Fender Stratocaster Mid Boost Kit

Having installed and got it working in my standard strat it just sounds amazing and produces a huge pallet of new tones. The Volume control acts as one would expect. The TBX has an indent at 5 which is a neutral setting. Turn clockwise and the pickups get more “sparkly” (like a presence control on an amp), counter clockwise and they become more muted a bit more like humbuckers. The effects are subtle but work well when you get the hang of it. The Tone control is interesting and really works as a signal blender. Set to 0 it only lets the sound from TBX and Volume out which I shall call “clean”. Set to 10 and it runs the signal through the mid boost amp only which I shall call “boost”. Anywhere in between and it blends a ratio of the “clean” and the “boost” signals to control the amount of extra mids wanted. Now it then gets very interesting because as the Volume control is increased, the “boost” channel starts to distort like a Tube Screamer and the Tone control allows blending of clean and distorted tones to produce a “transparent” sound which responds well to playing dynamics much like a Klon Centaur does. With the 5 way pickup selector, NoiseLess Vintage PUPs, TBX, Volume & Tone controls you actually have a versatile great sounding small pedal board on the guitar.Now for some notes on installation. I managed to install it without modifications to the guitar woodwork at all.1) Put the PWB under the bridge pickup. Layer the cavity base with self adhesive tin foil connected to ground. Insulate the board from the foil with plastic and gently screw into place. Cover the top of the PWB with electrical tape to prevent shorting to the pickup poles. It should fit quite comfortably with care.2) When replacing the output socket, carefully rotate the socket orientation, squeeze the lugs inwards and find a position that just fits the whole assembly. It will help to solder the signal wires to the inside section of the socket to allow maximum room to fit.3) The battery will fit beside the Tone control if it’s inserted on its narrowest side and pushed against the cavity wall. A bit of double sided adhesive tape will help hold it on place.4) I used a rechargeable 9v battery and installed a USBC socket through the scratch plate to recharge without having to disassemble the guitar each time. It’s quite time consuming but worth it.5) The boost amp can become unstable if not properly decoupled from the supply so I placed a 100uF 15v electrolytic across the battery terminals. Keeps it very quiet.6) Carefully study the TBX wiring as the picture supplied does not make it clear how it should be wired. There are schematics of the “Eric Clapton Mid Boost” on the web. Study those and use a DVM to buzz out the two ganged pots to understand how they work.Anyway that’s it. 3 hours of hard work and my old MIM strat is now an Eric Clapton Special for a fraction of the price. Definitely worth the effort !! Highly recommended !!!!

I routed out the body under the pickguard using a double battery compartment.template for the circuit board, had to lift and move it for the length to a depth of just under 1/2". Used tuner screws and rubber tubing as a stand off to hold it down. Routed out a single battery box in the back. The wiring was straight forward and a 'little' involved. The end result was really stellar. The volume controls the boost level while the pot in the bridge tone control seems to thicken up the pick ups (ala humbuckers). The TBX tone does a great job of eliminating any muddiness. I used a Bill Lawrence Wilde set of Strat noise-free singles (L200S neck/middle and an L290S bridge). I suppose this will work with normal single coils but you MAY end up with a very noisy Strat. Originally they used Lace Sensors but stacked singles seem to work fine. The tonal palate is really interesting from this circuit and I'd say it could be useful for any genre of music I could name. If you're heavy handed on the knobs you can hit the front end of a decent amp pretty hard, you can definitely cut through any mix with it. Yeah I'd do it again. This was a partscaster build using an ash body and tuners/pick ups I had, everything else came from Amazon.

Got this to get that classic Eric Clapton tone out of my “blackie” copy I’m making. Came in only 2 days. Installing this was a nightmare. I went with the “no routing method” because, well, I’m lazy and decided to fit the whole thing under the pickgaurd. It works! 9v battery is in the cavity on the back where the tremolo springs were. If you are having issues with it, double and triple CHECK YOUR WIRING! I had to do 3 rewires because the damn diagram is not fun to read. TBX control is weird. I may have gotten a bad one as it doesn’t click at 5 and just linearly gets brighter. In the end though, the sound is amazing and closely resembles clapton’s tones on a stratocaster.

Unfortunately, I was unable to use this harness. I WAS NOT attempting to install this harness in a Strat, which it is designed specifically for. However, I can attest to the quality of the components used in this assembly. They obviously used top shelf components, and the build quality is fantastic. If you’re a Stratocaster guy or gal, you need to check this out. Plus, it’s Fender, so you would not be defacing your beautiful Strat with junk aftermarket hardware. Bottom line, I was very impressed with this harness.

I picked up a used MIM for use as a back-up guitar. Previous owner had installed Gen4 noiseless pups. It sounded pretty good but a bit too much contrast. Most strats are lacking in mid-tone, but this seemed ever more so. My first thought was to just a tube screamer to boost the mids. The I wondered how I could disassemble that pedal and put it in side my guitar. I did some research and ended up here. Saw this product advertised for $52 and thought how could I not. Installed it this weekend and it's excellent. It does the following: (1) like having a amp gain knob on your guitar, (2) expands the tone range of each pup, and (3) really does boos the mid-tone, although what it's actually doing when you turn the TBX knob is bleeding the treble/bass into a capacitor, effectively boosting mid.A few things to note: (1) if you're new to soldering, I would not attempt this. it's a bit more advanced and you can easily fry these parts if you dont know what you're doing. (2) the output jack did not fit into my MIM because its larger than the stock jack, so I had to dig out 1/4" of wood down inside, not a problem though. (3) the instructions are minimal so you have to do your homework on-line.