Strat 5 way selector

I think and someone can correct me. All the way down would just be the bridge pickup let's call that position 1. So

Position 1 - Bridge only

Position 2 - Bridge and middle together

Position 3 - Middle only

Position 4 - Middle and neck together

Position 5 - Neck only

Welcome to GN.

Move the switch all the way in the direction of the tone knobs and you switch in the bridge pickup. Move it one notch towards the neck and you have bridge and middle pickups. Move it to the middle notch and you have the middle pickup. One further and you get the middle and neck pickups. Move to the last position and you get the bridge pickup.

the neck pickup gives the ounder bell tones.
the bridge pickup is the treble one. it is awesome for driving rock.
I like the way it works with my overdrive stomp box.

watching one of those all star Clapton shows I noticed that most of thew strat players used the middle position.
it was an eye opener for me, because I had rarely used that setting.
now I am giving it a chance and on some songs I like it.

Grey - In that last line didn't you mean neck?

This has come up before and I have always used the bridge pickup almost exclusively because I never liked that what sounded to me like a muffled sound from the other pickups.

I have started using them more lately but usually find that I need to increase the volume from where it was when I was using just the bridge pickup.

Ok. Got the positions down. Is there a general guidline for tone? i.e. cleanest to fuzziest. I know, I know. "open your ears and listen dummy!!!", right?

Ok. Got the positions down. Is there a general guidline for tone? i.e. cleanest to fuzziest. I know, I know. "open your ears and listen dummy!!!", right?
like I said. the neck pickup has a woodier, rounder, bell tone quality. the bridge pickup is full of treble, sharpness.
the others offer degrees of those two...IMO.

dogbite described it pretty well. I've always liked the more trebly, sharpness of the bridge pick but am slowly learning there's room for the others too.

Thank you guys.

I tend to gravitate towards the middle for lead bluesy type stuff. I have a humbucker in the bridge and thats my "rock out" position. I tend to use the neck for rhythm playing. I don't find myself combining the pickups much.

I think and someone can correct me. All the way down would just be the bridge pickup let's call that position 1. So

Position 1 - Bridge only

Position 2 - Bridge and middle together

Position 3 - Middle only

Position 4 - Middle and neck together

Position 5 - Neck only

No correction necessary, there was at least 48 - 50 years of confusion or indecision, before Fender decided, and printed the correct positions 1 through 5, where other forums & players had got it all argumentative and confused, hashed up and backwards for decades. I remember this clarification which I was pressing for in 2002 - 2004. I tried to enlist Seymour Duncan and Lace Pickups as well to lobby for this pickup position description.

Positions 2 and 4 are your "quacks" or quack tones. It happens when either of the "bookend" pickups, bridge or neck are combined with the Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity middle pickup, but that has been argued too, in the rare case where the middle is wound like the rest, as in a 1954 set. It goes back to the days when there were only 3 positions, and players found the inbetween two, by jamming paper matchsticks into the switch. But does the quack only come with the RWRP??? I would say so, and others disagree... so having been part of the original controversy, I would agree to disagree. :roll:

I have a 3 pickup Nashville Tele wired as a '54 Strat, and I don't hear quack, but I love what I hear. 2 P-90's also quack.

Robert Cray and many Blues People really like the inbetween positions, which non-Strat lovers and Gibson purists call rubber sounds. Tokai was inspired to call them "Breezy Sounds". :lol: You can hear that #2 position on many clean and slightly compressed/tube distortion recordings, and also hear Stratmeister Slowhand Eric Clapton with a few tricks up his sleeve, using the Magnificent 7 mod, with all 3 pickups engaged in parallel, rumored or fact on Layla, and other tunes, I believe? Mark Knopfler might be into it too. Anyhow, that's a moot point, they just sound great, and they are great! 8)

Grey - In that last line didn't you mean neck?
Yep, thanks for the heads up.

My Burn's Marquee has the push/pull pot, which switches the neck pickup on, so pos 1 gives me bridge and neck (the "Tele" combination) and pos 2 gives me all 3 pickups.

My Burn's Marquee has the push/pull pot, which switches the neck pickup on, so pos 1 gives me bridge and neck (the "Tele" combination) and pos 2 gives me all 3 pickups.

That's what I'm talkin' about! 8)