Jumbo MFD on an S-500

Okay, so I finally made the 1600 mile trip out to Fender Avenue last month, here are a few photos.

This is a spanish copper metallic S-500 that I sold to an excellent local guitarist about three years ago. After playing it for a year, and in the meantime being exposed to my Broadcaster and SC-2 guitars, he suggested that he would like a jumbo MFD in the middle position on this S-500, since he loved the bridge and neck pickups but seldom used the middle one. Now, I am not much of a modder, normally my modding history is to un-mod, or to restore guitars back to factory specs. But, I thought this was a great idea, it is totally Leo.

So, maybe a couple of years ago, I talked to Memo Romero about getting a neck jumbo MFD reverse wound, so that I could do this while retaining the humbucking feature on positions 2 and 4. Memo said that they didn't actually make that pickup any more, but he would have one of the girls spin one up backwards. Cool!



So, we did the pickup installation in my basement, the guitar's owner Timmy Keith did most of the work while I drank most of the beer.



It worked great, except that we didn't retain the humbucking aspect of the guitar. Fast forward to last month, I brought the guitar with my to Fullerton. Memo put it on his bench and fixed the HB aspect by simply pulling the magnet off the bottom and reversing it. Then he replaced the selector switch and the volume pot, becuase they were less than perfect.



Dave McLaren said he had never seen this particular mod before but seemed somewhat intrigued by it and stated it was cleanly done. The overly broad-brush description of it is that you get a tele switch on your strat.

Hey derick, that is a GREAT story and even better final design!

I love mods and you guys pulled off a great blend there. I've seen ASAT's with a reverse CLF between the big MFD's, but that seems like it would bring in a sweet "mother" tone in the middle. What kind of music does your friend play, and what's been the response after playing for a month?

Big kudos to Memo and the G&L team for this excellent project, definately "totally Leo". The picture in "THE CHAIR" needs to be framed. Doesn't Darth just look like he's beaming over newborn!

Looking forward to updates and any clips or pics in action would be awesome.

I'm glad you enjoyed the idea.

I'm not sure what pickup he's using, but here's a youtube of Timmy playing that guitar...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPfXWAgUnqU

I know he uses the wide MFD for country and he said he used it in the studio, they recorded an album recently.

Based on video stamp date and zooming in those are the original pups. Look like the bass player has a L1000, are my eyes working properly?

Dig the Santana vibe on opening song and in others. Hope they post more vids with new setup

Ooops, you're correct, the Wide MFD was installed July 2022. Sorry about that.

They have a new album, or CD or whatever they're called now, out that I know he used the ASAT pickup on, I'll ask when I see him what songs that might have been.

Yeah that L-1000 (clear over mahogany and ebony board) was the bass player's main axe until he bought a warwick active 5 string last summer. Kids these days...

That's a way cool mod! Never seen that either. I'm intrigued to hear...
So awesome that there's a photo in the chair! Major kudos to G&L for everything they did here!!