CRANKY'S
Demonstrator Guitars

I have several guitars here that I use to demonstrate wiring options and my knowledge of guitar wiring. They are here for you to use and explore.

1) Fender Strat 1985 Japan, White with Maple fretboard. Guitar has 3 true single coil pickups, 5 way switch, Master Volume, Master Tone, Master Bass. The kicker: no hum, none. Thats getting more out of what you already own! Oh yes, no battery. Confused? Now consider that the tones cover a much larger range tonally and in terms or volume. Once you play it, you'll ask why they are not all made this way!

2) My home made Strat copy, Blue-Green, Ebony fretboard . This guitar has 2 full sized Humbuckers, Master Volume, 6-Position Switch, and Master Tone. The Guitar was intended to show how the rules can be broken. All six voices are hum-cancelling. Three are regular humbucker type wiring (series) and three are Fendery (parallel) minus the hum of course. The pickups are Seymour Duncan. The neck pickup is a "Custom Shop" due to the fact that I special ordered a Jazz model Bridge position pickup with Neck string spacing. So the guitar has 2 bridge pickups. When you hear it, you'll be amazed. The dialogue that goes along with it deals sith "note separation", after all "it shouldn't work".

3) SOLD: Fender Strat 2000 Indonesia, Red with Rosewood fretboard, stock machine heads and tremolo (reworked)! This was a horrible guitar. Saw blade fret ends, wavy neck, ug! It got a fretmill. The fretboard was deliberatly edged for comfort. The wiring modification was adding 3 Fender Samarium Noiseless Pickups, with unique pickup and tone controls:
Position 1) Bridge pickup alone, Master Volume, Master Tone
Position 2) Bridge and Neck pickup (standard parallel use), Master Volume, Master Tone
Position 3) Neck pickup alone, Master Volume, Master Tone
Position 4) Bridge and Neck pickup (series wired for added power and fullness), Master Volume, Master Tone, adding Master Bass
Position 5) Bridge, Middle and Neck pickup (series wired), Master Volume, Master Tone, and Master Bass.
Off the charts wonderful guitar and all-Fender! The Bass control cuts well and is only used in the settings where too much bass might be a problem.

Remember good distortion means good control over the bass!

4) SOLD: Schecter Omen, Deep Purple, Rosewood fretboard, stop tailpiece. This guitar is got 2 Seymour Duncan P-Rails! The kicker? Duncan makes a Humbucker Bezel (ring) that pretty much conceals 2 little slide switches. What do they do? They allow you to get to the single coil sounds (each of them) which in this pickup are very different: a P-90 (Gibsons' fabulous large single coil pickup) and a "rail" voiced like a strat single coil. Mmm. But theres also the hum cancelling parallel mode, and the standard series hum cancelling wiring is Duncan tweaked to sound like an old PAF (Gibsons' early and much acclaimed Patent Applied For humbucker, touted as possibly the best sounding humbucker ever made). So 2 of those pickups with two switching bezels, a standard Gibson style 3-way pickup selector Switch, Master Volume, Master Tone. This guitar has been traded. What a sweetie. Ask about playing on my modified amps!

5) Honey-Amber Ash Strat hard-tail body, Full 1" thick Maple baseball bat neck. Black Bigsby tremolo. Relocated volume control. Built for tone. My 3 favorite "Stock" pickups:
Bridge - Gibsons' Toni Iommi. Turned down this pickup defines what a stock humbucker should sound like! Turned up it gets more brights and mids, perfect to overdrive that tube amp!
Middle - TV Jones (neck) Magnetron. Only TVJ can be so cool! I'm a humbucking pickup that was only available on a Gretsch as a special order from 1957-1959. Thanks TV Jones (and Brian Setzer too)! This pickup always has more to give! Full bodied, bright, clear, percussive, and sustaining. Surprisingly loud.
Neck - Fender Vintage Noiseless. Bang! Clang! Sparkling authentic Strat Tone! It's perfection without hum. Fender gets it right again! Highly percussive sound, honest to goodness vintage tone. Less hum than a humbucker!

Wiring: Master volume. 3 knife switches (4,4, and 5 positions). Dont ask unless you promise to remember. I guess the point is that as long as they make sense, and are useful to getting good tone, it really does not matter what they do. It's not a secret or anything. I doubt anyone could copy it anyway...even if they did know (challenges welcomed). Even more to the point - factory guitar wiring sucks and really should to be more useful.
79 Voices. Beat that.

6) "Orange House" Strat tribute to a 1954 Les Paul Custom! One piece Mahogany body, Mahogany neck, Ebony Fretboard with Custom trapezoid Mother of Pearl inlay pattern. Stop tail-piece. P-90 "Staple" pickup in the neck position, and a custom TVJones D'Armond for the bridge position in a P-90 case. 3 Gibson style switches. Finished in a rustic orange hand wiped pearl. Hendrix used a real one to record and perform "Red House".
3 Gibson style switches; 3 position pickup selector, 2 position(!) series/parallel switch, and a 2 position(!!) phase switch. There are no "dead spots" in the wiring so you get what you are supposed to, when you are suposed to get it, and no strange off switch combinations. To accomplish that all 3 switches had to be made by me. No small task. One of a kind guitar. For sale. $3950 w/hs case. Correct string spacing on Gotoh Gibson-style bridge, Graph-Tec saddles, 25.5" scale, custom one-of-a-kind 6-in-line black Gotoh Kluson-style machine heads with Gibson-style plastic keystone buttons, black Schaller Strap-locks, black switch tips.