two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

[appar111]

Going to put a new guard together for my strat and I want to go with a two pickup setup (single in the neck, single in the bridge). I want a good strat bridge pickup sound-- nothing too compressed or approaching humbucker territory. Just a strat bridge sound that doesn't sound weak. I'd definitely have a tone knob hooked up to tame that strat bridge shrillness. Hum-cancelling would be nice, but not a necessity.

Thinking of the following candidates for the bridge position:

1. Duncan Twangbanger
2. Dimarzio Area 67: nice and bright, but I've read this has a good solid bass behind it.. figured I could work the tone knob to get a variety of tones out of this one
3. Dimarzio FS-1: I've had one of these before and I think I had it too close to the strings as it just didn't have the liveliness I thought it would... maybe it was the 250K volume pot that did it?)
4. Duncan SSL-1: always a good standby

I've tried the Injector (bridge and neck) in the bridge position, and the VVHB2, and while nice, just didn't feel quite right to me, even w/ 500K pots to get some highs back. For the neck position, I'm going for one of two things: 1) a nice full, fat, yet controlled humbucker sound, or 2) a fluid single coil sound that sounds good with high gain. Leaning towards the former. I also want something that when combined with a strat bridge sound gets me a cool useable sound for either high gain or clean sounds. I think a humbucker-sized single coil or an actual single coil would do that. It's gotta be single coil sized though, as I don't want to rout anything for a full size HB.

My neck candidates are:

humbuckery:
Dimarzio Pro Track (really dug this one-- very soulful in the neck position of one of my teles)

single-coily:

1. Dimarzio Chopper
2. Dimarzio Area 67
3. Dimarzio HS-3 (I remember really liking this for gained out neck position stuff in my old tele)
4. Duncan SSL-1

My general approach is the strat equivalent of those teles with a humbucker in the neck and a single coil in the bridge-- the middle position on those types of teles just KILLS, imho. Skronky/funky clean bridge position sounds (Chili Peppers "Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic"), beautiful middle position sounds for funk and chording (The Police), and a big fat warm humbucker sound in the neck for solos.

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

I would go with something more versatile than the DiMarzios or the SSL-1s. I don't know where you heard that Area '67s have good bass to them because that is completely false... they have almost NO bass.

Stacked humbuckers sound fantastic on the neck or bridge but when combined don't have the beauty of a RWRP single coil combination.

So, Duncan has the Hot Stack Plus pups... you can have them in full humbucker mode in the bridge and neck but split them when combining them in the middle (with a super switch) for TRUE single coil RWRP quack, chime, depth and sparkle.

Splitting any of the DiMarzios is a disappointment IMHO. They sound nice when combined in the middle but don't have the 3D sound that true singles have when combined in RWRP.

[jeremy]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

the ssl1/twangbanger setup is nice and if you use your tone control there is a lot you can get out of it

[appar111]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

I heard it from here (response #5):

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?256159-Dilemma-Area-58-or-Area-61&highlight=area+67

And oddly enough, you chimed in on that thread to say "I was totally expecting the '61 to have more juice but it's was the '67 that has all of that deceptive power under the hood." With Living Dead saying the comment about the bass, and then your commend about all the deceptive power under the hood, I got the impression that it was a very solid sounding pickup. Can you give more info on why you felt it was more powerful than the 61? The 67 might still be the right pickup for me, I'm just trying to interpret what others' opinions of it are.

I'm not necessarily looking for that RWRP magic of two single coils... more of the magic of a single coil at the bridge and a bucker at the neck sort of sound. The Keef or Andy Summers kinda tone. I don't want to split one of the noiseless single coil designs either, but if the Hot Stack Plus' sound that good, it might be worth looking into w/ a super switch. How do they sound together when not split?

I would go with something more versatile than the DiMarzios or the SSL-1s. I don't know where you heard that Area '67s have good bass to them because that is completely false... they have almost NO bass.

