BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

Newbie here. Need some help from those who know a thing or two about strat wiring.

I bought a set of Lundgren BJFE stratocaster pickups. In the box there are two electronic components (possibly capacitors but who knows) wrapped in shrink tube, blue and yellow respectively. Lundgren unsurprisingly calls these the "blue and yellow component".

Also included is this diagram http://lundgren.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Schema-Lundgren-BJFE-set.pdf describing "standard" wiring where neck and middle pups each have a tone control, while bridge pup has none.

My strat had a different common wiring - a jumper between the middle pins on the right side of the switch connected both bridge and middle pups to the rear tone pot. I installed the blue and yellow components as shown anyway, but the tone was weird, all pickups were subdued and lacking in treble somehow.

So I removed the jumper which made the setup identical to the above diagram, and now the guitar sounds crazy good!

But! I would like to have a tone control on the bridge pickup. I could in fact skip the tone on the middle pickup (Eric Johnson wiring) and have a tone control on neck and bridge respectively. No problem, I believe this is done by moving a wire one pin up on the right side of the switch.

The problem is, why did the setup sound weird previously, is there a real reason or were my ears stuffed that day? If so, what to do with blue and yellow components when rewiring the tone controls?

The shop has a text on their website "The attached yellow and blue components and schematic apply to standard wiring strat with no tonecontrol on bridge pick up; when a tonecontrol is wired to bridge pick up omit the blue component from wiring."

OK. Just to be sure, I email Johan Lundgren and get a response "The yellow cuts some treble on all pickups. The blue only affects the bridge pickup. You could use only the blue if you want. It lowers the resonant frequency on the bridge pickup and cuts some treble."

Hm. So Johan suggests instead to use the blue. So is that text on the shop website wrong? Or was Johan in a hurry and flipped the colors? Or is it all a "matter of taste"?

I don't want to bother Johan more than necessary, so I was wondering if you could help me answer these questions... if you look at the schematic, does it conform to what Johan writes? Would the blue and/or yellow components affect all pickups in a weird way when tone is wired to both bridge and middle? And what do you think I should do?

Not sure myself but I don’t think it will be a problem to try different ways and see which you prefer.. Johan is a really nice guy and I am sure he will be quite happy to answer any questions for you if you contact him again!

frankhond wrote:Newbie here. Need some help from those who know a thing or two about strat wiring.

I bought a set of Lundgren BJFE stratocaster pickups. In the box there are two electronic components (possibly capacitors but who knows) wrapped in shrink tube, blue and yellow respectively. Lundgren unsurprisingly calls these the "blue and yellow component".

Also included is this diagram http://lundgren.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Schema-Lundgren-BJFE-set.pdf describing "standard" wiring where neck and middle pups each have a tone control, while bridge pup has none.

My strat had a different common wiring - a jumper between the middle pins on the right side of the switch connected both bridge and middle pups to the rear tone pot. I installed the blue and yellow components as shown anyway, but the tone was weird, all pickups were subdued and lacking in treble somehow.

So I removed the jumper which made the setup identical to the above diagram, and now the guitar sounds crazy good!

But! I would like to have a tone control on the bridge pickup. I could in fact skip the tone on the middle pickup (Eric Johnson wiring) and have a tone control on neck and bridge respectively. No problem, I believe this is done by moving a wire one pin up on the right side of the switch.

The problem is, why did the setup sound weird previously, is there a real reason or were my ears stuffed that day? If so, what to do with blue and yellow components when rewiring the tone controls?

The shop has a text on their website "The attached yellow and blue components and schematic apply to standard wiring strat with no tonecontrol on bridge pick up; when a tonecontrol is wired to bridge pick up omit the blue component from wiring."

OK. Just to be sure, I email Johan Lundgren and get a response "The yellow cuts some treble on all pickups. The blue only affects the bridge pickup. You could use only the blue if you want. It lowers the resonant frequency on the bridge pickup and cuts some treble."

Hm. So Johan suggests instead to use the blue. So is that text on the shop website wrong? Or was Johan in a hurry and flipped the colors? Or is it all a "matter of taste"?

I don't want to bother Johan more than necessary, so I was wondering if you could help me answer these questions... if you look at the schematic, does it conform to what Johan writes? Would the blue and/or yellow components affect all pickups in a weird way when tone is wired to both bridge and middle? And what do you think I should do?

Hi there,

The blue component is used on bridge pickup and it mimics having a tone control on bridge pick up set at '4'. The yellow component is an overall loading for all pick ups.
The point of the blue component is to make treble equal for all pick ups, and to add a small amount of low mids to the bridge pick up. With loading the same to all pick ups same settings on amp can be used regardless of pick up:
In a stock wiring of a strat you get no tone control on bridge but tone on middle and neck and that makes the bridge pick up much brighter than the other two pick ups and so same setting on amp can be difficult because changing pick up also drastically changes eq. So the suggested wiring is tone on neck and middle and then the blue component mimics a preset tone at 4.
If you wish to have say master tone ignore the blue component.
So both Johan and the schematic are correct.

A guy I know that owns the Wall of Doom installed the pick ups but not the yellow and blue at first as he didn't think those necessary....... but I told him he'd find out when playing the Wall of Doom. Later he said the blue and yellow were the magic because at the loud volumes and distortion levels of the Wall of Doom ( an actuall wall of in excess of 100W amplifiera and cabinetts) the pick up selector allowed the same settings on amplifiera regardless of which pick up was used.
Once you know what these components you can alter system for instance to have tone on bridge and neck and then use the blue on the middle pickup connected directly from pick up hot to ground or you don't use the blue if you want extra treble and don't mind eq shifting with pick ups

At your service
BJ

Fantastic informative answer, thanks a zillion