A variety of Strat questions

[Mnemoflame]

At some point in the next two years, I'm planning to build a Strat through Warmoth but I have a wealth of questions that research just isn't answering satisfactorily.  The plan is a chambered indian rosewood body with a walnut top configured for H-S-H (DiMarzio D-Activator bridge and neck plus a DiMarzio Chopper in the center position) and a Schaller 475 flat bridge; I'm aiming at wood mounting the pickups a rear rout and for standard Strat controls (I want to avoid the pickguard to emphasize the beauty of the wood), though I mean to use 500k concentric pots for more independent pickup control, and three 3-way switches for coil tapping (series in phase, some kind of single coil arrangement, and series out of phase).  I was thinking of an indian rosewood or walnut Strat neck and an ebony fingerboard with stainless 6100 frets; I'm looking at the Planet Waves self-trimming tuners and the LSR roller nut to support my nasty alternate tunings habit.

My questions are as follows:

-How is indian rosewood for a body?  What difference does it make going with a two piece body vs. a three piece?  Chambered vs. solid?

-Indian rosewood or walnut for the neck?  I was thinking rosewood for consistency but walnut seems like it might be a better choice tonally to counter to the warm tones of the body.

-Is an array of three way switches the best choice for the sort of coil tapping I want to do or would it better to use two sets of switches or buttons so that out-of-phase and single coil settings could be used together?  Is either idea even possible with the pickups I chose?

-What other parts will I need besides what is already listed here?  Are there mounting rings for Strat-style pickups like there are for humbuckers?

-What's the best setup for the five-way switch?  I was thinking neck - neck+center - all three - center+bridge - bridge, figuring that I could turn the appopriate volumes down/off in the middle setting if I want a center-only sound.

-What else am I missing or not getting?

I'm a total noob to this so I would very much appreciate the advice of those more experienced.  My general goal is to have a versatile, well-rounded instrument with as much richness of tone color as can be managed with pickups suited to playing metal; I'm studying fingerstyle guitar and aiming at eventually playing general rock and metal kind of things.

 

[line6man]

For the most part, phase inversion is utterly useless except for odd sound effects. You don't need multiple phase switches. One switch is good enough.

It would probably be much more useful to do series/single coil/parallel switching, and that can be done with a standard DPDT On-On-On/SP3T switch.

The pickups you mentioned are not tapped, btw. The humbuckers can be split though.

Concerning the neck, I would avoid Walnut, Maple, Mahogany and any of the other neck woods that require a finish. Raw wood is much better.

 

[drewfx]

At some point in the next two years, I'm planning to build a Strat through Warmoth but I have a wealth of questions that research just isn't answering satisfactorily.  The plan is a chambered indian rosewood body with a walnut top configured for H-S-H (DiMarzio D-Activator bridge and neck plus a DiMarzio Chopper in the center position) and a Schaller 475 flat bridge; I'm aiming at wood mounting the pickups a rear rout and for standard Strat controls (I want to avoid the pickguard to emphasize the beauty of the wood), though I mean to use 500k concentric pots for more independent pickup control, and three 3-way switches for coil tapping (series in phase, some kind of single coil arrangement, and series out of phase).  I was thinking of an indian rosewood or walnut Strat neck and an ebony fingerboard with stainless 6100 frets; I'm looking at the Planet Waves self-trimming tuners and the LSR roller nut to support my nasty alternate tunings habit.

My questions are as follows:

-How is indian rosewood for a body?  What difference does it make going with a two piece body vs. a three piece?  Chambered vs. solid?

Heavy and expensive. And I personally think if I were choosing a beautiful wood like rosewood for a body, I wouldn't cap it with something else. I would pick either all walnut or all rosewood.

-Indian rosewood or walnut for the neck?  I was thinking rosewood for consistency but walnut seems like it might be a better choice tonally to counter to the warm tones of the body.

Rosewood doesn't need a finish, so I'd go rosewood (unless it's a walnut body you want to match). But the neck and pickups will have a much greater impact on the tone than the body, so keep that in mind. If you aren't exactly sure what you want, I'd say pick either well known classic combinations or stay away from the extremes of warmth or brightness.

-Is an array of three way switches the best choice for the sort of coil tapping I want to do or would it better to use two sets of switches or buttons so that out-of-phase and single coil settings could be used together?  Is either idea even possible with the pickups I chose?

