Clapton's Strat Is NOT a Normal Stratocaster! 

Mid Boost Circuit: sweetwater.sjv.io/PyNz5z Clapton Strat from Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/k02WP3 Clapton Strat from Zzounds: www.zzounds.com/a--3980673/item--FEN117602

Actually Eric's secret weapon is 50+ years of practice!

Actually Clapton secret weapon is Clapton himself.

Watched a recent rig rundown, he just uses a 3 way switch live, and only has one pedal on the floor and leaves the mid boost on. Just punches the tubes on his dumbles. Thats it. Its OG… Its just all him.. Doing what he does.

It’s a genius concept…and Eric’s thought instead of putting a Humbucker in bridge like many did…He got Fender to add a circuitry that pushes the midrange db…and the tbx tone control compensates the loss of treble …pretty awesome..I think it’s the best all around Stratocaster…for stage use…😊

OMG! I CANT BELIEVE THIS! Back in 1998, I made this EXACT GUITAR! 97 Am. Standard with the Clapton electronics dropped in, and I play it every day!! I used to think my guitar was one of a kind, but now it’s at least 2, excellent taste dude!

I have owned and played an Eric Clapton 'Blackie' Strat since mid-90s. It's been a great workhorse for what I am using it for. What he did not mention is that the neck is thinner in the middle, worked down to allow easier play and fingering.

Clapton could take a $30 electric guitar and make is sound like a million bucks.

His original "blackie" strat was actually comprised of the best parts of 3 stratocasters. He had it "custom buit." He found a guitar shop that was selling them cheap and bought six. One He gave to George Harrison, another he gave to Steve Winwood, and another to Pete Townshend.

Recently got a 2004 Eric Clapton custom shop and I absolutely fell in love with the sound.

Gilmour used a similar mod on his red strat from the 80s, you can hear it all over Delicate Sound of thunder. I had the mod on one of my guitars back in the day, definitely gets you closer to that sound - you can use the bridge pickup and get some bite, but with a warm fatness to it that's not like the dark chunkiness of the classic middle and neck pickup sound of a strat. Great for soaring leads.

Those early Lace Sensors are getting very hard to find, take care of them.

SRV played with a circuit excitor too

Great video dude! Very interesting. Been loving your stuff ever since stumbling upon your Silver Sky content. Keep up the great work.

I built a "Clapton Strat" from scratch. I couldn't get from your description as to whether you put in PCB but it does sound like it. One point for guys that want try this mod is that you need to rout out a decent sized pocket under the pickguard for the PCB and use noise cancelling pups. The pups need a bit more taken out under the depth of the originals. Using typical single coils will give quite a noisy result. Great explanation of the Clapton Strat Tom !

Buy A Clapton Strat and Support the Channel HERE: www.zzounds.com/a--3980673/item--FEN117602?siid=7742

Very informative, thanks. In this case with the special third knob, the second tone knob must work for all 3 pickups then, because the regular use of the third knob has been changed to such an extent. I have to say that I noticed that when Eric switched to these "all white" pickups, the notes would sound more "sonic", to me, without the normal "note decay" I was used to, being played through a large stack, like the classic 60s, 70s sound. Which I do prefer to the new "sonic" sounding notes. These non decaying notes sound too futuristic to me. I like "Brownie" better. But, that's just me.

His secret weapon is his fingers hands and soul! Eric Clapton is Eric Clapton a gifted great guitarist!!!🎸

I put Fender mid boost on my active dimarzio PU set.... it is amazing as you pointed out thru VDO.... love that brought this up .....simple things that make different practically

I had the same thing done to my Strat along with Noiseless pickups installed,, the change is amazing and very cool to use when playing,, thanks for the vid!!

Got myself a 99 Fender Deluxe Powerhouse Strat, which was the “budget” slightly neutered Clapton Strat. It was a (VERY WELL MADE) Mexico Strat with a 12 db md boost with American standard pickups. The mid boost is actually the same 25 db boost, but with an extra resister added to half the boost.

