Best Strat pickups to complement Custom Trembucker?

[GuiTim3]

Just picked up (pun intended) a Custom Trembucker and would like to tap the vast experience of SD users to recommend neck & middle pickups that best complement the CT. Thank you all in advance!

 

[pskorz]

There are a lot of great choices. It’ll depend a lot on what kind of vibe you’re after. A nice vintage flare? A blazing humbucker the size of a single? Something in between?

 

[Mincer]

What's more important...volume balance with the Custom or traditional Strat sound. Is noiselessness important? What do you use the neck and middle for?

 

[hamerfan]

What Mincer said. For the traditional Strat sound you need to split the Custom with a additional switch or with an autosplit wiring in the 2nd position of a 5 way switch.

 

[Synapsys]

For my needs I'd go with a Lil59, with a series/parallel optiin when using a push-pull pot. In parallel it gets beefier tone than a true single coil or split, but still noiseless.
Got it wired like that in my ESP LTD MH-1000HS, which has a Custom 5 in the bridge. The C5's output is about the same as the Custom, and when in series the Lil59 keeps up fine.

 

[alex1fly]

Just picked up (pun intended) a Custom Trembucker and would like to tap the vast experience of SD users to recommend neck & middle pickups that best complement the CT. Thank you all in advance!

SSL6. They're slightly overwound, so they'll keep up better with the trembucker. But they're still very much a traditional Strat sound. And IMO the notch tones (positions 2 & 4) benefit from greatly from having slightly overwound pickups in the neck and middle - it just gives those positions a tiny bit of extra beef and makes them more usable in more musical situations while still retaining the recognizable Strat sound.

 

[Frater106]

Following.