Brief Intro and Questions, Please

[Silvercrow]

Hi Folks! My first post here / new to this forum! Playing guitar for over 40 years, which makes me old, I suppose! Pretty active on the Strat Talk forum and a lurker on a few others! So glad to be here and look forward to learning and hopefully, being able to contribute, too!

I have a Fender Am. Std. Strat, 2013, that I love- it's has a soft V neck, compound radius, an FSR model. Currently, I have a CS69 in the neck and middle, a Fender Diamondback humbucker in the bridge. Standard 5 way switch, but the humbucker is connected to the lower tone pot.

I want to get a humbucker for the neck, but probably not go the whole route of changing over to a full sized HH configuration.

I love the sound clips of the "Vintage Rails" and thought I'd go with that in the neck; and keep the Diamondback in the bridge. Could any of you offer suggestions for a middle pickup, to go along with the Vintage Rails and the Diamondback?

Also- not having much experience in doing my own swapping, I thought I'd have a go at doing this myself. I do have good soldering skills and the necessary equipment.

Will I need to, or should I, change the volume pot to a 500k Ohm when I go to the Vintage rails in the neck? Right now the Vol is 250K and is fine with both the CS69's and the bridge 'bucker.

Reason I'm changing? I'm preferring the sound and the noise reduction of humbucker equipped guitars (my other guitars are a Gibson LP and a Gibson SG, both of which have humbuckers) and just have come to like the tonality so much better.

I play classic rock, some jazz, and originals along those lines. I have a Positive Grid Bias Head Amp, Avatar speaker cab and also a Fender Mustang III v2 I use for amps (first time in over 30 years without a tube amp!)

Thanks for any suggestions, guidance, etc., I appreciate it!

Brian

 

[jeremy]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

welcome to the forum!

what is it you like about the vintage rails? it sounds somewhat like a strat pup rather than a humbucker but is humcancelling. if you are just trying to get rid of the noise, then its a fine choice although i think the classic stack + sound more like a vintage strat pup. 250k controls are fine with the vintage rails

 

[Silvercrow]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

welcome to the forum!

what is it you like about the vintage rails? it sounds somewhat like a strat pup rather than a humbucker but is humcancelling. if you are just trying to get rid of the noise, then its a fine choice although i think the classic stack + sound more like a vintage strat pup. 250k controls are fine with the vintage rails

I love the sound of my Strat's pickups (neck / bridge) but need to lose the noise and a plus would be some extra power, but not entirely necessary.

I see where there might be confusion in what I posted! I don't want my Strat to sound like my Gibsons- I do favor and actually need the noise reduction, but am absolutely fine with Strat tonality. I notice (maybe just my imagination) a slight difference in tonality when I have played humbucking, or noise cancelling single coil style pickups (Fralin, Zexcoil, although Zexcoil is sort of it own thing, IMO). Don't know if that cleared anything up or made it worse!

Strat classic tone=great!

Strat Classic tone + noise cancelling / reduction= gooder!

Strat classic tone with extra punch, noise cancelling= Oh YEEAAAHHH!

Yes, I did mention Fralin and I have and love his pickups. And he probably has / will wind what I'm looking for. But even used, they are out of range price wise at this point.

Thanks!

Brian

 

[jeremy]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

thanks for the clarification. my suggestion would be to get classic stack + neck and middle pups. they are 95% of the tone of a good single coil but no hum and have a little more push than the cs69's you have now. ive never heard a humcancelling pup that nails the vintage strat pup sound but these are as close as i have found. im a fan of fralins pups too. the vintage hot is one of my favorite strat pups

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

I too vote for the classic stack + pickups. If I ever decide to go noiseless on my one and only strata, these are what I would choose.

 

[Silvercrow]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

Thanks @ jeremy and Jeff_H! Sounds just like what I'm looking for! So I assume 500K pots as at that point I'll be running all humbuckers? Sorry for my ignorance- never really changed any of my single coiled guitars to anything other than other single coils!

Brian

 

[dotsdad]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

Classic stack plus sound great with the stock fender pots.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Brief Intro and Questions, Please

the cs+ were designed to be used with 250k pots, thats what i use and they sound great