Ant. Texas Hot is not so Hot.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Ant. Texas Hot is not so Hot.

Uopt, you are so correct about them having a little more focus in the mid range department. I would like to get my hand on a single coil bridge with the crisp cruntch but just a little bit more mids and bottom end. I'm not having much luck. I'm thinking I'll have to go to a humbucker in the bridge. I'd like to stick with the Seymour Duncan family of PU.

Hums and singles dont get along well in my experience. Firstly, when you dial in your amp so the bridge hb sounds good, the neck pickups sound thin. When you dial in the amp for the ss pickups, the humbucker sounds muddy.
That, and the fact that humbuckers and single coil pickups sound better with different value volume pots, mean that you end up with a guitar that does nothing well - just mediocre sounds.
I find its far better to go all singles or all humbuckers. Still i'd persevere with the sss setup you currently have.

Have you tried dropping the neck pups lower and adding the jumper wire so you get a tone control for both bridge and middle? This will reduce output a little, but you will gain a little sustain and sweetness. The tone will smooth off the tops on the bridge, and you can make up for any volume drop at the gain section of your amp.

Failing that, im with Lew - you might need the custom wound version for your bridge. There is a reason lots of people use them.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Ant. Texas Hot is not so Hot.

I have the Texas Hot for the bridge position, it kicks ass, but my ears want to hear that 59' tone coming out of there. Have either of you guys have any experience with the PAF 59' vs Ant 59'?

if you really want a bridge humbucker, then get a humbucker for the neck too.
59's are nice in strats - they have a kind of hollow, clear tone that retains some of the acoustic qualities of strats.
Ants are a different pup altogether - a2 magnets and no wax potting make for a pup with less bass and treb and more midrange "honk" - a much more 50's vintage tone. If the ant is a tweed deluxe, then a 59 is a blackface deluxe.

If you are not yet really au fait with how humbuckers sound in your strat (and not sure what kind of magnets you prefer etc). Keep it simple - get a pair of 59's and install them with 500k pots. The great thing about 59's is that they sound great with pretty much any magnet type, so you can fine tune you sound later by experimenting with magnets.

They sounded great in this (but now it has reverted to a set of ssl-1's)

[house]

Re: Ant. Texas Hot is not so Hot.

If I can't get the SC to sway tone wise to whats in my head, than I'm willing to try that PAF in the bridge.

[house]

Re: Ant. Texas Hot is not so Hot.

I have a SSH set up in one of my Strats. I have APS-1's in the N/M and a Jazz neck in the bridge. I like that hummer because of how articulate it sounds even when driven hard. I have always liked the tone of the neck 59, and was wanting to put one in the bridge to see if I could get some positive results. Gibson175, thanks for the run down on the difference between the Ant 59 and the regular 59. Decisions, decisions...