Pickup Choice Review?

[ThreeChordWonder]

Hi folks,

I'm looking for some advice on replacement pickups for a Fender MIM HSS Strat.

My wife just bought me a stunning blue flame top HSS MIM Strat from you-know-where. As soon as it got home I swapped out the original tuners for genuine Fender locking tuners and the horrible pressed steel string tree for a non Fender rolling one. The Fender "rolling" string trees don't actually, um, roll, they just look like they do, whereas the aftermarket ones I already had do roll, and don't require drilling a second hole for the alignment pin either.

Like the matching MIM Tele I bought with my COVID money earlier this year, the original tuners weren't tightened down against the head properly, something else to note if you buy a Fender MIM. The middle pickup is very quiet and Fender has done something "different" with the wiring, wherein the second tone control controls the humbucker tone.

Like my MIM Tele, the Strat is probably going to end up with just the woody parts as stock - body, neck, etc.

Right now, I am in the process of assembling all the parts to build a new pickguard assembly - pickguard, switch, pots, etc. and, of course, pickups. I want to coil split the humbucker, either with a little SPDT switch or a push-pull pot. I'm going to add a treble bleed as a matter of course, and am thinking about doing the "Gilmour mod" while I'm at it.

The Seymour-Duncan pickup selector tool recommended the following pickups:

Neck - Vintage Staggered Strat

Middle - Vintage Staggered Strat RWRP

Bridge - 59 Custom Hybrid

I'm looking for a classic, neutral Strat tone, not flavored towards surf or punk or any modern metal genre. I want my Strat to still sound like a Strat, and I have both a MIM Tele and a Gibson SG for rocking out.

Advice needed:

1. Would anyone like to give me a thumbs up / down on that pickup selection? Pop / classic rock, not too heavy. Amp of choice is a Marshall Origin 50 combo.

2. Can anyone give me a pointer at definitive wiring diagrams for these options? Particularly coil splitting with a SPDT switch and / or a push-pull pot? All I'm looking for are classic Strat controls (1 tone for the neck, 1 for the middle, none for the humbucker, plus master volume). I'm presuming that if I do the Gilmour mod too I'm going to need a separate SPDT switch anyway.

Thanks

 

[beaubrummels]

Sounds like a solid pickup selection for the stated purpose.

If it were me, I would do this wiring as it has a tone for the bridge, which you might need. But it's easy enough to move the tone connections on the switch to do traditional Fender style.
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/forum/the-pickup-lounge/318993-hss-with-coil-split-wiring#post318993

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

^ Sweet - Thank you!:beerchug:

 

[alex1fly]

Those pickups sound like a fine choice to me.

 

[Mincer]

The Vintage Staggered Strat is a classic late 50s/early 60s Strat sound that you heard a million times. The Hybrid in the bridge will be louder than those 2, but most people like that.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

The Vintage Staggered Strat is a classic late 50s/early 60s Strat sound that you heard a million times. The Hybrid in the bridge will be louder than those 2, but most people like that.

I thought that the bridge pickup would be, certainly in HB mode, and presumably the whole idea behind an HSS setup is to be able tog uy from nice clean tones for the "quiet bits" over to rousing crunch for the crescendos.. How about split? I presume that impedance gives a rough guide to "loudness" - more coils = more impedance = more current = more volume - but with the coils split the impedance - and therefore the volume - should roughly halve too, right? If not, there's always the volume knob...

 

[Lewguitar]

The original purpose of the string tree was to keep the strings pressed down firmly in the nut slots. Not that there's anything wrong with adding some rollers.

The SSL-1's are fine vintage style Strat pickups.

The Pearly Gates sounds really good as a bridge pickup. For a hotter tone the 59/Custom or JB would be fine. I prefer a bridge pickup that's a little bit stronger than my neck and middle pickups rather than dramatically louder. That's just me. It's a personal choice.

I'd want a dedicated tone control on my bridge pickup.

I'd use the other tone control for the neck and middle pickup.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

The original purpose of the string tree was to keep the strings pressed down firmly in the nut slots. Not that there's anything wrong with adding some rollers.

Yup, realised that. Fender necks being made from one piece of wood don't have the change in head angle that, say, Gibsons do. QED the string trees were added, probably as an afterthought during the development.

The issue with the as-supplied string trees is that on both my MIM Tele and my MIM Strat is that the pressed steel ones were screwed down hard against the headstocks, without the spacers that I believe is customary on the US made ones. The resulting increase in angle over the nuts, plus the design of the pressed steel trees themselves could only increase friction between the nut, tree and tuner in turn, meaning the string tensions at the tuner would be higher (trust be I'm an engineer and quite familiar with the capstan equation), which is not good. The Fender ones that look like rollers, but actually aren't are just a halfway house IMHO, and they required me to drill an extra alignment hole, which I didn't want to di in case I got it in the wrong place!

