Quack for an HSH Strat

[NJLK]

I’m looking to replace the pickups in an HSH strat. I’m most likely going with 59/Custom Hybrid in the bridge and either a 59 or a Pearly Gates in the neck. But, I am unsure what pickup to use in the middle. I’d like it to be a noiseless singlecoil-sized pickup. But, my experience in wiring these up before has been that a singlecoil can be either too low output to pair with the humbuckers, or too shrill sounding. On the other hand, something like a Lil 59 sounds nothing like a strat pickup.

Looking for for something that will still be usable and strat-like on its own and give some quack in positions 2 and 4.

thanks!

 

[Mincer]

You might look at the Classic Stack. It can compete with many humbuckers, and it is a great stratty-sounding strong single coil.

 

[NJLK]

You might look at the Classic Stack. It can compete with many humbuckers, and it is a great stratty-sounding strong single coil.

Thanks! Would you use 500k or 250k pots with those and humbuckers?

 

[Ace Flibble]

If you care mostly about positions 2&4 rather than the middle pickup on its own, 500k will get you more 'quack'; the split humbucker coils will be a bit too dark and smooth with 250k. If you're up for making wiring a little more complicated for yourself, you can use 500k pots then wire in a 500k resistor parallel for the middle pickup, so the humbuckers will get the standard 500k controls while the single coil will 'see' 250k.

 

[Mincer]

I would make it easy and use 500k, unless you have a tone knob only for that pickup, then use 250k.

 

[Jack_TriPpEr]

You can wire in a resistor specific to the singlecoil pup so it sees the 500k pot as 250k. Read this article on the Fralin site, section "FAKING OUT YOUR SINGLE COILS WITH RESISTORS"


https://www.fralinpickups.com/2018/10/17/using-resistors-in-guitars-101/