Fender American Deluxe 2008 Stratocaster with Red Devil Bridge (HSS)

[lofe]

Hi folks,

I just changed my Fender American Deluxe 2008 strat to Red Devil bridge for HSS config this weekend. Loving it so far. I want to share a few tips with my mod.

This is my first time to mod my guitar. Not much experience. So I did a lot of readings. It was still very confusing with phase/polarity/winding/serial/parallel, etc. I think I got a good grasp of these concepts. With a few trials and errors, here are my config:

- Red Devil (RD) at the bridge.
- Wired as a drop in replace of the original SCN single coil pickup.
- RD Black wire on the 5 way switch, replace the single coil bridge RED wire
- RD Green wire on the S1 switch, replace of the single coil bridge BLACK wire
- RD Red and White wires soldered together and taped
- RD Silver ground to the top of tone pod ground

The idea is sort of treating this SD humbucker as a single coil in the S1/5 way switch. I didn't try to split the humbucker into two single coils because the other single coils are noiseless. If I split the humbucker into two single coils, they will hum when combined with noiseless single coils.

I noticed SD's high strings volume are 3-5 db lower than the single coils at neck and mid. The low E string volume is about the same. Adjusting the height had not much impact. If RD is too high, it's picking up weird distortions at the low end. Beside this, I'm very happy with the new sound. Especially using S1 switches in series/parallel modes with the single coils, the sound is very unique and full.

 

[GuitarDoc]

I didn't try to split the humbucker into two single coils because the other single coils are noiseless. If I split the humbucker into two single coils, they will hum when combined with noiseless single coils.

The humbucker's single coils won't have much hum when combined with the other singles (if wired correctly), but it will hum when on its own.

I noticed SD's high strings volume are 3-5 db lower than the single coils at neck and mid. The low E string volume is about the same. Adjusting the height had not much impact. If RD is too high, it's picking up weird distortions at the low end. Beside this, I'm very happy with the new sound. Especially using S1 switches in series/parallel modes with the single coils, the sound is very unique and full.

Instead of raising the entire pickup, have you tried just raising the high string's end...keeping the bass side low?

 

[Mincer]

Welcome to the forum!

Remember that the RD is likely out of phase with standard Fender pickups, so reverse the black and green if you are getting a really thin sound when the RD is mixed with either Fender pickup.