The Mod Squad
If you’re after more sounds, look no further than the Brit-designed and manufactured Free-Way, reckons Dave Burrluck
As long as we’ve had the electric guitar there have been two main types of pickup selector switch most commonly in use: the ‘Gibson-style’ toggle switch, and the ‘Fender-style’ lever or blade switch. You can count the other types of pickup selector switches used in the past 60-something years on the fingers of your left hand. These are very basic switches that have barely changed at all. Today, we have more varieties of these ‘standard’ switches than we did back in the 1950s, and that includes a price scale from touring pro to starter quality.
The three-position (or three-way) toggle switch is typically used on a twin-pickup guitar selecting either or both combined in parallel. The lever switch in its basic form again offers three positions but is more flexible, and used on the single-pickup Esquire, two-pickup Telecaster or threepickup Stratocaster, for example.
“Bryce came up with the Free-Way switch, which gave the three-position toggle two parallel banks that doubled the number of selections”
Its two-pole design also means various more tricky wiring hook-ups are possible. Of course, back in the day, Strat players found they could jam the three-position lever switch in the famous in-between positions and the five-position lever was born. More recently the four-position lever became a neat Tele mod – adding the two pickups in series in the extra position – while a six-position lever can be used to add neck and bridge in parallel, like a Tele, to a Stratocaster’s classic five sounds.
The even more versatile four-pole Super switch gives ultimate versatility to the fiveposition lever switch, especially when it’s combined with a secondary switch such as Fender’s S-1 push-switch. Elsewhere, Schaller’s various Megaswitches simplify that concept with three- or five-positions. But by far the most common switches remain the five-position lever and threeposition toggle.
We Want More!
Alasdair Bryce is not a household name in the world of the electric guitar, but he came up with the patented Free-Way switch concept (handmade in the UK by NSF Controls), which initially gave the three-position toggle two parallel banks – down and up – that effectively doubled the number of selections. More recently, this same Free-Way concept has been applied to the lever switch, so where a three-position switch, like on a Telecaster, can offer six positions, a five-position lever doubles that figure to 10.
It was guitar maker Chris George who first put me onto this ‘gear-shift’ Free-Way concept, but instead of immediately seeing the light I felt it made a three-position toggle feel a little odd. But now that I’m used to the concept – and for the right guitar and right guitar player – I’m a big convert and have to admit I got rather excited about the new ‘Fender-style’ Free-Way switches, the 3B3 and 5B5.
When fitted to a Stratocaster or any other three-single-coil guitar, the Free-Way 5B5 offers the usual Strat-like selections in the down position: 1) bridge; 2) bridge and middle in parallel; 3) middle; 4) middle and neck in parallel; and 5) neck. The additional five positions are: 6) bridge and middle (or all three) in series; 7) all three in parallel; 8) bridge and neck in series; 9) bridge and neck in parallel; and 10) middle and neck in series.
So the 5B5 gives us our favourite ‘sevensound mod’ additions, positions 7 and 9, plus the four-way Tele switch extra of bridge and neck in series. Then we get two extra sounds of the bridge and middle and the neck and middle in series, not the normal parallel. The Free-Way website has a page dedicated to wiring schematics and install sizes. If you can use a soldering
“In its lower position it’s the sounds you know and love; in the upper position you get the extra selections. It’s as simple as that”
iron, all you have to do is unsolder your old five-way and remove it, mount the new switch and wire it up.
The Free-Way 5B5 switch is slightly larger and more rectangular compared with a more classic-style CRL switch (approximately 50mm by 15.6mm with a depth of 33.9mm, as opposed to 47.8mm by 11.2mm and a depth of 31.6mm). The important retaining screw positions, however, are pretty much identical at 40mm apart, although the Free-Way uses thinner screws
In Use
Installation on our Fender Road Worn Strat with a set of Custom Shop Texas Specials (with RWRP middle pickup) is dead easy. It’s not quite a drop-in replacement, though, because some of the leads, like the ground wire of the neck pickup, needed extending to reach the switch instead of being grounded on the back of the volume pot. The contacts on the switch are more like soldering onto a PCB, too, rather than the larger lugs of a standard lever switch. You’ll need a finetipped soldering iron.
The dual action of the Free-Way switch feels very firm and positive. Remember, in its lower position it’s the sounds you know and love; in the upper position you get the extra selections. It’s as simple as that. The series combinations really do expand the guitar’s voice with humbucking-like power and a much rounder high-end with a little of the classic Strat’s note attack, while both the neck/bridge and all-three-on give viable options to the classic, if rather clichéd, in-between sounds.
The switching potential with the other Free-Way switches (toggle or lever) is equally good, although when combining pickups – single coils or split coils of a humbucker – in series they might not be hum-cancelling. But that’s a whole different topic than we have space to cover here.
Bare Knuckle stocks the full line of Free-Way switches, and at £39.95 the 5B5 costs twice as much as a CRL 5-way (which retails at £18). Still, as we’ve explained, we have twice as many sounds. For those who want it, the expanded Free-Way concept is quite unique. Our standard switches now seem oh-so last decade… or six.