Behold, the Johncaster

I was wrong. I still want to upgrade my Strat. I love playing it, but the pickups are just not that good. It's too nice of a guitar and it means too much to me to have it sit because of inadequate tone-age. But far from taking this as a negative, I view it as an opportunity to mold this guitar into something special and uniquely my own.

I have a vision for this upgrade. I envision a dual humbucker setup, but with a single-coil-sized blade pickup in the neck to compensate for the H-S-S pickup routing. I see two control knobs - a master volume and a master tone - placed where the standard tone controls are on a regular Strat, with a gap where the volume knob traditionally lives to give me more room for my picking hand and a three-way blade switch. I also see a drop-in tremolo replacement that sounds and works better than stock without having to permanently alter the body. And I see all of this with a black-and-white color scheme - a black pickguard with white controls and pickup covers.

To fulfill this vision, I'll have to compile parts from a few different sources. For pickups, I'll get them from Guitar Center. For the custom pickguard I'll need to get the configuration I want, I'll go to Warmoth.com. For the tremolo, I'll go to Super-Vee.com. And last, for the electronics (potentiometers and switches) I'll go to GuitarFetish.com. Here's a list of parts I'll need, with prices:

Pickups

Bridge: DiMarzio Mo'Joe. I've heard so much about these (and heard a lot of sound samples) that I know a Mo'Joe, Joe Satriani's signature pickup, will be the perfect bridge pickup. Of course, I'd get a white F-spaced model. Price: $69.95 from Guitar Center.

Neck: DiMarzio Pro Track. Interesting story about this pickup. I was researching blade humbuckers to see which one would work the best with the Mo'Joe based on specifications like resistance and output. I chose the Pro Track over a few others, only to find out a few days later that Satch's own Ibanez JS2400 comes with a Pro Track pickup in the neck to match the Mo'Joe in the bridge. I guess I was onto something. Price: $64.95 from Guitar Center.

Pickguard

Warmoth.com is a great site for guitar builders and customizers. On this site, you can build whatever pickguard, neck or body you want and see it take shape before your eyes. I did this for my custom pickguard. As you can see in the picture on the right, it's a gloss black Strat pickguard but with an H-S pickup configuration and a missing volume pot hole. As much as I love my Strat, I don't like where the volume knob is located. I don't do volume swells and it just gets in the way. I like my Tele and my Les Paul because the knobs are out of the way. With this configuration, I'll have more room for my picking hand and I'll have a master tone control, which I always wanted on my Strat. Price: $25 from Warmoth.com.

Tremolo

I don't use tremolos often and the Short List is full of Floyd Rose-equipped guitars, but it would be nice if my Strat had at least the option of a working tremolo. The stock one is crap and I have it locked down like a hardtail. I think the Super-Vee tremolo is an amazing piece of engineering, but I still think it's a little too much for what I need. Luckily, the folks at Super-Vee now make a drop-in, non-locking tremolo called the BladeRunner that uses the same technology as the original Super-Vee but in a really easy to install package. I knew as soon as I saw it that one day one of them would make its way into my Strat. Price: $139 from Super-Vee.com.

Electronics

GuitarFetish.com is a great place to go for cheap, quality parts. And I say that as a customer, not as a paid endorser. I bought a prewired pickguard from them for my Hondo and although it's not made with high-end pickups it does the job, and I paid less than 40 bucks for it. For this upgrade, I'm going to need a blade-style three way switch (technically a Telecaster switch, but with a Strat-style tip), two 500K potentiometers, a .022uf tone cap and some new white knobs. I should be able to wire it together myself, especially since I re-wired the current switch on my Strat and the setup I want is a simple three-way switch - no complicated coil splitting or anything fancy like that. In fact, I'm looking forward to the challenge. Price: $20.74 from GuitarFetish.com (see, I told you they sold good, cheap stuff).

So for the total cost of $319.64 (sans shipping), I can turn my standard Stratocaster into something special - the Johncaster. Here is a very amateur, hacked-together illustration of what I envision my Strat will look like. Remember, I'm no graphic artist, so this is really the best you're going to get from me.