SSL-5 neck and middle replacements for strat/pickup advice

[tritheory]

Hello,

I have a 1962 AV RI strat that has been re-radius to compound 7.25 to 12.0 and 6100 frets....The guitar has a SSL-5 in neck and middle and SSL-3 in bridge with baseplate.

I like the bridge pickup for the rock stuff that I mostly play, but the neck and middle pickup are not real strat sounding and almost too much output and not bright enough sounding for the neck and middle...Especially in high gain type applications...

Can I put lower output pickups in the neck and middle positions and keep the SSL-3 as is? or will be trouble with output differences between positions.

I was thinking Antiquity surfers for neck and middle or APS-1 for neck, SSL-1 for middle, RW/RP....

Tones I am looking for in neck and middle: Eric Johnson, David Gilmour, Yngwie, Knopfler, SRV, Hendrix, real bubbly, warm, liquid type strat type sound for leads and nice glassy, in between cluck, bell-like tone for cleans....

Wondering what your recommendations are?

Also how does the texas hot bridge with baseplate compare to the SSL-3 with baseplate I have in there now?

Thanks,


Steve

 

[Artie]

Re: SSL-5 neck and middle replacements for strat/pickup advice

Hey Steve; Its funny, but you have almost the exact same setup that I have. (Or will have soon.) The SSL-5's and 6's are the same pup except for staggered or flat. I have 3 SSL-6's and have an SSL-3 bridge on the way.

If you're going to buy new pups anyway, you could just go with tapped versions of what you already have. One of my 6's is tapped, and the 3 will be also. You can keep what you have now, and transition to a more "vintage" tone at the flip of a switch.

Just a thought.

One last thing, I notice that I only need one of my pups to be tapped, (the middle), for it to create the classic "notch" position sound for both pup combo's - neck/middle and middle/bridge. I'm not sure why that is, but you could try just replacing the middle pup to start with. Then replace the neck if you aren't completely satisfied with that.

Artie

 

[tritheory]

Re: SSL-5 neck and middle replacements for strat/pickup advice

I actually wish that I would of gotton all of these pickups in the tapped version. But I didn't...I have some other strats that have fender fat 50's, vintage noiseless, classic stacks in the neck and middle and really like the sound of them better.....


Steve

 

[tritheory]

Re: SSL-5 neck and middle replacements for strat/pickup advice

Can you mix Antiquity...Thinking Texas hot neck, Surfer RW/RP middle and my SSL-3 with baseplate for bridge....

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: SSL-5 neck and middle replacements for strat/pickup advice

Can you mix Antiquity...Thinking Texas hot neck, Surfer RW/RP middle and my SSL-3 with baseplate for bridge....

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Steve

The Surfer and Texas Hot are out of phase with each other so you need to reverse the black and white wires on one. Also, you'd want to use neck models of both as they are reverse wound/reverse polarity compared to each other already. I could help you with selecting the right pickups so everything would be in phase and so you'd have humcancelling when you combine the middle pickup with either the neck or middle. It's a little complicated but easily done. Lew

 

[tritheory]

Re: SSL-5 neck and middle replacements for strat/pickup advice

Lew,

I sent you an email...

Thanks,

Steve