Stacked humbuckers sound fantastic on the neck or bridge but when combined don't have the beauty of a RWRP single coil combination.

So, Duncan has the Hot Stack Plus pups... you can have them in full humbucker mode in the bridge and neck but split them when combining them in the middle (with a super switch) for TRUE single coil RWRP quack, chime, depth and sparkle.

Splitting any of the DiMarzios is a disappointment IMHO. They sound nice when combined in the middle but don't have the 3D sound that true singles have when combined in RWRP.

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

I heard it from here (response #5):

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?256159-Dilemma-Area-58-or-Area-61&highlight=area+67

And oddly enough, you chimed in on that thread to say "I was totally expecting the '61 to have more juice but it's was the '67 that has all of that deceptive power under the hood." With Living Dead saying the comment about the bass, and then your commend about all the deceptive power under the hood, I got the impression that it was a very solid sounding pickup. Can you give more info on why you felt it was more powerful than the 61? The 67 might still be the right pickup for me, I'm just trying to interpret what others' opinions of it are.

I'm not necessarily looking for that RWRP magic of two single coils... more of the magic of a single coil at the bridge and a bucker at the neck sort of sound. The Keef or Andy Summers kinda tone. I don't want to split one of the noiseless single coil designs either, but if the Hot Stack Plus' sound that good, it might be worth looking into w/ a super switch. How do they sound together when not split?

Yeah, it seems like SD has the splittable noiseless thing down to a T. Sorry about the impression that the '67 had low end... it had a LOT of upper midrange power similar to how a JB has a lot of upper midrange energy. I found that it had this buttery sort of liquid upper mids that fueled legato playing and made fast and difficult passages easier to play. When I did a swap with a '61, I found that the '61 had a more balanced low end and low mids compared to the sort of upper mid tuned '67. More piano tone with the '61 but the '67 has that glassy and hyped upper midrange that gives it the deceptive power I was writing about.

I'll bet that with 500K pots, a Hot Stack Plus pair would be totally awesome sounding. The hotter wound (yet darker) Duncan stacks benefit from the 500K pot's wider frequency range, when split in the middle, they will probably chime like crazy with lots of depth.

[appar111]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

thanks for clarifying man-- that makes alot more sense now, especially when looking at the bass/mid/treble #'s for the 67. I still think that might be a really good choice. I listened to a couple demos today for the Twangbanger and it's REALLY tripping my trigger. I had one before in a tele (I know, how ironic-- a tele sounding strat pickup, in a tele!), but that was a hardtail guitar, but it was mounted on one of those plastic adaptor rings in a bridge humbucker rout. Talk about a guitar with an identity crisis!


So the Twangbanger for the bridge is probably 90% decided on.... just need to figure out what pot value works best for it.

Now for the neck pickup....

[jumble jumble]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

Take a look at the Cool Rails. Lovely neck pickup in a Strat, with a bit of PAF vibe to it - without not sounding like a Strat neck any more.

[appar111]

Re: two pickup strat setup-- suggestions for pickups?

Well, I may have to abandon my idea for a single coil in the bridge of this strat. Tried a Lace Sensor Silver that I had laying around from a previous build. I know, not the best single coil out there, but it had a really solid sound in the neck and bridge position of the last strat I put together before I parted things out.

Not sure if it's my ears that have changed or what, but I didn't like it this time around. A Twangbanger would have to be pretty danged impressive to get me over the dislike of a single coil in the bridge position. Weird since I remember liking an SSL-1 in this very guitar back in December. In the grand scheme of things, an SSL-1 isn't that different from a Lace Sensor Silver in the bridge, at least not when compared to the full size PAF that's in the guitar now. So if I don't like the Lace, chances are my ears won't dig the SSL-1 either.

So if I go with a new pickguard on this one, it'll most likely have a single coil sized humbucker in the bridge-- most likely a Pro Track since it's a medium output 'bucker. There's a good chance I'll just go w/ Pro Tracks in the neck and bridge.