Pickup selector switch for USA versus Tribute

Tue May 15, 2018 4:36 pm

Hello. For one of my non-G&L project guitars, the pick-up selector switch needs to be replaced, so I was thinking about putting in a G&L switch. I looked them up on the store site, and I was surprised to see how different the USA versus Tribute switches are. See https://g-l-online-store.myshopify.com/collections/electronics/products/pickup-selector-switch versus https://g-l-online-store.myshopify.com/collections/electronics/products/pickup-selector-switch-tribute-series. Anyone know why that is, and should either work in a strat style guitar? The current [broken] one is more like the USA style but I would hope the G&L one would be of higher quality. Thanks

Re: Pickup selector switch for USA versus Tribute

Tue May 15, 2018 7:16 pm

The Tribute switch is typical import- More failure prone and more difficult to correct any failure since the contacts are internal.

Have you sprayed your existing switch with contact cleaner? The replacement US G&L switches are pretty much the same as any number of similarly constructed switches used by other brands and should work fine, in any case.

Re: Pickup selector switch for USA versus Tribute

Tue May 15, 2018 7:35 pm

The USA switch has a much better feel to it and better quality movement.

Re: Pickup selector switch for USA versus Tribute

Tue May 15, 2018 7:44 pm

Danley wrote:The Tribute switch is typical import- More failure prone and more difficult to correct any failure since the contacts are internal.

Have you sprayed your existing switch with contact cleaner? The replacement US G&L switches are pretty much the same as any number of similarly constructed switches used by other brands and should work fine, in any case.


Thanks for the information. It's not a situation where contact spray might help. The arm on the switch is just dangling as if something is broken inside. When I take the pickguard off, I'll see if it might be fixable, but it doesn't look like it, and I'm pretty sure that it is a cheap one. It was a loaded pickguard that I bought that had nice Dimarzio pickups, but some of the other electronics were cheap.