This Pickguard Promises 68 Strat Pickup Combinations, But Does It Live Up To The “Awesome” Name?

I installed a HSS wiring harness that combines phase and series/parallel switching to provide a ton of tonal options.

When it comes to modifying or upgrading cheaper guitars, there are few people willing to cut more corners than me. So naturally a product that promises to bring 68 pickup combinations to my humble Squier Affinity Stratocaster got my attention.

Enter the Awesome Musical Instruments (yes that’s their brand name) T4 Stratocaster Upgrade Kit. This specific kit I received is an HSS pre-wired pickguard, all it required from my end was connecting the the output wires to the guitar’s output jack. Plus, I grounded a wire from the bridge to the tone pot even though I didn’t see them recommend that specific step? It’s unclear if there’s grounding built-in to their system, but it sounded much better when I added this wire versus without it.

I slapped this complex system into my trust Affinity Strat that you may have seen floating around in other articles by now. Unfortunately, the install and review process hasn’t been overly smooth.

While there is quite a bit of utility and fun to be had with this system, the biggest issues for me were that A) the documentation online was not easy to find or interpret back when I first got this in early 2023, and B) because of that, it took me a long time to identify that I had been sent a flawed loaded pickguard.

Once I had finally got the many switches under my belt (and trust me they’re not too complicated as long as you have good documentation), it was revealed that one of the coils of the humbucker was completely dead and non-functioning. No problem, they had great customer service who quickly got me a new one!

After the madness of summer reviews and grad school settled down, I finally sat back down and installed the new pickguard. The good news? It sounds pretty good throughout most of the 68 settings, and no, I only made it through like 40 something of the combinations before I lost track of the notes I was taking. There’s truly a lot of tonal options here if you’re looking to add studio grade versatility to any Stratocaster.

Sound Check

As for the pickup sounds and quality they were also pretty good. There’s definitely some noise, even on the humbucker setting, and the humbucker doesn’t really sound like a true humbucker. It sounds really good, but it seems like they just took two single coils and run them in parallel, if that makes sense? It’s more like an in-between sound on a Strat than a true HSS, big loud tone. The quality of the pickups is fairly evident though, and for most cheaper Strats they are definitely a clear upgrade.

Some of the reverse phase sounds, especially when they are running in parallel, sound incredibly thin and weak. Now, they do have this cool lo-fi sound that’s very Grateful Dead-adjacent, so I don’t think see this is a flaw. But unlike some other harnesses that I’ve tried like this, they’re noticeably quieter. I’ll leave that up to many of you to decide on, because I likely won’t ever use those settings anyway for my own music, and if I did I’d probably be looking for that quacky, thin Garcia tone anyways?

The true single coil tones are the real highlights here, as you get a lot of the traditional SSS Strat sounds, with a lot of alternatives that you can easily mix and match via the switching system. Which again, isn’t as complex as it appears, but will take you a few minutes to really learn and sit down with. Having a better explanation from the company greatly helped me, but it appears they still don’t have clear explanation for the HSS Strat setup, only the SSS Strat setup online.

Is It Worth Diving In?

Ultimately for me, I don’t think I’d necessarily have purchased one of these. It’s very useful, but as punk rock player it’s a lot of overkill for me specifically. However, for many of you it may be a very valuable and inspiring modification to your guitar. I have some small issues with the humbucker sounds, and am not quite sure how I confident about the build quality, though none of these were so problematic as to prevent me from having fun playing my Strat.

It’s a hefty price for most of the options on their site, as even just the wiring system without pickups is more than $150 USD for most Strat, Tele, or other styles of pickguard. Add in pickups, and it gets above $200. It’s not an exorbitant or unfair price, but it is one that would probably prevent you from buying one just to experiment with. If this much tonal versatility, specifically reverse phase and parallel switching are your thing, this Awesome Musical Instruments system is great for you and a great investment.