To me, ECs sound reminds me of an old buckboard racing down a mountain trail with the wheels about to fall off. I always think "that can't be normal...". Thanks for the info.

Great job, thanks for posting!

I'm grateful for yt recommending me this video on my yt search for 50s strat wiring btw. On the search about building the ultimate guitar. And u just added something totally new, another knob, unrelated to pots caps or phase switches ect, which hasn't happened in a pretty long time I think. So thanks lol. Let's see if ur other secret weapon videos contain other electronic/building, well, secret weapons lol. Cheers everyone reading (I'm not Bri ish or Canadian lol)

Clapton's Strat tone on the 'Just One Night' double live album(with Albert Lee) was IMHO his best Strat tone. It had sparkle, stinging clarity, and sounded awesome with the Wah. After that as far as I'm concerned it lost some of its mojo. It morphed into this mid rangey tone that sounded like the neck pickup on an SG or LP with the tone rolled off. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a huge fan. I learned how to play guitar by copping Clapton's licks reaching back to the Cream era and by incorporating Just One Night into my DNA. I'm just expressing my personal opinion, everybody's got one. Cheers.

I might sound a little old fashioned but I want my Strat to sound like a Strat and my Les Paul to sound like a Les Paul. You need one of each and a Telecaster too lol. I get the gain Db thing but it’s still a Strat with a boost. I think people want to get his Strat to sound like Clapton. We all are guilty of this rabbit hole once it comes from our hero’s lol

I really need to give this a try on my next Strat. Thanks!

Awesome break down of his mod and what it does

You should check out Jerry Garcia's guitars and what they had. Jerry had a OBEL (ONboard Effects Loops) on the guitar itself. Also the guitar had a preamp in it as well and a buffer. Theres more musicians than you think out there using some very unique approaches to getting their tone. :-)

There's still one of this available in a shop in my country (2-3 days shipping to where I live). It's a new old stock, black, with Lace Sensor. It cost $1300 complete set. It has some minor conditions though but nothing that impair its playability nor structural integrity.

1:58 Clapton does this same thing when he played Layla with bassist Nathan East onstage in a black 2 piece suit, that concert when Clapton launched into the riff Nathan got startled. All Clapton did was he rolled a knob to get that tone.

I done that to mine, i have Lace Sensors to, their out of a Clapton signature Strat. It's a cool mod for sure.

The earliest models were the best in my opinion ... not so much gain and the LACE pickups were fabulous.

Found you through Ward Carroll's channel. Dude that outro you did for him is so damn good it gets stuck in my head, and I don't mind at all! I encourage you to check out my dear friend Tim Templeton. I served with him on a Med float in '85. We did a few numbers together and he was good then. He's amazing now. Thanks for the great content. Just subbed. ✌🐸

My guitar teacher got a black EC strat with the Lace pickups and the mid boost when he was invited to buy some stuff when Joe Walsh was clearing excess stuff out of his storage. When I heard that sound, I immediately took my Squire Strat and had the Lace/midboost/tone knob installed on it. Love that guitar. The only thing left of the original Squire is the body & neck at this point. Then about a year later my teacher had a real need for a new washer & dryer, and made a great deal on the EC Blackie (with right of first refusal if I ever want to sell it, which I can't imagine I ever will)!

That’s no secret. Tony Iommi had Laney put a boost in his Amp, Brian May and Rory Gallagher both used Dallas Rangemaster Pedals.

I saw Clapton New Years Eve, he played a Charity Gig for Alcoholics Anonymous, in a Sports hall about half mile from my house, small gig, maybe 1k people max, he totally smashed it, doesn't get better!

Thank you so much!

Love the clean sound .. not breaking up

The secret weapon to cop anyone's style is to 1st practice. ALOT!!! It's a secret so don't tell anyone.

One reason I believe why Clapton's sound changed is his hearing loss. With pretty much most hearing loss it is the upper mids and high end that goes. So he boosted em.

