modding the stratocaster

[kschul19]

hola all well first time posting on the forums, anyways last night my strum bar decided to fail just like many of others here and no longer work in the downward direction. i decided to take a look inside and see what the problem was. (probably voided the warranty at that point but to be honest i hated the new style action anyway) i was aculy very impressed by the electronics inside, nice connectors, good gauge wire, ect EXCEPT for the strumming circuit the wires looked like the twist ties from garbage bags and the contacts for the strum bar were just thin pieces of metal with plastic cams on them for movement. well easy enough it seemed, beeing a big guitarhero fan i was used to the typical click you would get when playing each up and down strum were the strat has no real "feel" to successfully activating a note. anyways once i got it apart i remembered i had some old micro switches from radio shack for a old R/C project i built. taking those and making a screw on bracket was able to not only get a working guitar (without the current replacement hassle) but also get the positive feel back that i likes so much of my LesPaul and SG my warranty is totally voided but i think i now have a better and more durable guitar then when i started. sorry i don't have a digital camera otherwise i would post pictures BTW this was an a ps3 guitar and there are clearance issues with the battery box if you happen to do it the same way i did

[Mycool]

It's all a matter of opinion (obviously), but I actually prefer the feel of the Strat strum bar much more than ANY of the GH Guitars (I own 3 GH guitars for the 360 & 2 more for PS2). The RB Strat just feels a bit more like playing a real guitar to me (which I also own 2 of...as you may tell, I'm a bit of a guitar freak). My point is that I would actually be interested in swapping out the GH strummers with the RB type. Since you have dissected both of them, I was just wondering if you thought this would be possible? I have no idea how I would get my hands on the parts, but where there's a will, there's a way ;)

[macafied]

I'd be interested in seeing some pics if you can. What switches did you use?

[kschul19]

mycool you could mod the old GH guitars but would still keep the auidible click by padding the strum action that is all the strat does along with a centering spring doable but would take some work were the strat differs it uses remote switches with wires going to the circuitry and with the GH guitar it has the circuit board right behind the strum bar making clearance tight, some mods could make it happen but with the switch type the GH uses you will be hard pressed to make it feel "non positve"


as for what switches i used these are realy close to the ones i used

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049718&cp=&pg=4&sr=1&origkw=switch&kw=switch&parentPage=search

[rezin-injector]

kschul19,

I am very interested on how you did this mod. What you did, is exactly what I was brain storming!!! I was just unsure of what type of switch to use.

Ok, here comes the storm of questions for you, if you wouldn't mind answering them. :)

Is it possible to use a different type of switch, maybe something smaller?

What kind of clearance issues did you have with the battery box, and how did you get around it? (I too have a PS3 Strat)

The screw on bracket you made, was it to hold the switches or a bracket to trip the switches?

I really wish you had a digital camera to take some photos of the mod!!! Any other help would be greatly appreciated!!!