Help Me Select A Set Of Neck & Middle Strat Pickups To Pair With The BG1400 Bridge

[Voyager]

Help Me Select A Set Of Neck & Middle Strat Pickups To Pair With The BG1400 Bridge

Greetings and Happy Holidays to All!

I've got a Tele/Strat style of guitar here, with rather modestly-wound traditional Strat pickups in the Neck and Middle positions, and a traditional Tele Bridge pickup, but I wanna replace the rather subtle OEM Bridge pup, with a fairly hot and twangy SD BG1400 (Billy Gibbons) bridge pup.

So, my question is . . . can anyone recommend a suitable set of Neck and Middle Strat pickups (whether SD or not!), that might pair well with this hotter BG1400 Bridge pickup?

If possible, I'd like to retain as much of the classic 'twang' from the hotter BG1400, and yet, not lose too much of the characteristic, bell-like (chimey) tones of the Strat pickups, while not suffering too much volume differential between the three. Only time and bench-testing will truly tell, but . . .

Does anyone here have any well-founded recommendations?

Many thanks!

 

[Mincer]

Welcome to the forum!

I'd suggest the Classic Stack Plus, which has a lot of chime, and would balance well with that cool bridge pickup. And it will keep all the pickups hum-cancelling, too.

 

[Voyager]

Welcome to the forum!

I'd suggest the Classic Stack Plus, which has a lot of chime, and would balance well with that cool bridge pickup. And it will keep all the pickups hum-cancelling, too.

Thanks for your response and recommendation. I greatly appreciate it.

Personally speaking, I don't really know much about SD pickups (haven't had any experience with them over the years), but the BG1400 certainly caught my attention (great reviews on numerous classic Tele guitars), and I'll have to take another look at the Classic Stack Plus that you've suggested here for the other two positions.

The tech support folks at SD have actually suggested their traditional but somewhat overwound Flat Strat SSL6 in both neck and middle positions, with the neck being RWRP, but I can't seem to find any references on-line by anyone who has ever used that particular three-way combination, and I always like to see those somewhere before I take the jump.

And the difference in output between the two recommendations is quite significant. The Classic Strat Plus comes in at about 8.5-9.0k while the SSL6 is close to 13-14k. So with the BG1400 purportedly sitting somewhere between a whopping 20-30k, I suspect this is why SD folks are recommending the latter.

 

[jeremy]

the bg1400 is 28k or something like that, but its an old style stack so its not as hot as the dck would suggest with both coils having similar resistance. the cs+ is a newer stack design with a bottom coil that is significantly lower in dck than the top coil. the ssl6 is wound with [NODE="43"]Playing Tips!![/NODE] wire vs [NODE="42"]A5 antiquity & Custom Timbucker neck[/NODE] for a vintage strat pup, so again a direct comparison isnt helpful.

that said, if you want to use 500k pots, i think the ssl6 (or custom stack+if you want noiseless) is a fine choice. if you are going to use 250k pots, then the cs+ is a good place to start.

do you plan to have the option to split the bg1400?

 

[Voyager]

the bg1400 is 28k or something like that, but its an old style stack so its not as hot as the dck would suggest with both coils having similar resistance. the cs+ is a newer stack design with a bottom coil that is significantly lower in dck than the top coil. the ssl6 is wound with [NODE="43"]Playing Tips!![/NODE] wire vs [NODE="42"]A5 antiquity & Custom Timbucker neck[/NODE] for a vintage strat pup, so again a direct comparison isnt helpful.

that said, if you want to use 500k pots, i think the ssl6 (or custom stack+if you want noiseless) is a fine choice. if you are going to use 250k pots, then the cs+ is a good place to start.

do you plan to have the option to split the bg1400?

Thanks Jeremy, and yeah, everything you've said about the BG1400 wind and output is consistent with what the SD folks have said, and I should probably clarify that I am not a performing musician (just a keen but amateur home studio enthusiast), so I'm told that the noiseless thing doesn't really matter much for someone like me, playing at lower volumes. I think that's why the SD folks recommended the traditional SSL6.

In addition, I should add that I don't do a lot of heavily overdriven stuff with this particular guitar. In fact, 90% of my time with it, is spent exclusively with the bridge pickup in classic twangy Tele mode. I just want to retain as much of the Strat tone as possible with the other two pickups when used, without (as I've said previously), extreme volume differences. And so, when combined, I guess these 2-3 things tend to make me lean towards the SSL6 in the neck and middle, but opinions from experienced others like yourself are both helpful and critical.