First of all, though it's often misused and confused with "coil splitting" a humbucker (which is probably what you mean), the term "coil tapping" technically means "bypassing part of one coil of a pickup" and is uncommon. Splitting coils on a HB can be useful, particularly for the N+M and M+B strat combinations, but may or may not sound good on its own, depending on the PU and your tastes. So some people set things up to split the HB only in the N+M and M+B positions while others have separate dedicate switches.

"Out of phase" isn't very useful unless you specifically like really thin sounds with no low end. And putting 2 PU's in series is mainly useful on guitars that don't have humbuckers to begin with, so you might want to think it through before drilling holes in a beautiful body for switches that add options you end up not liking and never using. If it's a rear routed body, you can jumper things up and test it out before committing to it. And series could be tricky to implement if you're thinking of having dedicated concentric V/T controls for each PU.

-What other parts will I need besides what is already listed here?  Are there mounting rings for Strat-style pickups like there are for humbuckers?

There are mounting rings for strat PU's, but many consider them ugly.

-What's the best setup for the five-way switch?  I was thinking neck - neck+center - all three - center+bridge - bridge, figuring that I could turn the appopriate volumes down/off in the middle setting if I want a center-only sound.

"Center only" is probably much more useful than "all three". And why bother with a strat PU, if you're not going to use it? "Neck + Bridge" would be nice to have. Many people wire things up with the normal 5-way strat combinations and use a switch to add the bridge (or neck) to the other positions to easily get all the combinations.

 

[ezas]

For the most part, phase inversion is utterly useless except for odd sound effects. You don't need multiple phase switches. One switch is good enough.

It would probably be much more useful to do series/single coil/parallel switching, and that can be done with a standard DPDT On-On-On/SP3T switch.

The pickups you mentioned are not tapped, btw. The humbuckers can be split though.

Concerning the neck, I would avoid Walnut, Maple, Mahogany and any of the other neck woods that require a finish. Raw wood is much better.

" Raw wood is much better"??? No one wonder the internet/forums get such a bad rep.

I guess everyone with a mahogany or maple and/or a finished neck much be doing it wrong. You know like the majority of players.

Your list of items you 'want' covers what you need pretty well.

Two years out I think you are worrying about this way too much. In two years your opinion on what you are after will change. What you like playing will change, what you like listening to will change. You will have new/different guitar heroes, etc.

 

[line6man]

" Raw wood is much better"??? No one wonder the internet/forums get such a bad rep.

I guess everyone with a mahogany or maple and/or a finished neck much be doing it wrong. You know like the majority of players.

Who said Maple or Mahogany were "wrong?"

To many people, raw wood feels better than a finish. In fact, some companies offer oil finishes on their Maple to keep a raw feel, and some people even decide to leave their necks raw, despite it voiding their warranty.

There is a reason that woods like Maple and Mahogany are most commonly used for necks. They are inexpensive woods that are in good supply, which are stable when finished, have a good tone and have relatively consistent look from piece to piece. Many of the woods Warmoth sells, suitable to be played raw, are expensive, in limited supply or difficult to ensure consistency. These woods do not lend themselves well to mass production, or at least not at a decent budget.

 

[Mnemoflame]

It would probably be much more useful to do series/single coil/parallel switching, and that can be done with a standard DPDT On-On-On/SP3T switch.

If I understand correctly, that means the standard flavor, non-humbucking single-coil (possibly making it valuable to set up the other humbucker to use the opposite magnet to prevent hum while still being pure single coil?), and the humbucker setup that makes the halves of the PU act as independent single coils?  If so, that might truly be the best option as it increases the number of available tone colors.  I mistakenly believed that the out-of-phase option created a Phaser-type effect and the reality turns me off to the idea.

Rosewood doesn't need a finish, so I'd go rosewood (unless it's a walnut body you want to match). But the neck and pickups will have a much greater impact on the tone than the body, so keep that in mind. If you aren't exactly sure what you want, I'd say pick either well known classic combinations or stay away from the extremes of warmth or brightness.

Is there a list of classic combinations around?  Has anyone had personal experience with indian rosewood as a neck?  I'm feeling leery about it because every commentary I've found on it suggests leaves highs muted.  Walnut is just a favorite of mine and is apparently tonally moderate as a neck; I had assumed it was a brighter wood due to what I read in the body section on Warmoth, never bothering checking it on the neck builder.

