Little '59 or Cool Rails for Strat Bridge Pup

[GreatOz]

Good day,

I have 2 more Stacks for the neck and middle of my Strat and they're great, but am considering replacing the bridge pickup with a humbucker since I essentially never use it and I like humbuckers as bridge pups more anyways.

My main concern is the increase in volume vice the normal stacks (STK-S7 in the neck and STK-S4m in the middle), especially with the Little 59. I don't particularly want the bridge to just overpower the other two.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

[Clint 55]

I don't think a bridge lil 59 would overpower your stax. You could always use the neck lil 59 if you wanted to be sure.

[Mincer]

Yes, I doubt either one will overpower your stacks. Thing is, the Cool Rails and the Little 59 have a very different EQ. The Cool Rails is scooped with more treble than bass. The Little 59 has more mids than anything. What does your guitar need?

[GreatOz]

Mids definitely, I wanted something similar to a LP-sound out of it. The bridge would mostly be used for lead playing to complement the Neck. I don't really care what it sounds like clean because the Neck+Mid is my favorite clean sound out of that guitar anyway. The bridge would pretty-much only be used with a fair amount of dirt.

[donaldr]

For reference, the STK-S7 I had in the neck was almost overpowering the Screamin Demon I had in the bridge of a Fender Strat (250K volume and tone pots).
I had to have the Screamin Demon closer to the strings than I wanted to match the volume.

[GreatOz]

For reference, the STK-S7 I had in the neck was almost overpowering the Screamin Demon I had in the bridge of a Fender Strat (250K volume and tone pots).
I had to have the Screamin Demon closer to the strings than I wanted to match the volume.

Oh wow lol, then I really don't have to worry about the bridge overpowering the neck, if anything, I may have the opposite problem. I keep my neck pickup pretty low though.

[Ace Flibble]

The two stacks you have have slightly-hotter-than-usual output anyway, so neither the Cool Rails nor Little 59 will overpower them. If it's only going to be used for distorted leads then I'd say go for the Little 59 since it does hit that little bit harder and fuller than the Cool Rails; think of the Cool Rails as being a single-sized equivalent of a Jazz or Sentient. I don't agree with the Little 59 having "more mids than anything" but it definitely does have a thicker and overall more powerful sound than the Cool Rails. You might want to look at the Lil Screamin Demon, too. That has an EQ balance similar to the Cool Rails but with the overall output pushed up a little bit higher than the Little 59, so you get a best-of-both-worlds as far as distortion and lead playing are concerned; the clarity of the CR but the heavier hit of the 59.

[GreatOz]

I'll add the Screamin' Demon to my list of pickups to consider too. Thanks

[Mincer]

I'd say it is between the Demon and the Little 59.

[JB_From_Hell]

One of my Strats has a mystery Hot Rails knock off and the other has a Fender Tex Mex full size humbucker. Both have vintage singles in the neck and middle, and neither has balance issues. Another Strat I had was a DiMarzio mini Super Distortion and two Texas Specials. You’ll be fine.

[jeremy]

lil 59 bridge wont over power the stks7 in the neck. the lil 59 is middier than the lil sd and id say they are about the same output

[GreatOz]

Well, I finally got around to purchasing and installing.

I went with the Little 59, and I agree with the stacks being about the same output as the Humbucker in case anyone else reading this thread is concerned about that.
However, I also changed pots to 500k with the bigger 0.047 capacitor (was 250k with a 0.022 capacitor) with a push-pull to split the bridge humbucker and middle stack to get the true quack position with the bridge + middle.

Combined with the bridge-on switch, it gives the guitar 13 pickup combinations; factoring in psuedo-duplicates, it drops it to 11. I actually consistently use 8 of the positions, with my favorites being Neck, Neck + Bridge Humbucker, Neck + Middle, and Bridge Humbucker.

All I can say is "wow"! I'm really pleased with the Little '59 with the 500k pots update and wish I would've done that forever ago from the start of the build. I liked the guitar before, but now I really like it and it's one of my most played instruments now. I think the 500k pots add just a touch more presence to the tone which this guitar really needed. On top of this, I can just roll off the tone or volume if it becomes too bright.

Neck + Bridge Humbucker is one of the new sounds and I by far prefer that sound over the "tele-ish" sound before with the single in the bridge.

My amp setup is a Mesa Fillmore 25 with a Victory Sheriff V4 preamp. This yields 4 total channels: two American-voiced, two British-voiced. This guitar is the only guitar I use all 4 channels on. It's nice to be able to go from that classic Neck tone to a full-on singing humbucker lead tone on the bridge. I didn't care for the lead playing on the bridge by itself when it was a single, but now it's one of my favorite sounds on this guitar.

All in all, I am very glad I made this upgrade. Thanks for the advice y'all!

[Mincer]

Love a good success story! Can we get a pic of the guitar with the Little 59?

[GreatOz]

Love a good success story! Can we get a pic of the guitar with the Little 59?

Wish granted!

[Mincer]

Wow! What a unique color combo! I really dig the Wilkinson, too- I am building a Warmoth with one.