We offer a number of wiring options for our Stratocaster Loaded Pickguards and the most popular choices are selectable via a dropdown menu on our Loaded Pickguards page. Below are detailed descriptions of our options. If you have another wiring or switching setup in mind for your Loaded Pickguard please just get in touch via email and we’ll be more than happy to put your dream setup together for you.

All of our loaded Strat pickguard wiring options feature a 5 way pickup selector switch giving you the 5 familiar pickup positions we all know and love:

Position 5: Neck pickup
Position 4: Neck and middle
Position 3: Middle pickup
Position 2: Middle and bridge
Position 1: Bridge pickup

In addition to these 5 classic pickup positions offered by all of the wiring options detailed below, our ‘Blender Knob Mod’ (see bottom of page) adds 2 more pickup position combinations – enabling you to squeeze even more tonal variation from your Strat!

Wiring Options - Radioshop Pickups

Standard Stratocaster Wiring

Volume Pot: Master volume for guitar
Tone Pot 1: Tone control over neck pickup
Tone Pot 2: Tone control over middle pickup

Tone Knob Mod 1

Volume Pot: Master volume for guitar
Tone Pot 1: Tone control over neck pickup
Tone Pot 2: Tone control over middle and bridge pickups

Tone Knob Mod 2

Volume Pot: Master volume for guitar
Tone Pot 1: Tone control over neck and middle pickups
Tone Pot 2: Tone control over bridge pickup

Blender Knob Mod

Volume Pot: Master volume for guitar
Tone Pot 1: Master tone control for guitar
Tone Pot 2: Blender control only for adding neck or bridge pickup

A very handy modification indeed, our ‘Blender Knob Mod’ enables you to access all seven possible Strat pickup combinations by giving you the opportunity to ‘blend in’ the neck or bridge pickup to any pickup position they’re not already involved in. It functions as follows:

Tone Pot 2 on ‘10‘ – the potentiometer does absolutely nothing. All of the normal 5 pickup combinations function exactly as a Standard Strat wiring setup does, yet Tone Pot 1 handles all of the tone control for the guitar.

Tone Pot 2 on ‘zero‘ – add neck or bridge pickup to any position. This enables you to access the awesome ‘neck and bridge’ pickup combination not normally possible with a 5 way selector switch and to choose the ‘all three pickups on at the same time’ position. Both of these are very unique sounds, the neck and bridge on together is a sound very reminiscent of a Telecaster middle sound and all three on at the same time is a lovely, quacky ‘inbetween’ sound – along the lines of the normal inbetween positions 2 and 4 on a Strat but slightly different again. As the name suggests, our ‘Blender Knob Mod’ is exactly that – a blender knob – by varying between 0 and 10 on the Tone Pot you can decide to add as much or as little of the neck or bridge pickup as you wish, meaning you can dial in some pretty unique sound combinations!

To hear examples of this versatile wiring option in action, check out Radioshop’s own Paul Best showing off the ‘Sounds of our Blender Knob Mod’ in a video on our YouTube Channel below.

Radioshop Custom Strat Wiring

At last, we’ve put our own stamp on Strat Wiring! It’s something we’ve been threatening to do for years and finally we’ve hit upon something worthwhile! If you love your Position 4 sounds then this is for you.

Like our Blender Mod above, the Radioshop Custom Strat wiring setup offers all 7 positions but with a twist for all you ‘inbetween sounds’ aficionados. Do you live on position 4 but wish you could tease some more versatility from that classic, warm pickup combination?

It goes like this:

– 5 way switch with all the normal, much loved Strat positions
– Master Volume
– Master Tone
– Tone Pot 2 adds a CTS Push/Pull to add the Bridge pickup to any position and a Blender Pot for more control over the Middle and Neck combo


Here’s how it works:

When on ’10’, Tone Pot 2 does nothing at all and is removed from the tone circuit (it’s a no load pot) Lift it up and add the Bridge pickup to any position. When in position 5 (Neck only) dialling down from ’10’ on Tone Pot 2 blends in the Middle position – add as little or as much as you want. In position 3 (Middle only) dialling Tone Pot 2 adds the Neck pickup to the mix. Position 4 functions as normal.


It’s great for:

– More control over the Middle and Neck volume split
– Getting all 7 Strat positions
– Opening up some new sounds – the Bridge and Middle with just a little Neck added is just sublime, a new, beautifully warm sound that just wasn’t possible before! The Bridge and Neck with a little Middle added is a new and interesting sound which you’re sure to enjoy experimenting with too!


See Radioshop’s Paul Best explaining the settings and showing off the range of sounds from our Custom Strat wiring with a set of our Vintage ’57 Specials in the video below. We reckon there are 11 distinct sounds possible – some are subtle variations but one thing’s for sure, if you want versatility from your Strat, this will take things up a notch!