As an aside, I'd been looking at a Les Paul Studio Faded and I liked how that felt with its satin finish.  My brother suggested sanding it lightly with superfine sandpaper so it would be more friendly to fast runs.  That was, of course, before I got caught and owned heartily by a custom acoustic...

"Center only" is probably much more useful than "all three". And why bother with a strat PU, if you're not going to use it? "Neck + Bridge" would be nice to have. Many people wire things up with the normal 5-way strat combinations and use a switch to add the bridge (or neck) to the other positions to easily get all the combinations.

This one nettles me.  I'd actually been considering dispensing with the five-way switch in favor of individual switches for each PU; it was the amount of drilling that would involve that prompted me to look for other options.  Looking at other parts of your post makes me think the five-way should be N - NM - NB - MB - B.  Switches to split the humbuckers (single-coil and parallel in addition to their normal arrangement) and to change the Chopper over to straight single-coil behavior still seem like a nice option to me.  This does leave out the option for the old school Strat setup with the three single coils (via splitting) but neck or bridge plus middle should get close enough to that to make no real difference.

 

[line6man]

I mistakenly believed that the out-of-phase option created a Phaser-type effect and the reality turns me off to the idea.

A phaser is a time-based effect. A phase inversion switch simply swaps the leads of one pickup, such to create a 180 degree phase shift. This degree of phase shift is constant, and will not change with time.

You might want to look into phase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_%28waves%29, and destructive interference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_interference

 

[Mnemoflame]

I mistakenly believed that the out-of-phase option created a Phaser-type effect and the reality turns me off to the idea.

A phaser is a time-based effect. A phase inversion switch simply swaps the leads of one pickup, such to create a 180 degree phase shift. This degree of phase shift is constant, and will not change with time.

You might want to look into phase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_%28waves%29, and destructive interference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_interference

I appreciate those links more than I can say.  I was extremely frustrated trying to find information on the function of pickups.

 

[drewfx]

If I understand correctly, that means the standard flavor, non-humbucking single-coil (possibly making it valuable to set up the other humbucker to use the opposite magnet to prevent hum while still being pure single coil?), and the humbucker setup that makes the halves of the PU act as independent single coils?  If so, that might truly be the best option as it increases the number of available tone colors.  I mistakenly believed that the out-of-phase option created a Phaser-type effect and the reality turns me off to the idea.

Rosewood doesn't need a finish, so I'd go rosewood (unless it's a walnut body you want to match). But the neck and pickups will have a much greater impact on the tone than the body, so keep that in mind. If you aren't exactly sure what you want, I'd say pick either well known classic combinations or stay away from the extremes of warmth or brightness.

Is there a list of classic combinations around?  Has anyone had personal experience with indian rosewood as a neck?  I'm feeling leery about it because every commentary I've found on it suggests leaves highs muted.  Walnut is just a favorite of mine and is apparently tonally moderate as a neck; I had assumed it was a brighter wood due to what I read in the body section on Warmoth, never bothering checking it on the neck builder.

By classic combination I meant your standard mahogany and maple necks with rosewood, maple or maybe ebony fingerboards. Because you probably already know more or less what they sound like. When you're building one of these things, it's hard to know exactly what you're going to end up with sound-wise until you're finished. Some people end up having to switch PU's, or even necks. So the more unfamiliar you are with various components, or the more picky you are about exactly what you want it to sound like, the harder it is.

And it's hard for us to know exactly what you're going for unless you reference it to something known. If you want a tighter, brighter maple sound, but think mahogany might sound "too dark and fat", I wouldn't choose a rosewood neck.

"Center only" is probably much more useful than "all three". And why bother with a strat PU, if you're not going to use it? "Neck + Bridge" would be nice to have. Many people wire things up with the normal 5-way strat combinations and use a switch to add the bridge (or neck) to the other positions to easily get all the combinations.

This one nettles me.  I'd actually been considering dispensing with the five-way switch in favor of individual switches for each PU; it was the amount of drilling that would involve that prompted me to look for other options.  Looking at other parts of your post makes me think the five-way should be N - NM - NB - MB - B.  Switches to split the humbuckers (single-coil and parallel in addition to their normal arrangement) and to change the Chopper over to straight single-coil behavior still seem like a nice option to me.  This does leave out the option for the old school Strat setup with the three single coils (via splitting) but neck or bridge plus middle should get close enough to that to make no real difference.

