Try this Before Buying New Pickups

[rnolan]

So MikeB put me onto this youtube clip.  Basically wiring in a cap in parallel with the PU to change its resonant peak.  Interesting idea.

[Harley Hexxe]

Richard,

I had a feeling this was the video you were going to post, I saw that about a month ago.

What he doesn't talk about however, is what happens when you roll back the tone knobs on any of these pickups.

In any event, I like to remove the tone pot on the middle pickup and move it to the  bridge pickup on my Strats.

Harley

[rnolan]

Hey Harley, also, without the little box he made so you can test different values, it would be a bit of a pain to do trying to find the right value cap for the tone you want, particularly on a strat as it's not trivial to get to the electronics. But I thought it was an interesting idea if you want to change the "voice" of your PUs. 

[Harley Hexxe]

Hey Richard,

I know a way around building a pedal box like he has.

If you have the rotary pot, a couple of instrument jacks, and all the caps you want to try out, you can use a stiff piece of cardboard, or a scrap piece of thin plywood. Drill or punch your holes for the pot and the jacks, then connect your caps to the pot and ground them all.
Then you can test just like he did.

[rnolan]

Hey Harley,  :thumb-up: I like your thinking.

[Harley Hexxe]

I'd like to take credit for that but I can't.

I saw that at my local Luthier's shop and he uses it just for that purpose. To give his customers a good idea what the tone caps in their guitars sound like, but he has them wired so that it's just like it would be installed.

Live and learn, then share the knowledge.