How to Install the Kingtone Switch - The Best Guitar Mod You Can Make to your Strat!
So you want to know how to install the Kingtone Switch? I've made a brief video detailing the process with my Stratocaster. Full walk-through of the guitar tones is now live here: https://youtu.be/uNhDonLO5Mo
Phenomenal tones across all pickups, and a granular ability to customize the amount/character of the treble bleed when you turn your guitar volume down via the 4 dipswitches on the Kingtone Switch.
Full Demo Coming Soon! Grab a Kingtone Switch here: https://www.kingtoneguitar.com/product/king-tone-switch-srv/
The Stratocaster bridge pickup has a reputation problem. Too bright, too thin, too harsh. The KingTone SRV Switch fixes it — and this is the video that proved it to me. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.
In this episode, I'm installing the KingTone Guitar SRV Switch into my Nash S63 in Sonic Blue, loaded with Lollar Vintage Blonde pickups on the neck and middle and a Lollar Special Strat Bridge, to show you exactly what this thing does to a single-coil Strat in the real world.
The KingTone SRV Switch is a passive replacement for the lower tone control on a Stratocaster — the one most players never touch. Designer Jesse Davey built it around a core insight: the standard Strat tone circuit is a blunt instrument. The KingTone replaces it with a six-position switch offering tonal settings focused specifically around SRV, Albert King, and BB King-style voicings, paired with 16 treble bleed configurations built in — all passive, no battery required, no PCB, just two wires and a world of new tone. The treble bleed circuit is always active in the SRV version, meaning your top end stays present and clear through the full sweep of the volume knob. Every position adds a tubey, hollow, fundamentally richer quality to the signal — fatness, warmth, and edge in exactly the right proportions. String bending becomes more articulate. Vibrato tracking improves. And the bridge pickup — the one you've probably been avoiding — suddenly sounds like the best pickup in the guitar.
That last part is what this video is really about. The bridge pickup on a single-coil Strat is often underused because it can be unforgivingly bright and thin. The KingTone SRV Switch changes that equation completely. In position 2, you get authentic SRV-voiced warmth and bite — the same round, thick, biting character that Stevie got by running heavy strings, low action, and cranked blackface Fenders. Passive. Instant. Reversible if you hate it, though you won't.
The Nash S63 in Sonic Blue is one of the great modern Strat platforms — aged alder body, medium C neck, and Nash's commitment to getting the vintage vibe right without overcooking the relic work. The Lollar Vintage Blonde and Special Strat pickups are perfectly matched for this application — pre-CBS voiced, scatter-wound, dynamically expressive. Together with the KingTone SRV Switch they form a genuinely complete single-coil tone package.