Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Dahla

Dahla

New member
So I got a beautiful strat built by a friend of mine. It’s an early 60’s replica, and it’s awesome. But it’s no high gain monster. Right now, it has ant surfers.

I wanna use more, both live and in the band. But it needs to work with my other guitars, an explorer with BWs, an EPI MKH with EMG het set and a mahogany tele with JB and Sentient. The strat is alder with maple neck, rosewood fingerboard. Vintage trem.

The guitar is routed for SSS only, and I don’t want to route it out for humbuckers. Music heavy and downtuned to either D standard or drop-C. What do you guys recommend?


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Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

You want to take Antiquity Surfers OUT of a 60's replica strat? Sorry. I can't help you do that. It just isn't right.
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

On a more serious note, what do you expect this strat to do after the pickup swap that your other guitars won't already do better?
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Mr. B said:
On a more serious note, what do you expect this strat to do after the pickup swap that your other guitars won't already do better?
Click to expand...

This is a great question. And do you want it to look stock? (Something awesome to me about a vintage looking Strat with a flat board, big frets, Tusq nut, and some hot stacked pickups that look like regular Strat pickups.)
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Mr. B said:
You want to take Antiquity Surfers OUT of a 60's replica strat? Sorry. I can't help you do that. It just isn't right.
Click to expand...

Mr. B said:
On a more serious note, what do you expect this strat to do after the pickup swap that your other guitars won't already do better?
Click to expand...

Haha, right? Seems like blasphemy, I know.

On the serious note, I don’t expect it to do anyhing better than the guitars I already have. Except maybe one thing, since all my other guitars are hard tail and this one has a trem. But I really like the guitar. And I want to use it, to show it off and maybe help my builder friend. Letting people see it in the wild. But the thing is, low output singel coils is waaaaaaay inappropiate for what I do right now. And keeping one guitar at home for those «late night jams on the couch all alone» seems like a waste... [emoji848]

I dunno, maybe I shouldn’t desecrate the strat with high gain riffing. But indulge me at least. [emoji6]


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Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Most of Duncan's higher output single coils (even the new Red Devils) are still made to sound like hotter Strat pickups, which may not be what you are after. You've got the "Rails" pickups, but I find them very boring/sterile. Others really like them. There is the JB Jr, Li'l Demon, and the Little 59. They aren't going to LOOK like a traditional single coil, but may be more in line with your other pickups.

Dimarzio has some great choices too. Super Distortion-S, Chopper, Air Norton-S, Virtual Solo, etc.

Really depends on what you want the guitar to do.
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Mr. B said:
Most of Duncan's higher output single coils (even the new Red Devils) are still made to sound like hotter Strat pickups, which may not be what you are after. You've got the "Rails" pickups, but I find them very boring/sterile. Others really like them. There is the JB Jr, Li'l Demon, and the Little 59. They aren't going to LOOK like a traditional single coil, but may be more in line with your other pickups.

Dimarzio has some great choices too. Super Distortion-S, Chopper, Air Norton-S, Virtual Solo, etc.

Really depends on what you want the guitar to do.
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks!

What I want is just that it’s able to hold it together under gain. It doesn’t have to be a chuggachugga riff machine but a bit more chunky. And quiet!


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Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

I've been digging the DiMarzio Injectors in my S S S Bullet Strat. I'm just finally finishing off my first blog review in forever on these pickups. The bridge has a great blend of humbucker output and strat character, and can get pretty heavy with no real noise. The neck is a bit more tubuler and smoother sounding, but great for leads.

The SD YJMs are a fantastic option too.
 
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Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

LonePhantom said:
I've been digging the DiMarzio Injectors in my S S S Bullet Strat. I'm just finally finishing off my first blog review in forever on these pickups. The bridge has a great blend of humbucker output and strat character, and can get pretty heavy with no real noise. The neck is a bit more tubuler and smoother sounding, but great for leads.

The SD YJMs are a fantastic option too.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I’ll check ‘em out.


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Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

You can boost those pickups to the moon and they wont do what you want them to do. They frequencies they feed the amp are different and wont dirty up in the same way. A boost pedal is good if you need a little volume or grit. Not if you need more girth.

My favorite single sized humbuckers at the moment at the Dimarzio sugar chakras. They are pretty ballsy and push the amp much more like a traditional humbucker. You can use them with like pro track in the neck and mid spots and they hang pretty well.
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Edgecrusher said:
You can boost those pickups to the moon and they wont do what you want them to do. They frequencies they feed the amp are different and wont dirty up in the same way. A boost pedal is good if you need a little volume or grit. Not if you need more girth.

My favorite single sized humbuckers at the moment at the Dimarzio sugar chakras. They are pretty ballsy and push the amp much more like a traditional humbucker. You can use them with like pro track in the neck and mid spots and they hang pretty well.
Click to expand...

Never tried em, YET. The Billy Corgans seem like they could do the job
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Actually, the resonance switch on the Pickup Booster does a great job at adding that 'girth' to the signal.
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

This might not be in your realm of “heavy” but my strat has lace red, silver, blue. The red sounds good with a lot of gain and I do a fair amount of trem picking and heavy chugging. Without the gain, they kind of sound boring and similar to a rail pickup.

I’d get a lil pearly gates or screaming demon and then use the surfer in the neck for some clean leads over heavy saturated rhythm.
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

I've hot the duncan hot rails neck in my HS strat with a black winter bridge. In terms of output it definitely keeps up and sounds muy bueno with the 500ks, it does shine under the higher gain settings, the "sterile" clean sound I keep reading about is to my ears is like an HB with the tone rolled halfway off, with the tone dimed on the rail and gets muddier as you taper down. It retains an all around "warmness" to the sound and sounds good for 80s metal type liquid soloing, and it fuzzez up a bit on the bass, can be good or bad. For my uses (heavy, funky, bluesy rock and hard rock) it pretty much lives in the high gain chorus solo situations. It performs admirably in most higher to high gain settings, I personally will be swapping for a full size HB (thinking sentient), but mine is routed for a neck HB.
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

Get a loaded pickguard with either the Everything Axe set or the Dave Murray set
 
Re: Pickups for a strat (hard rock/high gain)

This idea that the single coil size Seymour Duncan humbuckers don't sound like real humbuckers is poppycock. I should know...I've been using them since 1995. I've currently got guitars bridge loaded with a JB Jr and a Red Devil. I also have a guitar with a full size humbucker in it (Gibson Burstbucker type2). I have had CONSIDERABLE experience with Gibson 498T and Angus Young Signature as well. Album recordings, rehearsals, live shows...the SD single coil size buckers are great all the way around. They are definitely real humbuckers.
 
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