H-S-H / H-S-S pickups for mahogony body superstrat

Rikki_B

New member
Hi all,

This is my first post here, so hopefully I've posted in the right place! If not, please move thread as appropriate!

I currently have a Chapman ML-1 and I'm looking to upgrade the pickups. For those not familiar, it's a superstrat design with mahogony body, maple neck, ebony fretboard and vintage style trem. It currently has H-S-S routing, although I'd be happy to route H-S-H if it gave me more options.

In short, I'd like to have the following options available on 5 way switch:

1 - bridge humbucker
2 - split bridge humbucker and middle single coil
3 - middle single coil
4 - split neck humbucker and middle single coil
5 - neck single coil sized humbucker (or full humbucker if I re-route)

(Plus coil split/tap for bridge and neck humbuckers obviously).

I play a wide variety of styles, however, for this particular guitar I'm keen to get that 'fusion' type lead sound. Think artists such as Guthrie Govan, Steeley Dan, Larry Calton, Jack Thammarat etc. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but think of that very articulate and singing type sound those types of players get (for some reason it is often associated with Suhr players).

I play most styles, but I don't need pickups that go super heavy (i.e. djent). Overall, the pickups should be quite versatile though.

There are obviously way too many options out there, and so I'd really appreciate people's thoughts on what they think are likely to work well as a set. I don't have a preference for particular brands.

I hope that's enough information for now and I look to forward to hearing people's thoughts. Thank you in advance!

Rikki
 
Re: H-S-H / H-S-S pickups for mahogony body superstrat

I might go for a
59/Custom Hybrid
Classic Strat Stack
Little 59 (or full size Alnico II Pro)

For the switch, I think you would have to use a Super Switch.

I know Allan Holdsworth has used a neck 59 in the bridge for his solo sound, which is glorious. The Hybrid might allow some versatility there. The Alnico II Pro is a wonderful, singing neck pickup that is great clean and distorted, and sounds good with complex chord voicings. I love the Classic Start Stack's tone, and it would keep the guitar hum cancelling.
 
H-S-H / H-S-S pickups for mahogony body superstrat

Or you could go with regular 5 way strat switch and have 2 push pulls for splitting the humbuckers and another push pull to jumper the hot neck and bridge terminals on the switch to put both neck and bridge on at the same time. I like it, this works very well in my HSH.

Got more selections that way.


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