Pickup advice

[nevpugh308]

So tone wise I've moved away from the Les Paul and towards my american Strat ... a lot of the stuff I'm playing in the band at the moment suits the strat's lighter (neck pickup) tones better (jingly rhythm, acoustic similator, punky overdrive etc).

But I still miss the low down grunt of the LP's pickups on the rockier stuff (about 1/3 of our set, thin lizzy, gary moore etc) and I cannot be ar$ed to start swapping guitars round every other song !

So, was contemplating two things ...

1) swap the single coil bridge pickup out on the strat for something chunkier (what ?!?). Want it to be a straight swap, i.e. easily reversable, or

2) get yet another guitar (dont tell my wife, lol !) something with the lighter blues tones of the strat, but also more kick lower down

Thoughts on either (esp the cheaper option 1) ?

Cheers
Nev

[Rob-C]

Seymour Duncan cool rails? It'd be a drop-in replacement for the bridge pickup.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/stratsdescr....

[joesnow]

I swapped the pickups in my Mex strat for Fender Customshop Fat 50's which beefed up the sound. They are basically an overwound 1950's spec pup. I then changed all the hardware for callaham stuff - cryo pots, switches, new wiring and hardened stainless steel components. The Tremolo block is made of rolled steel and made a huge difference to the gutsyness, sustain and sound quality of my strat. It sounds very tweedy, but the hotness of the pickups through a tube amp are P90esque when it is cranked up a bit.

http://www.callahamguitars.com/
http://www.fender.com/products//search.php?section...

Other than my experiance, fralins and bareknuckles always are well written up.

Have a look here for reviews: http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Electri...

ETA: have you looked at a PRS SE Soapbar? I played one recently and was impressed with what it is for the cash.

Edited by joesnow on Wednesday 29th August 11:04

[nevpugh308]

Thanks for the the advice so far ... question, if I replace a pickup, can I just do one ? i.e. do I have to have a matching set, would I get into problems with levels or one pickup being way more powerful than the rest, or something ?

[ih8thisname]

I may be pushing the boundries a bit here.. But if its really the pickup you want to change the range of overdriven tone with a single coil EMG is IMO incredible, Or as someone above said a Seymore Duncon will also open many new tonal doors.

What kind of amp do you play through?? I would certainly recommend checking some valve amps out or (a few) pedals...

After all, was it not Mr. Jimmy himself who said:
"A good amp will make even the worst of guitars sound reasonable"

nevpugh308 said:

question, if I replace a pickup, can I just do one ? i.e. do I have to have a matching set, would I get into problems with levels or one pickup being way more powerful than the rest, or something ?

tbh i'm not completly sure. The added power of a hotter pickup would certainly make it louder than the rest...





Keep us posted eh?

[Rob-C]

nevpugh308 said:

Thanks for the the advice so far ... question, if I replace a pickup, can I just do one ? i.e. do I have to have a matching set, would I get into problems with levels or one pickup being way more powerful than the rest, or something ?

A bridge humbucker plus two standard single coils is a very common combination. So long as you don't replace the bridge single coil with some very high-output pickup designed for mega distortion, I think you'll be OK.

[ih8thisname]

Or have you considered a telecaster?


In fact no... You would make me too envious .

[bga]

joesnow said:

Other than my experiance, fralins and bareknuckles always are well written up.

Bareknuckles are great. Tim @ BKP has worked really hard to make a great product & I've got BKP's in all my guitars now. Maybe a Trilogy single coil in the bridge would give it a bit of kick without the extra level a Sinner would (though I had a Sinner in a previous Strat & it was great)