WNAMM12: Turn Your Les Paul Into A Strat

Turn your Strat into a Les Paul   01-Feb-12

Okay, so you might have read that headline and thought that we'd developed a way of transforming a Les Paul into a Strat. That's not entirely what this is, but it is a genius idea; an idea that we are very excited about.

Basically, the guys at JJ Guitars (top-notch luthiers from Derbyshire) have developed a 6-way switch for guitars fitted with humbuckers. In the video above, you can see Jeff Guilford talk about the switching system.

It really does open up a range of tonal possibilities. The normal three switching positions of a dual humbucker setup are available, but you get the added posibility of the outer coils from each humbucker being used in parallel, the inner coils being used in parallel, or the inner coils being used in series.

I was actually behind the camera for the video, and I can tell you that the 5th position did sound very much like the country sounds you can get from an old Tele. The 4th and 6th positions made the guitar sound like a thinner bodied guitar like a Strat. You might be able to hone in on this easier if you are wearing a pair of headphones when you watch the vid.

To find out more please watch the video, Jeff gives a much better explanation of his product than I can. You also get to see and hear some of his very posh guitars in action.

PLEASE NOTE: Crackles and pops on the audio of this video are not anything to do with the switch, they are due to wireless interference and the position of the radio mic.

Rich Beech
@sonicamped