Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

[Benjy_26]

Hello all. I recently acquired a 2007 MIM standard strat. It plays well, looks like crap, and was cheap, so it's a perfect "bad gig" guitar.

I like the original switch and 250k pots, but I installed a .047mfd orange drop cap, a HSS pearl pickguard, and an old, parchment PG+ I had laying about.

I wired it up as a standard strat, except I moved the bottom tone pot to the bridge (middle is wide open), and set the PG+ (~8.5k) to auto-split in the #4 position. I kept the stock MIM ceramics (~6.5k) in the neck and mid.

Sound wise, it sounds like a decent strat all around. The neck and mid do the job, the notch positions sound surprisingly good (very quacky) and the guitar is very well balanced volume wise across the board.

The only (slight) issue I have is that, compared to the neck, the full-on PG+ is a tad bright. I like how tight it is and the growl in the mids, but it seems to me that it may pair better with single coils that are a bit brighter and maybe wound a bit less hot.

Thoughts?

FWIW, I have a bridge and middle position MIM pickups in the neck and mid (bridge position MIM pickup in neck, ~7.2k) of a Godin with a Custom Custom in the bridge (with the screws cut flat to the baseplate) and they sound great, VERY balanced.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

Fender does.

It's a popular model. Lonestar Strat iirc?

It sounds awesome.

Maybe use a 500k pot since you use a dedicated tone for the bucker??

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I thought about using a 500k tone pot before hearing this pickup in this guitar, but I'm inclined to leave it with 250k pots all around. This pickup is brighter than I remember the regular PGb being in a tele-ish guitar I tried it in.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

And I believe you're right. The Lonestar and Big Apple strats came with a PG+. Are the Texas Specials brighter than the standard MIM ceramics?

 

[Mincer]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

Yeah, I think it was stock on the Lone Stars. You can always roll down that bridge tone control (I do this a lot- usually on 7-8 does the trick). Another option is switching out the magnet in the PG+ to an Alnico II (it uses a V).

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I'll try messing with my EQ and tone settings. I guess I was just expecting the PG+ to be a lot louder and thicker than the MIM ceramics, but it's just not the case. Kind of makes me wonder why the stock pickups in the Mexi Standards get such a bad rap. They're not bad at all, assuming one doesn't need a super-traditional strat sound.

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

You could also try a RC UOA5 magnet to retain some of the A5 qualities while taming some of the shrill highs.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I don't but only because I don't have an HSS Strat. Otherwise it WOULD have a PG+ in it!!!!!

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

The rough cast Alnico V sounds interesting. If that doesn't work, I have a normal PGb that I can throw in there. Hell, I alsobhave a Demon bouncing around somewhere. I tried the PG+ initially because of the color, tbh.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I don't but only because I don't have an HSS Strat. Otherwise it WOULD have a PG+ in it!!!!!

You need one, my dude. It sounds pretty great running flat out.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?



The strat in question.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

yep, the PG+ is a super brite pickup. Once just for giggles i put it in a LP. It sounded like a glass crusher. Like Jeff said i would try a UO A5, since only RC does little to a A5 when the pole surfaces are flat.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

yep, the PG+ is a super brite pickup. Once just for giggles i put it in a LP. It sounded like a glass crusher. Like Jeff said i would try a UO A5, since only RC does little to a A5 when the pole surfaces are flat.

I think it was designed to be in the same EQ range a the Texas Specials which were also in the Lone Star Strat.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

yep, the PG+ is a super brite pickup. Once just for giggles i put it in a LP. It sounded like a glass crusher. Like Jeff said i would try a UO A5, since only RC does little to a A5 when the pole surfaces are flat.

I used this particular PG+ in the bridge of my Epi LP under a cover paired witj an antiquity neck and it wasn't terrible. Maybe the cover soaked up some of the high end?

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I think it was designed to be in the same EQ range a the Texas Specials which were also in the Lone Star Strat.

Makes sense. I may need to get a pair of TS's or equivalents. The Mexi Standard singles are a bit too dark and meaty to be balanced with this pickup, eq-wise.

 

[Zombiwoof]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

Texas Specials are not bright pickups at all IMO.
Al

 

[evan47]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I remember buying one of the first MIM strats in the UK and fitting it with a seymour duncan hot rails in the bridge route.
It sounded great through the Laney AOR 50 protube ii that I had at the time.

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

Texas Specials are not bright pickups at all IMO.
Al

But are they brighter than the MIM ceramic pickups?

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

I remember buying one of the first MIM strats in the UK and fitting it with a seymour duncan hot rails in the bridge route.
It sounded great through the Laney AOR 50 protube ii that I had at the time.

I'm starting to think that those Mexico pickups are better suited to match a hot bridge pickup. I threw in a MIM bridge and middle in the neck and middle slots of a Godin SD that has a Custom in the bridge and they balance extremely well in that guitar, tone-wise and output-wise.

 

[StratMatt77]

Re: Anybody using a Pearly Gates + in a HSS strat?

Yes I found this old thread in a search, but just in case you are still having harshness "Ice-pick treble" issues like I dealt with for years with a maple neck strat I'll tell you my experience...

In 1998 I bought my first guitar- a MIM strat. As a newbie who could hardly play, I went to the music store and asked them how to get the solo sound in the Queensryche song "Della Brown" (at 4:44). They said "You need a humbucker", so I bought the Pearly Gates they sold me, went home and routed out my new strat's pickguard perfectly (thanks to the perfect diameter of the Dremel sanding drum) and installed it.
My first amp was a SS Fender Princeton Chorus with a distortion channel that was not good, but that Pearly Gates was ice-pick bright! And I probably was still using the 250K volume pot!
It was absolutely intolerable (maybe its better with a tube amp?).

So I exchanged it for a Custom which was much better, and then years later with my soldano astroverb and a 2x12 with a Vintage 30 and a G12H30 speaker I was still having harshness problems, so, after Duncan remade their website (this was over a decade ago) to indicate that the Custom Custom was best in "bright guitars" and the Custom was best in darker sounding guitars,
I bought the Custom and it's been fantastic. It's alnico II while the Custom is ceramic.
Michael Wilton of Queensryche was using/endorsing it for a while but he may or may not have switched to something more high output...
And since I did mention the Custom, that is the pickup Queensryche was using in the their ESPs in 1988 on the Operation Mindcrime album... which is very bright, Chris Degarmo even said they were going for a "cutting, almost irritating tone" on Mindcrime.

Hopefully you got everything all sorted out, but if you didn't, I feel your pain... or at least I used to- before the Custom!