Adding a Jazzmaster & P90 pup to my Strat

[Jack_TriPpEr]

The good insights about Jazzmaster guitars and pickups a few of you shared in Benjy_26's thread here:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/mobiquo/redirect.php?pid=6102759

... has inspired an idea for a new project fot me: modify my cheap (but comfortable and well-playing) Squier Affinity Strat to have a Jazzmaster pickup in the neck. I'd rather do that than own a Jazzmaster guitar based on the downsides of the Jazzmaster body and design mentioned in that thread (heavy weight, a bridge that has frequent issues staying in tune). Plus I really prefer not to add another guitar to my collection.

While I'm at it, I am also going to make this Strat a 4 pickup guitar and install a P90 pup, which is another pup I don't have right now (I've had two Prails installed on a different guitar in the past but they didn't stay). Starting from the bridge and heading up to the neck, I'll do singlecoil, p90, singlecoil, jazzmaster. The two singlecoils will allow me to still get traditional Strat Position 2 and 3 tones which I dont want to lose. I understand I will have to do some routing of the neck pickup cavity and the pickguard in that area to fit the Jazzmaster neck pickup but it shouldn't be too much or too difficult based on what i've been reading elsewhere online and plus me already owning a Dremel.

I also want each pup to be a noiseless design so it looks like I'll be getting Fralins for the JM and P90 pups. I've already got 2 different Dimarzio Area singlecoils on-hand for the noiseless SC need.

The tobacco sunburst Strat in the first pic is my Squier Affinity that I will be modifyingfor this. The other pic of the olive colored Strat is a DIY hybrid where someone did something similar to what I described above.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Had some more thoughts about this. Decided to make the singlecoil closest to the bridge, a singlecoil sized humbucker. Particularly the Dmz Super Distortion S. I've already demoed that pup in this guitar and i like how it peforms for Bridge pup only distortion, and how it peforms in combo with a middle SC for Strat Position 2 tones. I don't know yet how it sounds for this next idea, but i am hoping it will also sound good wired In Parallel so i can combine it with the Neck pup for Tele-ish type tones. If it works, boy would this guitar be a true Do It All axe.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Emailed Fralin customer service, asking for any advice they could provide regarding how to best mount a P90 pup and a Jazzmaster pup into a Strat pickguard.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Benjy_26]

Emailed Fralin customer service, asking for any advice they could provide regarding how to best mount a P90 pup and a Jazzmaster pup into a Strat pickguard.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Keep us posted. This is an interesting project. My initial thoughts are that it's going to be a tight fit.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Keep us posted. This is an interesting project. My initial thoughts are that it's going to be a tight fit.

Will do. Agreed, it will be a tight fit.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[GuitarStv]

I don't like how close the JM neck pickup rout has to be to the edge of the strat pickguard. Other than that, looks pretty cool!

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Fralin Cust Svc responded that they had no advice to give regarding my question. So tonight I meaured the space btw my Strat's bridge and neck, and got 6.625". Then compared that to the sum of widths for each of the 4 pups (5.11"), and confirmed that there is enough space to fit all four pupd if i do a swimming pool route. That leaves 1.5" of space to divvy up btw each of the 4 pups.

Fralin hum-canceling jazzmaster: 1.61"

Dmz Area series pup: 0.95"

Fralin hum-canceling P90 with plastic cover and dogears footprint: 1.65"

Dmz single-coil size dual rail humbucker: 0.9"

We're cleared for take-off. Lol




Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Mincer]

Well, Steve Morse did a similar thing for years. Not the same arrangement of pickups, but 4 of them.

 

[zionstrat]

I love jazzmasters and p90s in the neck (and Firebirds and minis so I'm really interested in the outcome.. over the years I've tried all kinds of combinations, and like you, I put jazzmaster pickups in strats for the same reasons.

So a jazzmaster in the neck is a great place to start. But with your current design, I'm wondering if the p90 will be useful?

With our three pick up p90s with a five-way switch, you get a fatter strat sound but continue to have a little bit of that notched quack in two and four. It is quite less quack than strat pups and the middle pickup has more character than a strat middle pickup.

But those notched characteristics come from similar pickups, and I would love to hear if the jazzmaster is able to quack with your center pickup.

On the other hand, your p90 is going to be sitting in a space that I have never really explored.. I'm not sure if it'll be close enough to the bridge to get the biting side of a p90, it's not in the middle so it won't get that mid sound I talked about above, so I'm very interested in hearing what kind of sound shows up.

I'm also very interested in how you will mount the pups and can't wait to hear more!



Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

@zionstrat

Thanks.

I'm hoping the P90 tone will be unaffected by the slight shift forward away from the bridge. My hope for that is based on how the tone of the P90 coil of the PRail bridge pickup did not seem to be significanly affected by flipping that pickup around in its orientation when I experimented with one a few months back.

I am also hoping that I can rig up a DIY adaptor so I can mount the Jazzmaster pup to the pickguard instead of mounting it to the body. Will see what is possible once I get one in-hand.

Also, I am now leaning towards buying non-humcanceling versions of the Jazzmaster and P90 and installing a dummycoil wired to a Spin-A-Split to dial in just enough hum-canceling when using either of those two pups by themselves.

The five pickup combinations I will initially wire up are as follows. Unfortunately for your interests, Jazzmaster (neck) / Middle singlecoil is not one of them. Maybe if I don't end up liking one of the pickup combinations below, I'll replace it with that.

1. P90 Bridge
2. Middle SC / (Bridge SC-sized HB wired In Parallel)
3. P90 Bridge / Jazzmaster Neck
4. (Bridge SC-sized HB wired In Parallel) / Jazzmaster Neck - w HOoP option
5. Jazzmaster Neck

Also, Middle SC alone via override of the 5 way superswitch via Master Tone push-push pot.