Personally, I often either jumper things up or do a simplified hookup to hear how things actually sound before finalizing my wiring. And then sometimes I'll end up either changing things around or simplifying what I'd originally planned. If you're going to limit the combinations available, you might just hook things up and see how the various combinations sound first. There's usually some positions that are much more appealing than others, but it can be hard to know which ones in advance.

And note that split (or even partially split) HB's won't really sound like single coil strat PU's, and may or may not sound appealing to you on their own. You can only do so much with one guitar and one set of PU's, and if you try to do too much you'll either drive yourself crazy trying to do the impossible or end up making too many compromises. So if you really want particular HB sounds, focus on getting that right and just think of the split sounds as potentially useful additions.

 

[Mnemoflame]

By classic combination I meant your standard mahogany and maple necks with rosewood, maple or maybe ebony fingerboards. Because you probably already know more or less what they sound like. When you're building one of these things, it's hard to know exactly what you're going to end up with sound-wise until you're finished. Some people end up having to switch PU's, or even necks. So the more unfamiliar you are with various components, or the more picky you are about exactly what you want it to sound like, the harder it is.

And it's hard for us to know exactly what you're going for unless you reference it to something known. If you want a tighter, brighter maple sound, but think mahogany might sound "too dark and fat", I wouldn't choose a rosewood neck.

Given the context of my posts, it seems stupid to be saying at this point that I should have been listening more and reading less.  I saw the D Activators demo'd in a Les Paul, which is likely to be the usual mahogany body and they sounded excellent in that setup.  Similarly, I compared a Les Paul Studio Faded (chambered mahogany body, maple laminate top, mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard) to an SG (mahogany body and neck, rosewood fingerboard) and it was the Les Paul that really sounded best to me.  I'll make it a point to listen to other configurations of guitar and pickup instead of reading reviews in the future.

Personally, I often either jumper things up or do a simplified hookup to hear how things actually sound before finalizing my wiring. And then sometimes I'll end up either changing things around or simplifying what I'd originally planned. If you're going to limit the combinations available, you might just hook things up and see how the various combinations sound first. There's usually some positions that are much more appealing than others, but it can be hard to know which ones in advance.

And note that split (or even partially split) HB's won't really sound like single coil strat PU's, and may or may not sound appealing to you on their own. You can only do so much with one guitar and one set of PU's, and if you try to do too much you'll either drive yourself crazy trying to do the impossible or end up making too many compromises. So if you really want particular HB sounds, focus on getting that right and just think of the split sounds as potentially useful additions.

That last part about useful additions is exactly what I'm thinking.

 

[Mnemoflame]

So, there are a few things I'm still a bit in the dark about:

-Three-piece rosewood body vs. two-piece?  What difference does it make?

-Solid body vs. chambered?  I'm not at all familiar with the arguments either way.

-Is there a parts list somewhere for building a guitar?  I mean on the level of capacitors and other suck details.

-Barring the use of mounting rings, is there a good/commonly used height adjustment method for PUs mounted directly to wood?  Is there any disadvantage to this style of mounting that I need to be aware of?

 

[Cagey]

So, there are a few things I'm still a bit in the dark about:

-Three-piece rosewood body vs. two-piece?  What difference does it make?

-Solid body vs. chambered?  I'm not at all familiar with the arguments either way.

-Is there a parts list somewhere for building a guitar?  I mean on the level of capacitors and other suck details.

-Barring the use of mounting rings, is there a good/commonly used height adjustment method for PUs mounted directly to wood?  Is there any disadvantage to this style of mounting that I need to be aware of?

Don't worry about three- vs. two-piece rosewood. The body doesn't have that much effect on the tone. It's not non-existent, but it's also not significant.

A chambered body will be lighter. That's a Good Thing, especially if you want to use a heavy wood for appearance's sake. Tone-wise, there's little or no effect.

There's no parts list I've seen for a guitar, but that's probably because you don't really need one. There's not much to them. You need a neck, body, tuners, a bridge, pickups, perhaps a pickguard, strap hangers, and a variety of screws. Some wire to hook things up would be good, perhaps some switches and pots, depending on your design. If you want a list, I'd be happy to make one for you if you tell me what you're trying to build.

