Re: Should I upgrade my Kramer Striker Fr-422 sm?
the dime o flame is mahogany, body and neck, also the guitar has way more mass than a superstrat, if the quad bucker sounds muddy in an alder superstrat, this means the thing has good bass response, and is a good candidate to the dimebucker, no really, i had the dime pickup on my V (the one on my avatar) and the V really had a clarity problem, so much that the only things aside from the dimebucker wich sounded nice, with clarity, articulation, note separation, were paf type p'ups (Pearly Gates by example)
about tone, the sound is kind of tricky but gratefull, i mean, you want dime, hell yes you can nail pantera, want blues, there's an almost unknow pair of controls hide on you guitar, wich most metal guys, and a lot of players just set at 10, and are called, volume and tone knobs, the Dimebucker, amogst other p'ups, as the X2N, Black Winter, etc.... had the curios caracteristic that despite their riculously stupid level of output, they actually gift you when you mess with these 2 knobs, letting you go from Cannibal Corpse, Sodom, Obscura, to Candlemass, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, even ZZ top or AC/DC
now about tone, you just had the every 80's Thrasher/ Death Metaller /Shredder dream, an Alder Body Maple Neck super strat, want thrash bay area, slap the bridge with either a JB or a Distortion, 80's Thrash Distortion or Dimebucker, Death Metal, Invader or Alternative 8, want Necrophagist, Megadeth and Death, all in the same guitar, did i told you about the Dimebucker or Black Winter?, neck and middle, hot rails are not your thing, no problem, not everybody likes the hotrails, not even some metal dudes, had you checked the hot stack (the one with the only fat roud rail), it is so sweet for blues but also can be so evil and angry for metal, the vintage hot stack is also there if you want big ol' bluesy and punchy tone on your neck, for some cleans it is so beautifull sounding, imho what i seem fits you better is the dime, the hot stack and the vintage hot stack, if you had the advantege of living in the :usa: if after some weeks one of the p'ups doesn't blend with the axe you can use the 21 day exchange policy
sorry for the wall of text, but really dude, give that sugestion a try, the pickup you didn't liked/hated :angryfire in one guitar can end becoming your beloved holy grail :headbang: in a diferent one......
Edit, PD. damn!, now that i read i'm so redundant with what i write sometimes, it keeps that way, is hard to conscious write about tone after a :beerchug: beerfull jam