Electronics on Dream Strat

Closer View

The electronics on board the dream strat (this guitar) are a real enhancement over the original Fender Stratocaster pickups that you see on stock product. In fact one of the primary reasons why Awesome John did not like Stratocaster's was the sound!

The electronics ARE extreme, including the Sims neck leds, the fully customized pickups, the custom control knob for future expansion and of course the way that the instrument is actually wired.

Awesome John did say that he had his guitar tech rewire this guitar (when used at its most frequent use) up to 20 times in just one month, the sound combinations linked with the quite unique electronics and the unique woods and build design make this guitar for anyone without the right experience - an electronic nightmare - in a nice sort of way.

It's pretty hard to see all the things I did to correct the internal wiring and various connectors, pots, switches and more, but make no mistake, when Awesome John said they 'rewired it a lot' he really was not joking. I know that this guitar was used a lot and that Asim really liked this instrument. Maybe he was looking for that 'tone' that very few guitarists ever achieve, the one in their head... but in any case, it's pretty clear that Awesome John really loved this guitar. Correcting the problems later, while an issue, never really bothered me personally and it has been a privilege to work on the Fender 'Dream' Stratocaster for sure.

The electronics were really a setup that I had not seen before. Sure the pickups were known, and most else OK so far, but the actual 'extra' switches and push pull controls (some not even connected at purchase time) were not immediately obvious as to their exact use. Chatting with Asim gave me some guidance but only so far. The truth is, Asim had the guitar rewired so many times and he had forgotten the 'exact' setup when the guitar arrived. So I labored to get the wiring and switches as near as possible to the original setup - and I believe at the time I did.

I might put some more images on here re the wiring, but that depends if I can find them! It has been many years since I did the work.

Updated 2023.