Strat neck pickup advice

[daishan1981]

Hi all,

I have a Blade RH-4, which is basically kind of a souped up stratocaster, and I'm very happy with it. It has two stock Levinson single-coil noiseless pickups (I'm told they resemble the Fender "laser" ones from the late eighties?) and it has a humbucker in the bridge.
This might help:
http://www.bladeguitars.com/models/rh4_classic.html

I'm a pianist/keyboards player by profession and I own one guitar that I want to do pretty much everything with, which for me basically amounts to funky chops and the occasional rock chord comping in a home studio situation. The latter part is where I run into trouble. While the bridge humbucker functions perfectly for leads and such, it's rather biting for backings. I'd like to have neck humbucker for that, but at the same time, I don't really want to lose "that strat sound".

So, basically, I'm looking for a single-coil-sized humbucker that splits well for funk licks, yet gives me a fatter tone for when I kick in the drives and distortions. And as the "tone wizard" does little to help me with that specific question, I figured I'd ask the experts here

Any advice? (or more questions?)

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

I don't really care for the split tones of any of the single coil size humbuckers I've owned. To thin and weak.

So I can only tell you what I like in terms of a Strat neck pickup that's either a single coil or a humbucking Stack.

In terms of the Stack it's the new Stack Plus. Noiseless but classic vintage early 60's Strat pickup tone.

In terms of a great single coil, I like the Duncan Custom Shop Antiquity Surfers or its Duncan assembly line counterpart the SSL-1 for bright but big and deep SRV, Hendrix and funk tones.

A little warmer with more mids and a smoother tone is the Antiquity Texas Hot or it's assembly line counterpart the APS-1 or 2.

The Antiquitys are worth the extra dough but the SSL-1 and APS-1 or the flat poled APS-2 version are also superb.

 

[daishan1981]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

I should add that I've looked around some and have thought about the Rio Grande Tallboy, which is basically two completely single-coil pickups wired as one humbucker, giving it an excellent split. The main problem is that it's BIG. It's not just that it's regular humbucker size, it's also DEEP. And that means cutting both my pickguard as well as wood from the guitar and I'm not prepared to do that. Hence the need for a single-coil sized one. Really, the single-coil sound is most important, but what I currently have is not bad at all in that respect; I'd just like that fatty humbucker rock drive too...

I saw on SD's site that the Stag Mag is a similar concept, but there's again the size issue and it supposedly is a rather weak humbucker. On top of that, it's technically calculated to go on the bridge.

So here I am, looking for options
Thanks for the advice so far

 

[Inge Malmstein]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

I saw on SD's site that the Stag Mag is a similar concept, but there's again the size issue and it supposedly is a rather weak humbucker. On top of that, it's technically calculated to go on the bridge.

Well, that might say the duncan tonechart, but that's not true.
The StagMag is a great neck pickup, very overlooked in this case.
For a bridge pickup the StagMag is too trebly and not fat enough.

 

[daishan1981]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

Sounds good. Except that I'd still have to cut more wood out of my guitar and quite possibly ruin my pickguard, grrr...
Am I looking for something impossible?

 

[Inge Malmstein]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

Maybe the coil rails? Something between Hotrails and Single-Coil and you can split it.

 

[Leveller]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

Maybe the coil rails? Something between Hotrails and Single-Coil and you can split it.

or maybe even vintage rails?

 

[Inge Malmstein]

Re: Strat neck pickup advice

The Vintage rails has no hum, but sounds like a single-coil.
You can't split the vintage rails and it already sounds like splitted.
So you can't get a fat tone of it.