 

[jeremy]

the bg1400 wouldnt be my first choice for twang, but its a great pup. warm with 250k pots, but brighter with 500k, and i like the split tone as well. which is a bit louder and brighter than the series tone. do you record at home or just play?

if you just play, then noise cancelling is less of an issue. when recording noiseless pups can be advantageous.

for classic early 60's vintage strat tones, the ssl1 is a great choice, but would have less output than the bg1400. for a similar but slightly thicker tone with a touch more output the classic stack+ is a great choice. the ssl6 has more output but a noticeably thicker/fatter tone and i find it dark in the neck and middle with 250k pots. however with 500k pots, i like it much better in those positions.

 

[Voyager]

the bg1400 wouldnt be my first choice for twang, but its a great pup. warm with 250k pots, but brighter with 500k, and i like the split tone as well. which is a bit louder and brighter than the series tone. do you record at home or just play?

if you just play, then noise cancelling is less of an issue. when recording noiseless pups can be advantageous.

for classic early 60's vintage strat tones, the ssl1 is a great choice, but would have less output than the bg1400. for a similar but slightly thicker tone with a touch more output the classic stack+ is a great choice. the ssl6 has more output but a noticeably thicker/fatter tone and i find it dark in the neck and middle with 250k pots. however with 500k pots, i like it much better in those positions.

Righto. I fully understand that some of the twang will be lost when switching to something that hot (i.e., the BG1400), and if it proves to be too much loss, then I'll return the stock pickups to the guitar. No harm, no foul. And just to be clear, the guitar I'm dealing with is a Reverend Eastsider S Tele/Strat, which has a rather modest array of pickups at roughly 5.5k, 5.8k and 6.4k (n, m, b). It's current volume and tone pots are 500k, with an 0.047uF tone cap, neither of which I had intended to alter, so that should work to my favor on the brightness.

However, regarding the subject of "splitting" the BG1400, I'm not quite sure how I would go about that? By that I mean that I have insufficient experience to even know how to accomplish the wiring for that. As you may know, the Eastsider S has a push/pull Tone control that adds the neck pickup regardless of the position of the 5-way switch, and I find that quite useful at times for the N+B option, but I simply wouldn't know how to go about wiring the bridge pickup for "split" functionality. And that's most unfortunate, because from what you're saying here, it certainly sounds like that might have provided me with another desirable configuration. I'll have to research that topic a bit? Perhaps it could be done with a mini-toggle or some such mod? I'm told that the BG1400 has like 4-5 wires, but the official SD website appears to lack a wiring diagram for the S/S/S Tele-style of guitar like the Eastsider S.

 

[jeremy]

cool guitar! to split the bg1400 you could use a mini switch or p/p pot. you could also wire it to auto split in the notch position, but i dont know if id do that

 

[Voyager]

cool guitar! to split the bg1400 you could use a mini switch or p/p pot. you could also wire it to auto split in the notch position, but i dont know if id do that

Thanks Jeremy!

Yeah, I'm gonna continue learning on things where I can, including wiring options before I go diving into the change, and hopefully the folks at SD will be able to give me some further guidance on it too.

As for the Eastsider S, you're right, it is a cool little guitar. Very well made with a ton of cool features for an excellent price. I cherish mine!

Anyway, thanks again for your many insights here, and Happy Holidays to you and everyone else here on the SD Forum.

 

[ToneFiddler]

i have the SSL-6 paired with a very hot tele bridge and it works great with 500k pots!
So my guess is it will be a good match with the BG1400, too.

Both are made for overdriven sounds in my opinion and i would look elsewhere for clean and twangy sounds (e.g. STL-1, STL-1B, JD, STL-52, ... Bridge; SSL-2 neck)

 

[Voyager]

i have the SSL-6 paired with a very hot tele bridge and it works great with 500k pots!
So my guess is it will be a good match with the BG1400, too.

Both are made for overdriven sounds in my opinion and i would look elsewhere for clean and twangy sounds (e.g. STL-1, STL-1B, JD, STL-52, ... Bridge; SSL-2 neck)

Interesting! And thank you for your contribution here.

This is 'precisely' my concern (i.e., completely or largely losing clean and twang) in what is essentially (or foremost) a Telecaster. Perhaps I'm about to step in a puddle?

I have several classic or standard Teles, some with premium (boutique) pickups, all of which provide me with the pristine cleans and country twang that I generally need, but unfortunately, they all lack the on-board tremolo which the Eastsider S has. In fact, it's really the only reason I purchased the Eastsider, but the stock Eastsider pickups are just really quite mild for my tastes.

Anyway, I guess I'm just gonna have to take the leap and try the (2x) SSL6 + (1x) BG1400 combo, and if it doesn't work out, then I return the guitar to it's original configuration. It's some added labor and some marginal expense, but its not like it's the end of the world, right? There are many-many more things, all far more important than this to worry about in this world.
:butkick:

Thanks to everyone and Merry Christmas to all!