Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

[Rich_S]

Wow. I can't believe it, I bought a Strat. I've been a hardcore Tele guy since 1984 (Gibbys before that). I've been getting into a lot of surf/spaghetti western/crime jazz instrumentals lately and ya gotta have a whammy for that so...

I bought a used Squier VM Surf Strat, mostly for the price and color. Also, because I'm familiar with and respect the higher-end Squiers. After the first 15 minutes with it, I have some questions:

1. Strat volume pots - are they all this useless? The volume pot on this guitar works well from 10 all the way down to about 9 1/2. I assume it's the stock, little-bitty Chinese pot, nominally 250 K.
2. Lil' '59 Bridge Pickup - I thought this thing was supposed to sound like a humbucker? There's a noticeable volume increase switching from bridge to middle. Can anyone think of a reason for this? The pickup heights look to be about equal.
3. What's the normal pot value for a Lil' '59? Does it like 500K better?
4. Anybody know anything about these Duncan Designed lipstick pickups? The bridge and middle sound great. I'm seriously considering swapping the bridge pickup back in to see if I like it better than the Lil' '59. Do the Duncan Designed pickups have roughly the same specs as the SLL-1?

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get to know this beauty better, but tell me what you know.

[Rockstar216]

Re: Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

Welcome to the world or strats and all of it's pros and cons.

1.Sounds like a crappy stock pot. Probably be better off replacing all the wiring and electronics

2.Many people have said the LIL versions of buckers don't really live up to their bigger counterparts. But you might want to raise it up a bit.

3.Most likely yes

4.idk

[DTrane]

Re: Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

linear pot instead logarithmic pots?

[uOpt]

Re: Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

The 59 might be wired split or in parallel or have some other wiring problem. However, it shouldn't care much about 500 versus 250 Kohm, that should just be a small sound change.

[Rich_S]

Re: Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

The Lil' '59 is actually wired with a push/pull on the lower tone pot. Even in full HB mode it's kind weak compared to the lipsticks. Not, "Oh crap this pickup's busted." weak, just... weak.

[Bodeanicus]

Re: Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

It probably wired parallel.

[Myaccount876]

Re: Be gentle with me: Strat Noob Questions

Try the Lil '59 wired straight to the jack first to eliminate any speculation of a wiring issue vs. a pickup issue. You know the drill: Red + White soldered together and taped off, Black goes to tip, Green + Bare go to sleeve. Keep the ground connection to the bridge/strings though.

I'd change the potentiometers for something better. 250K or 500K should both be fine in this setting with minimal differences. You may prefer linear taper potentiometers, which knock off an even amount of dB each increment you turn the potentiometer down.

As for your last question: I don't know.