Nice tones!🎸🎵

I put this boost circuit in my mim strat with vintage noiseless pups, I absolutely love it

The Tone knob works slightly different: you might have noticed it "dents" around the 5 mark. Settings 0-5 behave like your regular tone knob as in it is a low pass filter which rolls off the highs. However, past the dent (6-10) it works as a high pass filter: a tone knob in reverse. It is not that more high frequencies are added, it is that low frequencies are scooped out giving you the impression of more brightness (because you just take out the "mud"). I suspect the idea behind this is that low frequencies generate additional harmonics upon break-up which are still in a lower range than high frequencies (not sure if low frequencies also distort faster). So if you clean up the lows on the input side, you get more clarity in your distortion (= definition) while you can still add "warmth" by adjusting the EQ on your amp and boosting the lows. The difference being that an EQ just amplifies certain frequencies which exist in the signal and a distortion generates additional frequencies which happen to be in that low-mid range for low frequencies. I added such electronics (except not the boost mechanism as that needed a 9v battery which i couldn't house) to my PRS EG. It's a great tone.

No greater homage to Fender than to request “can you make iit sound like a Gibson”? /sarc

Wow that thing sounds AWESOME!

Just plugging into an amp direct is beautiful, especially on tour. (NS Design CR6-string Radius fretless bass guitar here)

It's a mid range boost. Similar to the Ibanez tube screamer.

When it comes to a stratocaster 🎸.... Jeff Beck can make a stratocaster sing like nobody else can. Yeah Clapton 👍 but Beck is in a league of his own 🎸🎶🎵‼️

this is a GREAT demo.

Props, man. This is perfect.

Of course, artists such as Eric Clapton seek guitars that feel right to them and aid them to produce what they want to produce. However, these guitarists would and do sound great on virtually any guitar. Their gear is refined to suit them and to make their efforts easier, but it is their individual talent that makes whatever they are playing on sound so great. Using a recent film as an example, a great race-car driver can win in a Ferrari or a Ford. Gear is fun and does make a difference in the final sound, but it is the musician's talent that drives the car, gear is what he/she is driving.

Ima get the eric’s pewter signature strat and a costum shop v neck rw… I just want a 10 way switch ( it’s freeway switch ) and it gives real Les Paul tone on neck and bridge even if it’s a strat just one mod and changes everything

Very informative.

Great video. I love EC's Strat music but my fav music he did was his Gibson ES 335.

I once tried a Clapton Strat with the 25 db boost on it and it turned out real hard to me, to set it back on 0 db after using the boost. It felt so goddamm naked and cold 🎸🌬 very addictiv thing that boost 😃

I have a clapton strat in the mail ,it will be here tommorow I'm very excited

i love the tone on the jouneymen record.

I’ve seen several interviews with Clapton himself, and he says very simply, “My technique is in my hands…my tone is in my equipment” I agree.

If he'd never switched from Gibsons and Humbuckers, he wouldn't have needed a preamp.

"Secret Weapon" that literally everyone who is remotely interested in Clapton and /or Strats knows about

Lovely, well explained. I used to use a FP graphic eq on the floor, specifically for mid range boost in soloing. Going to build me a Tele with mid range boost .. wicked!

The same effect can be applied if you use a lace sensor strat with a lead sound DI (like a DG Stomp and roll off the volume. This will clean up the tone with the volume nob only. Crank the knob and voila; instant lead tone. Roll down the volume knob instant clear tones

The Fender mid boost first came out in the Dan Smith era Stratocaster Elite, along with the TBX tone circuit. Basically it's +25db of boost @500hz, and the pot blends the boosted signal with the dry signal. So if you dont want to rout a hole in your Strat and achieve the same effect, you can just get an EQ pedal and boost a bunch of 500hz. But then you dont have it available on a knob right on your guitar. The TBX tone circuit helps clear it up as well, as it OS a normal tone control from 0-5, but from 5-10 it changes the resistance and kind of acts like a bass roll off, but doesnt get too thin. Just a MDX mid boost can get a little muddy depending on the setup, so the TBX in addition to it certainly helps. Fender also put the mid boost in the old Powerhouse Strats, but it was only a 12.5db boost. Apparently you can modify them by cutting a resistor out to make it the full 25db boost, but I've never done it. Strats are very mid-scoopy sounding by default, so a mid boost really helps fill out the sound and makes it thicker.

