HAS Sound Midrange Plus Control/Tone Control

A push/pull tone pot replacement which passively cuts or boosts mids in one position and acts as a conventional tone pot in the other position - There are a number of different tone options available to chose from depending on your taste ranging from slight cut to alot of cut, I chose Woman Tone. The score reflects my amazement of features for a passive component

The pot replaced a stock one in my vintage re-issue US strat built mid 80's. I've been playing this guitar on and off for 17 years and is my pride and joy . Some people might think it strange but I installed this tone/midrange pot in the bridge position (the other remaining stock tone pot hooked up to the neck pickup)

To give the sound some context I play through an H&K Tube Factor, Boss DD5 delay into a Marshall DSL-401 tube amp - nice and simple these days for my jazz and blues sounds.
The sound is just staggering on the Woman tone side alone (which was an unexpected bonus for me as I was concentrating on the midrange aspect of the unit) ??? it???s as if the tonal range of the bridge pickup has been doubled or should I say quadrupled? And they???re all usable tones. The Woman Tone doesn???t loose clarity or get muddy or distant when rolled off, it still has an edge and conversely doesn???t get too shrill when opened up. It almost sounds like an ???in-between??? pickup position, and how dowsn't love that strat sound? The Midrange Plus side of the control can be subtle on a clean setting - the original sound is retained but now the option to fatten the tone comes into play adding warmth without flattening the over all sound. When opened up on a clean channel there is a barely audible difference between the original sound and the scooped sound ??? but then again this is the bridge pickup of a Strat! On a high gain channel the difference is much more noticeable - The single coil producing a classic 80???s type V-scoop sound when opened up whilst emphasising the ???hollow??? sound of the Strat???s single coils.
To summarise, this midrange plus/tone control gives me direct access to a massive tonal range without loosing the inherent qualities of the original pickup and resonance of the guitar???s wood, what???s more, I can dial in these sounds quickly at source. I sincerely believe that if you???re looking to retain the visual character of your guitar and want to explore/expand more of your instrument???s primary tone then these modifications are the most unobtrusive available and yield fantastic results without loosing the sounds that you???re already comfortable with.
I would say that I agree with Stan Hinesley @ HAS Sound that the Midrange Plus conponents work better with single coil pickups - after installing a bespoke unit that he built for me into my 7-string the difference in mid boost/scoop is hardly noticable at all though I highly recommend the womantone controls with humbuckers.

I've been playing for around 24 years playing country, 60-70's pop & rock, blues, jazz, acoustic solo work and some session work as well as being a bedroom guitarist of course but now I don't really consider myself a guitarist at all which is quite liberating. My other electrics include a '92 Les Paul Standard, a 7 string Dearmond for slide playing and a PRS SE Soapbar also set up for slide. I don't really use fx these days and prefer instead to keep it simple - as Stan says; "It's all about the tone" and he understands tone as well, if not better, than most others out there - the other people that I spoke to about the sound that I was after directed me towards active circuitry which is great for some people just not me.
One thing that I would say about HAS Sound is that Stan will respond to an email quicker than anyone I've encountered on the net. Not only that but he's very personable, helpful and reasonably priced (especially compared the the UK) but things turn up quickly when ordered. I just can't fault his service.