The Pearly Gates sounds really good as a bridge pickup. For a hotter tone the 59/Custom or JB would be fine. I prefer a bridge pickup that's a little bit stronger than my neck and middle pickups rather than dramatically louder. That's just me. It's a personal choice.

Which would give closer to a pure, classic, and nearer single coil sound when split?

I'd want a dedicated tone control on my bridge pickup.

I'd use the other tone control for the neck and middle pickup.

That seems to be the consensus. I'll go with it.


Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.:beerchug:

 

[Lewguitar]

I'm not into splitting the coils of humbuckers, although I love real Strat and Tele pickups. So I'll defer to someone else on that one.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

I listened to the S-d samples on my laptop (yeah, that'll work...:smack: ) and TBH I think I prefer the Hybrid.

Marshall Origin 50 combo with preferably NO pedals if that makes any difference... yeah I'm old old school :help:

 

[Condemned soul]

The recommendation for the 59/Custom in the of an S/S/H looks interesting.

What can I expect from the 59/Custom as compared to these pickups in a Super Strat?

> WLH
> Full Shred
> Hot Rails

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lewguitar]

If you're going to split coils, a humbucker with more output is going to have a stronger sound split than a vintage one. So the JB or Custom/59 would probably have a better split sound than the PG. When the Custom/59 is split is it the Custom coil, which is hotter, that's the coil that remains "on"? That might make it the logical choice then. To be honest, I haven't heard that pickup. But a lot of guys here seem to like it.

 

[PFDarkside]

Cool pair of guitars!

 

[Mincer]

I love the Hybrid split, but it is a different tone than a normal single coil. It splits to the Custom coil. I use a wiring scheme that keeps all positions humbucking, though. You can read about it here.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Quick question - is the RWRP a must-have or a nice-to-have for the middle? Cathode ray tubes and fluorescent lights have gone the way of the do-do bird, after all, certainly none in my home...

 

[Lewguitar]

Quick question - is the RWRP a must-have or a nice-to-have for the middle? Cathode ray tubes and fluorescent lights have gone the way of the do-do bird, after all, certainly none in my home...

When I'm playing my Strat with three singlecoils, I spend a lot of time in the neck & middle and bridge & middle settings, and it's awfully nice to have no hum in those settings.

When I play clubs I'm in those settings partially because I like the tone and partially because I get no hum.

I think it's important to have some hum free options on my Strat available.

I don't use noiseless singlecoils because I've never found any that gave me 100% of the tone of a vintage Strat pickup.

Some are close, but not close enough for me.

 

[Securb]

Which would give closer to a pure, classic, and nearer single coil sound when split?

Out of all of my split humbuckers, the Pearly Gates has the stratiest sound. Kind of a Nile Rodgers vibe It is really cool for R&B and funk.

 

[Mincer]

Hum is still a real thing if you play outside your hum. A studio I record in has a terrible hum, making it almost impossible to use a single coil pickup with any gain. I think we are far away from the day where there isn't sources of hum out there. If you don't play outside your well-wired home, then it won't matter.

 

[beaubrummels]

Quick question - is the RWRP a must-have or a nice-to-have for the middle? Cathode ray tubes and fluorescent lights have gone the way of the do-do bird, after all, certainly none in my home...

FWIW My experience with RWRP wasn't good. It was noise-cancelling, but the tone wasn't right at all. I ended up flipping the wires to make it normal. I think it's better to find some other way of getting noise cancelling - either stacks or rails (so the pickup is humcancelling to begin with and it doesn't matter) or experiment with a dummy coil or Illitch noise system, etc.

 

[Mincer]

FWIW My experience with RWRP wasn't good. It was noise-cancelling, but the tone wasn't right at all. I ended up flipping the wires to make it normal. I think it's better to find some other way of getting noise cancelling - either stacks or rails (so the pickup is humcancelling to begin with and it doesn't matter) or experiment with a dummy coil or Illitch noise system, etc.

I get this. Personally, I solve this by using Classic Stacks, but I've heard great dummy coil systems (Music Man's Silent Circuit). What sounds weird to me with the rw/rp middle pickup is you go from hum to no-hum, but something small also gets cancelled in the hum. To me, it isn't a deal-breaker, but I'd rather all positions be hum-cancelling.