I have varying experience with direct vs. trapeze mounted pickups. What I've found is there's very little reason to direct-mount. It's more of a problem-solving move than anything else, and most pickups don't have the kinds of problems that need that solution. Where I've seen it do some good is with old OEM pickups that have metal covers on them. They have a tendency to feed back in a bad, non-musical, uncontrollable way. But, there aren't many pickups like that around any more. Most modern pickups that use that design now are potted with some kind of deadening material like wax, tar, epoxy, etc., so wild squealing, screeching feedback isn't as common as it used to be.

If it was me, I'd trapeze-mount the things (use the rings), so you can adjust them to suit your style and desires.

 

[Tweed]

It would probably be much more useful to do series/single coil/parallel switching, and that can be done with a standard DPDT On-On-On/SP3T switch.

That sounds like the most useful idea since the 5-way switch!

Also, I am far from being an expert, but it's my opinion that a guitar should have a mixture of bright and dark sounding woods. I'd use an ebony board with a rosewood neck or a wenge board on a walnut neck.

It's true that glue doesn't vibrate, but the different amounts of glue holding a 2 or 3-piece body together shouldn't concern you. No one would be able to distinguish the two in blind test.

You could probably use a calendar to measure the sustain rate from a solid rosewood body. But a chambered one would lessen the load and enrich the tone a little. I'm sure Warmoth doesn't build any bad rosewood bodies.

 

[Mnemoflame]

So, it seems like it'll be a chambered rosewood body and top (two-piece if I can afford it, just because it'll only have one visible seam instead of two) in clear satin finish; the neck will be rosewood with an jet black ebony fingerboard and stainless steel 6100 frets (pearloid Celtic cross fret markers).  The hardware will be a Schaller 475 flat bridge, DiMarzio D Activator Bride and Neck, DiMarzio Chopper in the middle, an LSR roller nut, and Planet Waves tuners; I'm thinking D'Addario XL .12-.52 strings as they're closest to the acoustic set I use (.12-.53 D'Addario phosphor bronze).  The electronics setup will be three 500k concentric pots for tone and volume on each PU, three 2-way switches for selecting PUs (preferably some kind button switch if I can them small enough and nice-looking enough), and three 3-way switches for coil-splitting (series in-phase, single-coil, and parallel in-phase); wiring is plenty complicated as is but I'd like to see if there's any way to setup flexible polarity so I can be certain I won't get hum unless I'm using just one PU on single-coil (probably simplest to set up the bridge and neck to use the north coil and the middle to use the south).  I'm thinking a deep panel stereo jack unless there's a good reason to go mono.

So, aside from knobs or string trees, what's missing?

 

[Cagey]

Sounds like you've got it covered, other than the nickel-dime stuff like fasteners, straploks, capacitors, wire, etc. But, I do have some observations.

While that control setup might sound like fun on paper, the reality of it isn't likely to be. I'm thinking this must be one of your first electrics, or at least your first build? Often in those cases, the builder has a tendency to go overboard trying to make every possible option available so nothing is left unexplored.

In real life, nobody plays guitars like that. It's too difficult in real time (on stage or in the studio) because of the time needed to diddle a dozen adjustments in a matter of milliseconds between notes/chords. Thats assuming, of course, that you can even remember what all those settings do.

Another problem is any time you have a passively-wired electronics setup that includes multiple volume/tone controls and you switch to a setting that includes more than one pickup, the controls for the selected pickups get put in parallel. This has the effect of potentially adding capacity and/or reducing resistance by some variable amount, which is often unpredictable. So, your tone and volume are set wrong, and it's tough to tell by looking why that is. You quickly adjust the volume or tone of one of the pickups involved, and hope that does the trick since they interact. Then, you switch back to a single pickup scheme and it happens to be the one you diddled to fix your last choice, and it's now way off so you have to diddle it again. It gets old in a hurry.

Finally, you're likely to find that most of those esoteric combinations of in-phase, out-of-phase, serial, parallel, inside-out, upside-down, on fire, etc. aren't useful to you. So, now you've got controls in your way that never needed to be there. Hate to have drilled all kinds of holes in a rosewood body only to find I didn't need half of them. At least with a pickguard, it's only a $25 fix.

And 12s on a Strat? Really? It's gonna be like playing rebar or rod stock instead of strings. 11s is pushing it, 10s are probably the most common, and 9s are right on the heels of those, although those last two could be reversed.

 

[line6man]

Sounds like you've got it covered, other than the nickel-dime stuff like fasteners, straploks, capacitors, wire, etc. But, I do have some observations.

