My First Pickup Change

[Empty Pockets]

Yeeeah the day's finally here, I've actually MODIFIED A STRAT!! Where's my club jacket?

My friend Jared had some authentic 60's Strat pickups laying around, so I put one in the neck and one in the middle, then bought a Hot Rails for the bridge.

Lemme say...WOW. The neck get a smoothe bluesy solo tone, the middle is doing the trebly/spanky sound i used to get out of the bridge on my old pups (and was afraid of sacrificing for the sake of a humbucker) and the Hot Rails is.....exactly what I want in a pickup. That sounds kind of silly but I was playing that thing clean, distorted, whatever, and it always sounded right. Of course it shined with my DS-1 engaged, shooting out some run-of-the-mill hardcore riffs in my friend's garage but...wow.

What amazed me most was that my Strat still sounds like MY STRAT -- i thought the entire tone would be different but it's just tweaked enough that I love it again.

So here's my question: Did I wire this thing right? I'm almost 100% sure i did but just to be certain, here's how it's done:
1- definitely Hot Rails sounding
2- Fuzzy bass from Hot Rails, twang from mid, half the output (???)
3- Twaaaaang
4- Twang and smoothe
5- Smooooothe...haha

I'm only concerned about the second possition, it seems like it COULD be out of phase but i've never done this before...

-X

 

[Artie]

Re: My First Pickup Change

Congrats EP; Be careful. It gets to be an addiction.

It does sound like you have a phase problem. There is an issue with mixing Fender pups with SD's. Take a look at this thread:

Strat Pickup Advice. HELP!

Also, one more thing to be aware of: I've found, that after I install a new pup, I like it just because its new. You've got all that time and effort invested in installing it, so it naturally sounds good. Give yourself a few days. Then listen again. If it still sounds good, you're all set. (No reason for that combo not to.)

Enjoy, and welcome to the club. Your hanky's in the mail.
(Sorry - we were all out of the jackets.) :laugh2: