Single coil for hss strat (near to Aldrich tone)

[dsguitar1]

Hi, I am mainly a Les Paul guy and so im use to humbuckers and know what I like and look for when after a new one but im pretty lost when it comes to single coils! so plz can someone help me.

I am soon to be getting a Fender Classic series 70's Strat (ash body, maple neck/fingerboard) I play hard rock/metal music most of the time (dio,sabbath,rainbow,whitesnake,blue murder,lizzy and a bit of trower/hendrix stuff etc). The tone I want to get near to neck pickup wise is the sound of Doug Aldrich's Fender 69 relic (so gunna rout for a bucker) I know he used the Duncan holdsworth in the bridge but I will use a JB sh-4 as I have 1 spare already (or will I need a trembucker?).

So from what I know he used fender noiseless pups in the neck and middle of his strat but I wanna stay all SD in the guitar, what do you think? I thought maybe SSl-6 in neck and middle? also what pot value should be used for hss?

I play With a little more gain Than doug uses in this video. I use a marshall jcm800 2203(6550 tubes) with a boss overdrive to boost the gain or a marshall jcm2000dsl 100w(use the ultragain for solos).

Neck pup at 2:40

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6TQriC3CFk

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Single coil for hss strat (near to Aldrich tone)

Single coils are fairly fool proof. The stock pickups are probably fine for what you want. You probably don't want a hot wound SC in the neck position for what you want anyway. You need to be careful of too hot of SC in the neck position if you use much gain at the amp. SC's are bright and clean through clean amps but with distortion they can be night and day darker. They respond very different to gain and distortion from a humbucker. Your probably okay with a bridge SSL-1 in the neck with distortion.

The JB should fine in the bridge. The Holdsworth is basically a JB with two screw coils instead of a screw coil and a slug coil. Use 250k pots with the JB and the SCs.

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Single coil for hss strat (near to Aldrich tone)

Doug uses the Holdsworth HB in his black strat, and a custom shop modded classic stacks in his gold strat