Also, Bridge SC-sized HB wired In Series alone via override of the 5 way superswitch and Master Tone push-push pot via Fender S1 switch for Master Volume pot.

Position 4 is intended to give me a Tele-ish sounding pickup combination. I don't own a Tele.








Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[zionstrat]

Love your thinking! Yeah there's nothing like a true single coil jazzmaster or p90.. I've messed around with dummy coils in the past and had mixed results... But the spin a split would be a great way to try it out.

And yes if you find a decent way to mount a jazzmaster pickup to a pick
guard I would be extremely thankful.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

 

[Mincer]

The dummy coil thing is a good idea. I've used active dummy coil systems that worked very well on single coil pickups.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

The dummy coil thing is a good idea. I've used active dummy coil systems that worked very well on single coil pickups.

Cool - good to hear

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Update: placed my order for one Jazzmaster and one soapbar P90 pup from Fralin. 3 week lead time.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Update: after talking to Lindy and Luke at Fralin, I decided to change my order and return to my original idea to get hum-canceling versions of the P90 and Jazzmaster. One complicating factor that drove this, was Lindy pointing out that if got the NON humcanceling versions and had one of the two set up as RWRP from the other so that they would be hum-canceling when combined together (which is something i wanted), that the tradeoff was that when i used either pickup by itself (plus the dummy coil), that the dummy coil would need to be wired to a switch to flip its phase in order to work correctly with the one pickup that it was out of phase with, since each pickup would have a different polarity from the other. The dummy coil would natively only be in phase with one of the two pups. [Edit: Lindy also said that I could order a custom dummy coil from him, in the footprint of one coil from a humbucker pup, with removeable screws, so that i could finetune the hum-canceling and tone performance by removing as many of the 6 screws as i found necessary. The wind of it would be somewhere btw the 10K of the bridge p90 and the 8400 of the neck jazzmaster, so it would be a slight compromise in each case in terms of the dummy matching the wind of both pups. He said the price of this would be about the same for one of his standard singlecoils.]

I actually know how to design a diagram to support that but it would mean losing a push-pull that I want to use for another feature.

So, i'll give the hum-canceling vsns a try first, and if i am unhappy with either, i can do an exchange in 30 days for the non-hum-canceling vsn. But I expect I will happy with both hum-canceling vsns.

Lindy confirmed about a 3 week lead time.

Will post back in a few weeks after they arrive and I have installed them.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

UPDATE: my order of an Allparts brand black Strat pickguard with no cavity or control holes arrived today. Part Number PG-0992-033.

Did just a rough fit-check for now, by laying it on top of the existing installed pickguard. No obvious issues with the fit.

Fralin pups still in the build process.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Benjy_26]

Pretty neat!

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Pretty neat!

Thanks Benjy!

This project has committed me to doing a lot of routing in my guitar. I need to spend some time researching the best How-To methods so I get good results!

If anyone knows of webpages I should review that will educate me, please reply with the links below.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

The Fralin pickups arrived today. I was quoted 3 weeks, and they arrived early after just 2 weeks. I measured and tested them with my multimeter and each looks good.

Check out the two attached pics to get an idea of how these would fit into place on my Strat. Also note in one pic, the actual size of the humcanceling jazzmaster pup itself - with the cover removed.

That hum-canceling jazzmaster pup is tiny! So much smaller than a traditional Jazzmaster pup! The footprint is more like a mini-humbucker.

I see great new opportunities in how to mount this pickup into my strat based on this small footprint size. Seems I no longer have to mount the jazzmaster pup directly into the body, that i should be able to mount it to a pickguard, by changing this jazzmaster pup's baseplate out for a humbucker baseplate with short legs, or maybe a mini-humbucker baseplate with short legs, whichever is a better fit for the footprint of this jazzmaster pup. The new baseplate will need two holes with a center-to-center distance of [edit: 41mm], which the jazzmaster pup will get mounted to. If i can't find a baseplate that has two screwholes spaces that distance apart, i'll just mod the new baseplate myself with a drill to get two screwholes with that distance. Then acquire an SSH pickguard and enlarge the neck position singlecoil sized opening to be just large enough to fit this mini-humbucker sized jazzmaster. Then finally, use a dremel to mod the jazzmaster plastic cover to reduce its height by about half or maybe a little more so that the jazzmaster cover can simply sit over the jazzmaster pup and rest on the surface of the pickguard. To get that cover to stay in place, i'd drill holes in the pickguard for the 4 screws that are part of the design of the jazzmaster cover, and then install those screws through the cover into the pickguard. Wah-lah, done, should end up with a pickgaurd-mounted, covered jazzmaster pup in the neck position.

I'd also have to enlarge the bridge position humbucker slot to accomodate the larger footprint of the P90, and relocate the Master Volume knob because the P90 intrudes into the OEM space for the MV. But that also shouldn't be a big deal. Will look for if anyone makes a p90-singlecoil-p90 sized pickguard - as that would require less alteration.

Also thinking of foregoing install of the singlecoil sized humbucker as a 4th pup in the bridge slot. Think i'll start out with just the 3 pickups at first. Probably the thing that would push me later to incorporate that 4th pup in the bridge, is if i wasn't happy with the tone i was getting from the bridge p90 and Middle single for Strat Position 2 quack.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

On 2nd thought, using a Dremel to cut the jazzmaster cover might generate too much heat and warp and/or melt the cover,, since the cover is just a thin plastic. I'll probably need to use a small hacksaw instead.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk