Project: Tony Iommi Stratocaster
April 23, 2005I’ve recently become addicted to electric guitar customizing. It’s another one of my diversions that keeps me from practicing, and it gets me off the computer now and again. I currently have a 1997 Stratocaster and I’m customizing it by removing the current pickups and pickguard and replacing it with a single Gibson Tony Iommi Humbucker pickup and new pickguard. I’m also going to install just a single volume knob. The idea is to create a basic guitar for playing Rock/Metal/Punk. No neck or middle pickup, just the bridge. Keeping it simple - EVH style.
Replacing the pickups is fairly simple. I previously replaced one of my strat’s pickups with a Seymour Duncan HotRail. That’s what started this whole obsession. Ever since then, I’ve been itching to take it apart again. Electric guitars are very simple electronic devices, and replacing parts is easy if you’re not afraid of soldering.
Here’s my current setup:
Stock American Strat with a Seymour Duncan HotRail installed at the bridge. Pretty boring huh?
Here’s the new parts I purchased:
Gibson Tony Iommi Pickup: ($120)
Believe it or not, the Mac OS X desktop image on the pickup is a reflection from my monitor. It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t even notice until someone emailed me about it. The pickup is chromed like a mirror.
Pickguard: ($19)
Volume Pot 500k: ($6)
Volume knob: ($2)
Soldering Iron: ($20) I love the smell of melting solder!
Step One: Cut off the strings and remove old pickguard:
This is why I decided to keep things simple. See all this crap! Too messy, too many wires, too many knobs. Zen like simplicity is key. Ohmmmmmm…
Step Two: Solder in new pickup and volume knob.
Isn’t that so much cleaner!! A pickup, volume knob, a few wires and some solder. Beautiful.
NOTE: Not all Stratocasters are routed the same. As you can see by the above photo. My strat has the classic “Swimming Pool” routing. This makes it possible for me to have any combination of humbucker or single-coil pickups. Before you order a humbucker, peek under your pickguard and see how it’s routed. Some strats are routed for 3 single coils which would not fit a humbucker.
Old stock parts going to the trash can. Stock parts suck!!
Result:
How does it sound? It KICKS ASS!!! I’m not a pro, and don’t have much to compare it to, but I can say with certainty that it sounds a hell of a lot better than the stock pickups and better than the HotRail pickup. It’s better than I thought it would be. This is why customizing is FUN!!
Almost every guitarist I meet is afraid to do their own customizing. You got to do it! It’s a great way to become intimate with your instrument. Once you do it, you’re going to be finding excuses to keep changing stuff. It’s very addicitve. It’s also reassuring. If it breaks, You’ll know how to fix it. No need to truck it to the guitar shop, wait two weeks, and get it back only to find that it was just a loose wire.
Buy a soldering iron, buy parts, pickups, pickguards etc. and go for it. You really appreciate your guitar more when you’ve personalized it. It’s an amazing feeling of accomplishment when you put everything back together and it sounds even better than it did before!
Posted by sgehrman at April 23, 2005 12:06 AMComments
Well Steve, now I have the bug -- not sure I should thank you :-) I have a hotrail in my 1961 Strat. I think I'll have to pick up another axe and try some mods. I do have an inexpensive strat copy I use with my guitar synth, maybe I'll start with that ... and probably with the GTIH. Great pix!
-Kevin
Yo, that axe is straight Iommi! I got the Gibson Iommi SG, and have often thought about how an Iommi pickup would sound in a Les Paul, but a Strat? Thats some radical thinking! I'd love to hear that cranked up.
Great job! I've got a few Ernie Ball guitars I've done similar work on and I agree--doing your own work is so worth it.
Those single-coil sized humbuckers never sound right--they just don't have a big enough magnet.
A Strat has more mass than an SG, but the scale is different. I'd be curious to know how this sounds through a cranked tube stack.
wow bro, thats awesome! I'm planing on gettin a couple Iommis an putting em in my 3 pu SG custom.
Hi Folks! First to Steve: nice work, well pictured! To the other guys: well, I think you have never heard the Fender Iron Maiden Signature Stratocaster? If you want a fuckin' great heavy/hard rock sound with not just mids but also bell-like tone, then you should listen to that one! You would never say again that HBs in SC-format never sound right! That JB Junior and the two Hot Rails kick ass! And the guitar still has that bell-like tone I love so much about Strats! Matter of taste, of course! But I played everything from Blues (SRV) via Rock (AC-DC, Van Halen) to Metal (Metallica, Helloween, Iron Maiden) with that axe! The sound just blows you away! Just wanted to mention this, ;-) ! Rock on! Dieter
I've got a strat(3 single coil) and a seymour duncan humbucker that I got from a friend. I've been playing metal stuff forever, and I'm just not pleased with the sound I'm getting. I wanted to install the humbucker, but I've run into some confusion with the wiring and which pickups I can take out and and leave in. Could you give me any tips or references?Thanks Oh by the way. The guitar looks bad(and probably sounds sick too)
Hey...this is probably the wrong place to ask, but currently I'm freaking modifying my fender 57' strat....(2 vintage rails in the first and 2nd positions...one hot rail in the third posistioin.....and ALL black hardware...o and a floyd rose low profile bride).....but i've run in to one problem.........i can't get the volume and tone knobs off!!! It's the only thing i've never had to do, so i realy don't no how....can some on e-mail me at christianpicker263@hotmail.com....thanks for the help!
I absoultley love the look of the strat with single humbucker, and in white it really does make me weak at the knees, great work. Ive recently installed an EMG 85 in my mexican fat strat only to find it will not work, ive been told EMGs cant be used in conjunction with fender single coils, so im just gona scrap the single pups and use my EMG85 in its own. I know this is a good sound for punk i usually play but im startin a mellow acoustic sort of dashboard confessional band so hopefully this will do the trick also.
i need some help on how to install a hotrail on my telecaster, i got to much ground problems, i am trying to find a diagram that can show me the corect wiring.
just wondering if you can help me.
thanks.
doug.
Nice work,but i prefer 3 singles
Hey guys, what if you take that strat and rearange the pickups? Lets say you take off the pick guard and take out all 3 pickups then put 2 of the pickups near each other to form a humbucker and solder them together. Will it sound like a humbucker and reack differently, or even put all 3 pickups to function as one?
Hey guys, what if you take that strat and rearange the pickups? Lets say you take off the pick guard and take out all 3 pickups then put 2 of the pickups near each other to form a humbucker and solder them together. Will it sound like a humbucker and react differently, or even put all 3 pickups to function as one?
You know, you should probably put some shielding on the underneath of that new pickguard, you'll get less buzz and harmonics in the sound will be clearer...
Where did you find that single pickup/volume knob pickguard? I cannot find one and I really like the end result of your mod. Thanks!
i have a schecter omen 6 with floating tremolo its ok im novice id guess you could say and i just got a 57'classic plus gibson humbucker i have no clue how to install it because the old bridge pickup has 2 wires where the new one has only 1??? can it not be done?
Hey, could you email me how you wired up the hotrail when you had it installed, I'm looking to put one in a Yamaha strat copy with 3 singles, one tone and volume and 5 way toggle switch, totally new to this wiring stuff!!
judgy6 at hotmail dot com need help!! :)
Awesome MaN!! 8)
I have Tony Iommi G-400 myself and I have to admit that the sound kicks ass.
Great and cool idea placing the Iommi humbucker on the strat! :)
Cheers /Niklas, Stockholm, Sweden