Great video on Eric’s strat. He was able to get a bit of a Humbucker sound with single coil pickups. I totally agree straight through the amp is really the way to go. I’m old and learned along the way, pedal boards are really cool. The problem is that you will be screwing around trying to find a sound you are looking for, and guess what? You’ll just trying to tweak tones. You’ll almost never be happy with the tones. Robert Cray does not use effects nor does Angus Young. So, I am told. Angus uses a wireless system to play to his Marshall stacks. Some say it is the wireless system that does it, Marshall’s are their own animal..don’t know 🤷‍♂️Whatever!

My #1 guitar had a TBX circuit built in originally... quite a cool feature for extra gain... but ultimately I got rid and implemented a coil tap.

Hey Thanks for this Awesome INFORMATIVE video I will get my New Fender Custom Shop Eric Clapton Stratocaster tomorrow Saturday November 12 I have a MIM Fender Stratocaster with Fender Hot Noiseless pickups I decided to get serious about Blues music and Blues guitar by buying a Custom Shop Eric Clapton Stratocaster

Much cheaper option to buy a boss eq pedal and boost the output and mids. Plus you can do much more with an eq pedal than a mid boost

It might be Clayton’s Secret weapon but sure ain’t working for you.

its a great circuit , i like it for clean , like with the neck pu or position 4 , playing up past the 12th you get this bell like attack and a sound you just cant get otherwise . one can just as soon build your own circuit and mount it in your guitar or in a pedal . i recommend the demeter fat control - i have one built into a guitar and i have one in a pedal , also this same circuit CAN work wonders for a bass guitar . i have one on my wifes pedal board and it makes certain effects come to life , like the phaser on her board animates and justifies its spot on the board ONLY with that mid boost , same with the auto wah stuff . now mind you i have found it works in some instances and in others i wasnt so hot on it , as with this stuff YMWV . its great when we have the bass running direct into the pa . when we run the pedal into a mixer and then a headphone amp for practice in the apartment , it sounded awful with the mid boost . its one of those effects that is kind of under the radar though but yeah its a really cool effect that totally changes the tone . you can find the layout for the demeter fat control on tagboard effects and its a pretty simple low parts count build based around an op amp so ... its beginner to moderate skill level build . tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2012/09/demeter-fat-control.html

The Heartfield Talon II has it too. It's super useful. Like an Ibanez RG with an inbuilt musical boost.

Sounds really muddy and unpleasant?

You can do that lower pot thing with a simple boost pedal that has a midrange punch or control. The JHS Haunting Mids is a great example.

Don't forget Ty Tabor of King's X. Part of his secret recipe. This was in the Strat Elite from early 80's. So what is great, is this MBX and THX mod is available as a kit for your Strat

It's all in the tone.

Very cool thanks

I have a ‘79 25th Anniversary Strat that in 1985, I put a set of EMG SA pickups that has a 400hz mid boost under lower tone knob, and it rocks. The db output is not 25, maybe not even 12 db but enough to make a good difference. I’d love to learn how to make that circuit hotter. I take that guitar to every gig and play it most of the night…

So we should all go and put our own personal choice of boost/EQ/Drive circuit into our guitars. Really though, unless you use midi or really like squatting. having that control at your finger tips makes sense. Zappa did similar stuff, even to the point of having a Ring Mod built in. a Green Ringer in the Baby Snakes SG It sure looks cool to when you can dial in the dirt too.

