Pickups for a japanese squier stratocaster.

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Orange

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Hi everyone,
i own a great 1985 japanese squier stratocater.
The guitar sounds fatter and more balanced than my classic 50´s which is my best guitar and on the bright side.
The other guitar having the classic strat tone nailed to perfection, i was thinking about turning this one into a live/reaharsal workhorse focusing on versatility and it seems hum cancelling might be the way to go for live playing and avoiding excessive noise from my amp.

So far i never tried any single coil sized buckers but it might be just what i need.

I need a perfect dynamic round and bell like clean tone on the neck to play cristal clear arpeggios and blues licks that could slightly punch the clean channel into saturation if i hit the strings hard..

The middle and 2/4 positions pickup should be for rythm tones. funk, ska, surf, country & garage. On a side note i'm crazy for nile rogers sound on get lucky.

The bridge need to give growly powerchords powerful not too fuzzy muddy or harsh. Rock hard riffing, punk rock, classic rock. From queen to pearl jam, acdc to the hives, could do classic british heavy metal or american hard rock (guns and roses) too. Should work equally well with moderate and high gain.
I noticed the lil screaming demon as the regular one is one of my favourites on basswood guitars, but i'm affraid it might me too bright /shrill for a strat and i think it has ceramic magnets (the original is alnico 5 i think).
The hot rails sounds good on maiden records, but seems to have too much output or too modern sound. I love hard rock but tend to play on moderate gain settings and focus on dynamics rather than gain (hitting the strings hard and use fatter gauges).
The lil 59 looks pretty good but i never heard it.
I dont know about the YJM but i am impressed by malmsteens heavy and powerful stratocaster sound, which is more organic and vintage than generic metal shredders.

I know it sounds really versatile but if you look at it its all rock, its all more or less vintage sounding, and a strat can definitely do it all.

What i'm not looking for : a jem, a jackson or a les paul. This is a strat.
I don´t play lead much, at least not with this one.
I have other guitars secifically dedicated to heavy metal and modern sounds (esp george lynch tiger and LTD explorer with emgs)


At the moment i have Lace holy grails which sound good when recording but rather sterile live, lacking the blood sweat and tears to play blues and rock ! Any suggestion or feedback is welcomed.
 
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Re: Pickups for a japanese squier stratocaster.

you are trying to cover a ton of ground. there is always going to be compromise when you do that.

clean and bell like suggests a vintage single coil strat pup sound but you arent going to punch the clean channel into saturation with one of those.

my suggestion is to get a cool rails neck, classic stack plus for the middle, and a hot rails bridge. use push/pull pots to put the cool rails and the hot rails into parallel mode giving you a cleaner clearer sound with less output. youll have lots of great tones and everything will be humcancelling
 
Re: Pickups for a japanese squier stratocaster.

Thanks a lot.
sounds really versatile this way.
I think i should try the rails and see for mysel because i read ll kind of comments saying they make a strat sound like a sg or something but i guess that´s not exactly the case.

Classic stack sounds really cool.

would you suggest the rails over the 59 and screaming demon ?
My initial feeling was 59 in the neck and demon bridge.
 
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Re: Pickups for a japanese squier stratocaster.

I had one like that on the bench not very long ago. 1985 as well.

It got fitted with a JB Jr along with some american Fender singles. The JB Jr was real good, as was the middle single. The neck single didn't quite cut the mustard, seems as if it were a little weak.
Unplugged, the guitar sounded really clear, balanced and resonant, played great, sustained well, just didn't quite nail the tonal character of a great alder bodied strat. If I were to name what the guitar missed sound-wise, it would be texture. That's why, if I were in the same place again today, I'd want to stuff it with some kind of active pickups, ideally with a midboost. I'm thinking along the lines of Livewire Classics. That kind of setup could make it a versatile machine with a modern twist. Great for that polished pop / smooth jazz vibe as well as ready to rock hard and shred, while staying hum-free.

The thing about active pickups is they stay consistent tone-wise while you roll back the volume pot. So in fact you could have the ability to hit the preamp hard with the volume wide open, as well as retain that same crystal clear tone when rolled back a bit. The midboost lets you dial in more thickness, should the song call for a fatter tone.
 
Re: Pickups for a japanese squier stratocaster.

Thanks vinta9e. Interesting.
The active setup is one i didn't even think about it, perhaps i should.
My experience with active pickups is that they sound pretty cold, dark and way too modern for me. Now that i think about it maybe it was the POT, i should have upgraded to 1K.

but then again i only tried the EMG's. And David Gilmour seems to get pretty good bluesy tones out of actives.

I'll try to get more info and read reviews to figure out what the wires can do.
 
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Re: Pickups for a japanese squier stratocaster.

SSL1, keeping them a bit far from the string.
I have a '88 MIJ strat, I think it's closer to yours, same body wood I bet, the SSL1 are THE pickups for that guitar. They chime but they are beefy enough to push the amp if you hit hard and you use a little boost.
I don't like actives and single coil sized hb, sorry, they just don't work for me, I've always found them too muddy or lifeless or with weird frequencies emphasized (last one I bought the JBjr. for example mid shaped, one sound only, few things in common with his big brother)
 
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