Freeway switches for Strats

[Mark]

Hi

I’m about to take the plunge and put a 10 position Freeway switch into my Strat.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

https://www.freewayswitch.com/

[TUBEDUDE]

Yeah, don't do it.

Seriously, all the best sounds are already there, if you switch the switch positions for the bridge and middle pickups (on a 5 way switch).

[R,i,c,k]

[quote=Mark post_id=417190 time=1600872080 user_id=17]
Hi

I’m about to take the plunge and put a 10 position Freeway switch into my Strat.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

https://www.freewayswitch.com/
[/quote]

My thoughts would be to use test leads and see what you like before you solder.

Also, I like series as well as parallel.

[Mark]

The appeal of the switch is all the stock sounds are there.

https://youtu.be/H1iCOo26bec

[thetragichero]

had the original lp-style freeway switch and one day just stopped working
what about using a super switch and dpdt/3pdt to make it get your different sounds?

[Mark]

The other option is a super switch and the S1 switch. The Nashville X circuit is interesting, but the freeway switch does much the same with one switch. That’s the appeal of it. I have a super switch and would like to try the Nashville X wiring some day.

https://www.strat-talk.com/threads/stra ... ce.526453/

[thetragichero]

there's a lot of good stuff to be found here as well:
https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/board ... enix-pages

[Mark]

That is a great site, plenty of things to try there.

I spoke with the retailer who sells the Freeway switch and he tells me the humbucking switch is the most popular. I guess it is a bit of a Jimmy Page thing too.

[Travis_HY]

I'm curious about this switch and how it actually SOUNDS with certain pickups and guitars.

A big issue I have with all these fancy switches is that they seem to alter the way the pickups sound in a way that is significantly different than their more simple counterparts. I had a 4 way (as well as 5 way) switch in my Tele after hearing Jimmy Herring's Tele wiring and I just hated what it did to the traditional positions; it was like they had a tone control rolled off to 8 or something. Very odd high end changes. I switched them back to 3 way and my Tele has been like that since I tired this experiment 5 or so years ago.

I used the 5-way SuperSwitch in a Strat that is wired with the Scott Henderson wiring where the combined positions have no active tone controls and its affect on the tone in a Strat is much less apparent and I did not go back to the traditional 5 way in that guitar. I have absolutely no idea why this is so, but I could hear the differences in the Tele much more easily than the Strat for whatever that is worth. A spork is not a good fork, nor a good spoon I suppose.

[Mark]

That is certainly quite odd, you wouldn’t think that a switch would have any effect on the tone of the pickups.

[Travis_HY]

That is certainly quite odd, you wouldn’t think that a switch would have any effect on the tone of the pickups.

It was very confusing at the time but reflecting back, it may have been the particular wiring I was using and how the circuit itself for those particular pickup selections was making the traditional positions sound weird; what I was experiencing was almost the same effect as if they were loaded down with a smaller valued volume pot than you had with the traditional 3 way. Just a little bit of top end sheen would go away.

The 4 way Tele switch was the basic traditional 3 way plus the two pickups in series. I can't remember which was first, but I am sure I swapped the polarity at some point in the process of trying to get it to sound better and the difference was still audible which may have been what made me move in to the 5 way.

The 5-way Jimmy Herring switching was real hip on paper, but again there was a" loading down" kind of effect on the traditional Tele positions. Methinks this loading might have something to do with how long those wires are in a Tele and the additional hardware (the bridge and neck pickup cover) might be making some kind of inductance field er summin'. I have no idea-I just know it didn't sound the same in the top end as the regular 3 way did.

[Mark]

I’m not always a big believer of the power of lead dress as I have seen amps with appalling lead dress that sound good. I did however have issues with a Kendrick Champ clone that had rolled off top end, and the top end was restored with a change in dress dress and shielded cable.

[thetragichero]

i would chock up the change in sound to a wiring issue rather than the switch itself. even a fancy switch is just a switch

[Mark]

I have the switch now but I haven’t installed it in my guitar. My thoughts are that the switch is solidly made, and it feels good, but you can’t use vintage type screws (AFAIK), this isn’t a problem for me, but it might bother others.