While that control setup might sound like fun on paper, the reality of it isn't likely to be. I'm thinking this must be one of your first electrics, or at least your first build? Often in those cases, the builder has a tendency to go overboard trying to make every possible option available so nothing is left unexplored.

In real life, nobody plays guitars like that. It's too difficult in real time (on stage or in the studio) because of the time needed to diddle a dozen adjustments in a matter of milliseconds between notes/chords. Thats assuming, of course, that you can even remember what all those settings do.

Another problem is any time you have a passively-wired electronics setup that includes multiple volume/tone controls and you switch to a setting that includes more than one pickup, the controls for the selected pickups get put in parallel. This has the effect of potentially adding capacity and/or reducing resistance by some variable amount, which is often unpredictable. So, your tone and volume are set wrong, and it's tough to tell by looking why that is. You quickly adjust the volume or tone of one of the pickups involved, and hope that does the trick since they interact. Then, you switch back to a single pickup scheme and it happens to be the one you diddled to fix your last choice, and it's now way off so you have to diddle it again. It gets old in a hurry.

Finally, you're likely to find that most of those esoteric combinations of in-phase, out-of-phase, serial, parallel, inside-out, upside-down, on fire, etc. aren't useful to you. So, now you've got controls in your way that never needed to be there. Hate to have drilled all kinds of holes in a rosewood body only to find I didn't need half of them. At least with a pickguard, it's only a $25 fix.

And 12s on a Strat? Really? It's gonna be like playing rebar or rod stock instead of strings. 11s is pushing it, 10s are probably the most common, and 9s are right on the heels of those, although those last two could be reversed.

+1 to all of this.

Having three volumes and tones is utterly useless. When two pickups are combined, just like with a Les Paul, the tone controls will interact, and if the wiper terminals of the volume pots are used as an output to keep a constant resistive load against each pickup, rolling one volume down will decrease the resistance against the other pickup.

Trying to fiddle with two sets of controls is ok for some people, but then you're adding a third set of controls, and that makes it ridiculous. It is no more useful to have three sets of volumes and tones than it is to have one set. In fact, it's a LOT more useful to have just one set.

And Cagey, it's not so much that there are many options you don't need/don't use, it's more that half the options sound like crap, and the other half all sound the same.

 

[Cagey]

And Cagey, it's not so much that there are many options you don't need/don't use, it's more that half the options sound like crap, and the other half all sound the same.

I agree, but the reason hardly matters. You're still left with a pile of controls you don't need/use that are defacing your guitar and getting in your way. It's tough to tell someone that something sounds like crap, since there's no accounting for taste. There are a lot of people who won't listen to Hendrix or Trower, and another group that would rather take a beating than listen to Buck Owens or Steve Vai, for instance.

 

[Mnemoflame]

Can you elaborate on the issues presented by multiple tone controls?  I do notice that guitars like the Ibanez Jem have just one volume and one tone control; I've seen Strats with one volume and two tones.  What's the functionality of the two tone controls in a Strat?

 

[line6man]

Can you elaborate on the issues presented by multiple tone controls?  I do notice that guitars like the Ibanez Jem have just one volume and one tone control; I've seen Strats with one volume and two tones.  What's the functionality of the two tone controls in a Strat?

Tone controls are low pass filters which operate parallel to the signal path. This means that if you apply one to one pickup when two or more pickups are in parallel, it is parallel to both pickups, and therefore effects both pickups.

If you play a Strat on the neck+middle setting, both tones act as masters.

 

[Mnemoflame]

Can you elaborate on the issues presented by multiple tone controls?  I do notice that guitars like the Ibanez Jem have just one volume and one tone control; I've seen Strats with one volume and two tones.  What's the functionality of the two tone controls in a Strat?

Tone controls are low pass filters which operate parallel to the signal path. This means that if you apply one to one pickup when two or more pickups are in parallel, it is parallel to both pickups, and therefore effects both pickups.

If you play a Strat on the neck+middle setting, both tones act as masters.

This might sound like a stupid question but how does this present a problem if a pickup is only wired in parallel with itself?  It's likely I'm not understanding something about how this works; what I know only extends to the fact that the pickups I have in mind are all humbuckers and those can be arranged, all on their own, to run in series/single-coil/parallel.  It seems like there's a big chunk of data I'm missing here and I'm definitely interested in filling that gap.