harmonics induced by light finger touches to the strings after picking.

The second Tele I tried was a Peavey Generation Triple/Single Ex Tele. Also sporting 3 single coil pickups and a five-way switch, this guitar played and sounded pretty good in its own right; especially for a sub $200.00 guitar. The bridge pickup didn't seem as hot as I would expect a bridge pickup to normally be but the neck pickup had a nice Tele twang.

Even though the Fender was used, it still had a price tag of about double the Peavey. I'm not sure it sounded twice as good or had hardware worth twice as much.

Here's a short vid on the Peavey Generation models:

Shielding My Strat

I had been planning this for a while and finally shielded my SE. I used metal tape that is normally used for duct work, etc. It's a bit tricky to work with but you get the hang of it.

The tricky part was in making sure adjacent pieces of tape had contact on the top metal portion and not just the sticky side since I don't know if the sticky side is conductive ... probably not.

The bottom of the pickguard had foil already and with the pots having tabs touching that foil which touches the little bit of overlap from my foil job in the cavity, I believe I've got ground throughout.

Guitarnuts is where I got the information and the idea about using the aluminum tape. The trick is to fold an edge over on the next adjacent piece so the conductive sides make contact with enough of the adhesive side available to hold it down well. You can put an extra bit on top of that to get a really firm contact.

I had considered using a screw, lug, and star washer into the bottom of the cavity and soldering a wire from one of my ground points to it, but as I've still got the stock pots and switch, I may do that next go round when I replace those units.