Ideally you should create a new config variable in the configuration table to store the membershipid you would like to make default. But htis example will allow you to set a customer as member rather than just an account holder with no membership.

In the file include/register.php you need to look for the lines.

foreach ($common_profile_fields as $field) {

  if (isset(${$field}))
    $profile_values[$field] = ${$field};

}

After this add

if (!$is_anonymous && empty($old_userinfo)) {
	$profile_values['membershipid'] = 1;
}

This set the membership to 1.

If you set a value in a module you can use the following logic

if (!empty($config['my_module']['def_membershipid']) && !$is_anonymous && empty($old_userinfo)) {

    //set the plan
    if ($config['my_module']['def_membershipid'] > 0) {
      $profile_values['membershipid'] = $config['my_module']['def_membershipid'];
    }

}