I didn't know that Clapton is such a great composer cause of that knob :))))

Good choice! I have the 25db boost electronics out of Eric's guitar, installed in my Japanese Strat. How did I get it? It was a gift. I have a single coil size hot rail in the bridge. I put an early Texas special bridge pickup in the neck slot & left the middle pickup stock. I love it!

I have a Japanese version of the Clapton strat. It came with gold lace sensors and the midboost. It has a V neck as well. I am not certain but I think it is actually a little fuller than Clapton's soft V but I like that. It is the old Fender Japan 54 style with the Clapton electronics. I think it is from 2002. It looks close to the Torino Red that is one of the colors that Clapton strats come in but not certain the exact color.

Id love to have an extra knob set up for this and a "King Tone" treble bleed. That would be a beast.

My friend beat Fender by about 3 years when he put a mid boost on my 1984 custom guitar he made for me. I do have a stellar '91 Strat Plus and just leave the TBX control on all the time.

I have a "lone Star" strat with a Seymore Duncan humbucker on the bridge. It just has all kinds of tone.

Its a great idea.. I JUST put a Gilmour mod on my Strat, but I would love to try this on one some day

Only thing I wish was that when you cranked up the tone knob... you'd play a bit of the opening of Layla.

EVH Loved Eric Clapton and talks very highly about his influence. Listen to the Music from the 1991 Motion Picture "Rush" = insane Clapton tones. Interesting stuff here. Enjoyed it.

Clapton was renowned for travelling light this boost built in enables him to just go plug in wherever he plays. When testing out guitars I always just plug it in to a good amp no need for all the other stuff to mask the tone for me if a guitar don’t sound great straight into an amp in not fussed about it. Now I’m not rubbishing off pedal boards in anyway they’re a necessity to guitar players doing their studio stuff live and a band can change their sound over time so to carry on achieving those differences live is probably impossible for some players on just one guitar. But Eric does it

Yes we all know about the Clapton strat, but it is Clapton that makes it sound different from mine and more than likely everybody else’s

I've got a Clapton Strat. The 20dB boost works really well. Beautiful guitar

Clapton started down this road when he got Fender’s original Strat Elite. It had a 12dB MDX boost and the TBX boost circuit along with prototype rectangular pickups allegedly made by EMG and individual on/off switches for each pickup. It also came with their horrible FreeFlyte tremolo system. I found one locally and sold it after a few years for 2 1/2 times what I paid for it. Other notable users include Tommy Shaw and of course Ty Tabor, who set out to buy as many OEM parts as he could get ahold of for his Elites and subsequent guitars made for him by Hamer and Yamaha. He eventually mounted the controls in a box and used them thusly for years. These Elites are completely different from the more recent Elite line.

I had the EMG DG20s active pickups which had the same features (bass/treble booster and a mids boost) but I wasn't keen on it. I went from having Gilmour's Black Strat setup and there was something about the active I wasn't keen on. I realised it was because I didn't like the sound of the neck pickup. Once I changed it back it was clear. Clapton's are Vintage Noiseless, however, or, at least, the ones in his guitar now are vintage noiseless and I'd really like to give them a go. Having the boosters as the tone knobs is a great thing and the battery lasts forever. I think I had the EMGs in for 6 months and didn't change the battery once, despite playing daily. As long as you don't leave the cable in the guitar jack, the battery will last.

Love that strat. Subscribed

The master of the caster 😊

Just crank up all the knobs and play the Sob!! Hehehe. Good video buddy. It's in your playing take care 😎👍👌👏👏🎸🎸

Great video! I hope you can make more Clapton videos.

If you like that you should check out Blade guitars, their Strat & Tele models have their VSC system with adjustable bass,mid, treble pots.

Second he played a strat to me all down hill. Loved his sound for cream.

very good video.Some clapton deep dive.Stufff alot dont know.pure genuis.Thanks for your video and what you put into music.And i am gonna start with this video, suscribed now, be safe, stay blessed :)

I want that guitar! This guy sounds just like Clapton!