strat pickup advice - lil 59, cool rail, jb jr

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jaguarguitar

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i am in the process of upgrading an old MIM strat.

i would say the genre of music i am making is a combo of jazz, rock, blues, and pop - elements of these genres. this is a rough demo that gives an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZWk_7Il5Nk

i have got a vega-trem for it. now im looking at upgrading the pickups from fender vintage noiseless (these https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/fender-vintage-noiseless-strat-pickups/12470648 ​) - they are way too shrill for my liking.

i noticed, i tend towards fatter/heavier tones. initially i listened to all the pickups on the seymour duncan site, and leaned towards getting 2 hot rails (bridge, middle), and a jb jr in the neck.

after reading and re-listening, i can see that the hot rails may be too dark and take away from the tone of a strat. they seem to have no/little top end - which is alright, but i dont want to swing too much the other way from the trebley noiseless.

so now im thinking: lil 59 in bridge, cool rail for middle, and a jb jr in the neck.

ideally i would like to use the liberator? system, but i also want to incorporate the push-pull volume for coil tapping.

is this possible? if its not worth it, i might just do regular soldered wiring with a push-pull pot using the '3 humbucking coils, 1 push pull volume, 1 tone' diagram on the seymour site.
 

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i have a strat with hot rails neck and bridge with a tapped single coil in the middle. master volume, master tone. 500k volume and 250k tone. p/p tone to select the single coil output. for the neck and bridge pups, i use a 4pdt on/on/on switch where the 1st tone control would usually be. it allows me to switch both pups at the same time, series/split/parallel. the hot rails are a bit dark in series, which is great for somethings. the split and parallel options are brighter and lower output. a 500k tone pot would brighten things up a touch more as well. my point is you can get a lot of good tones from a hot rails with the right switching.

as far as lil 59 bridge, cool rails middle, jb jr neck... that could be a great setup. i tried all those pups at one point or another, just not together.
 
Keep in mind that all 3 of those pickups are very very different than the Fender Noiseless- they don't sound like single coils at all. If that's what you are after...great! It is a fantastic set. Also the Liberator makes things really easy, especially if you are into swapping pickups a lot. You still have to solder the Liberator in, though.
 
If you just want a small change in order to warm up the tone you get from the bright single coils you've got, you're not going to like those three pups...except for maybe the Cool Rails. The lil 59 and JB Jr are warm sounding even for humbuckers and not at all Strat sounding.

As Jeremy suggested, however, a Hot Rails with split and parallel options could give you some tonal variety.

You might get some useful tones without deviating too far from the Strat singles by using:
Hot Rails with series/split/parallel for bridge,
A warmer Strat single coil in middle,
Cool Rails in neck.
 
thanks for the advice everyone! i think im going to stick with the cool rails + jb jr + lil 59 setup. theres some interesting ideas y'all mentioned regarding the series/parallel switching - but i think i like the idea of just a single push/pull and coil splitting all three pups. part of it is simplicity too, as im still learning about wiring pups.

is it possible to incorporate the liberator with a push pull? i cant find much information on how the liberator is wired/works/documentation, or if i can just use a 250 push pull pot with it.

i think the appeal of the liberator is - in case i dont like the pup selections i made - i can easily swap em out or around in the future.

thanks again!
 
Well, a Liberator is a regular pot with an easy way to connect to it- it isn't a push/pull. You would have to add that to the tone knob. Also, you can split 2 pickups with a push/pull, but not 3. But splitting the 'little' size humbuckers isn't a super-useful sound due to the smaller coils. Parallel is a much better option (and stays hum-cancelling) if you want a clearer, chime-y sound out of them.
 
A single push-pull will do one pup parallel, or two pups split. An S-1 switch will do all three split or parallel. You can do a push pull with a Liberator, but both the Liberator and push-pull take a little extra space. Especially the Liberator. So you could probably do a Liberator volume, and then a push-pull on the 2nd tone pot. You might be able to squeeze a push-pull into the 1st tone pot position. (See photo.)

BTW, a Cool Rails parallel, is a virtual Vintage Rails. An underrated, and often overlooked, pup in the Duncan line. Sweet and Strat-ish, and noiseless.

Strat_Liberator.jpg
 
I have the DP188 at the neck, JB Jr. In the bridge position, and a RWRP APS-1 in the middle, c with a Fender S-1 switch in the volume knob, that switched the 2 Humbuckers between series and parallel. Lots of tonal options...
 
I have a Strat that has a Lil 59 bridge, hot stack middle and a cool rail in the neck. It’s not the guitar I grab first for anything but if I want one guitar that will do anything it’s the one.

image.jpg zz0.lr3jzkzkd2zz
 
hi everyone, so i still haven't pulled the trigger yet. too many options!

i came across these Antiquity II Surfer pups by Seymour Duncan. any experience with them? this is far different than what i initially intended with my '59/jb/cool' setup which would be more versatile. im thinking, maybe forget the versatility, i want what sounds 'good' or unique to me.

i wanted to share this old jam i have with my sort of 'sound' guitar wise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jn1YlnlBI&ab_channel=stringsnare

i use lots of stacked/bassy chords but also you can hear in that clip around 9 seconds is the heavy whammy use...what i stupidly realised this last week after some reflection, was my surf influence! which i got i think, from SRV who used his whammy based off his surf influence as well (Pipeline was a song i learned as a kid).

my influences are so varied that i would not expect one guitar to do it all.

so now, im thinking maybe just a straight set of those surf pickups? or perhaps a mix? the amp i used for that recording above is a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III Tweed Edition if that matters at all.

my only concern with the Surf pickups is 'noise'. Is there a noise-cancelled version of them? I liked what I heard in the demos online - they sounded a bit darker than other more 'bell'/'chimey' pups like my current vintage noiseless.

so here are some options:
- just a set of antiquity II surf for all 3 positions
- Lil 59 (bridge), antiquity II surf (middle, neck)
- lil 59 (bridge), antiquity ii (middle), jb jr (neck)

can these pups be mixed and matched? since the jb+lil59 are more 'humbucking' style...
 
The Surfers are about the bell/chimiest pickups you can get. There isn't a noiseless version, though, so you'd have 60 cycle hum. That didn't bother the original bands making surf records, so it might not bother you. I mean, SRV used single coils, too. The hum only gets out of control with a lot of gain and a lot of volume. So, stacked pickups are always a compromise. Also, you can certainly mix little humbuckers with single coils, but you'd get hum when the singles are active. And the little humbuckers sound nothing like single coils, except the Duckbuckers and Vintage Rails.
 
it's not a single coil sound but , if you want to stay noiseless, I have a Dimarzio pro track in one of mine and it's definitely a good pickup, it gives you a real paf tone even with standard 250k pots.
I had a Hot Rails too but it's way way to muddy for my taste.
I tried the Duncan JbJr in the past bit we didn't came along.
If you want a beefier single coil, bit it's noisey like a standard single, the Dimarzio FS-1 is the best single coil for bridge position I've ever mounted, I like it more than the SSL-5 which has a too prominent Q on the resonance frequency
 
Never tried a cool rails, but could be cool;) (if i would find one used, i would try it, but they are not too popular)
Read that it's more like a jazz SH-2

I really like my SSL-5/6 in the neck with high value pots, but i agree that the FS-1 has a more spikey resonance and therefore is a bit closer to a trad. single coil.

Prefer the Chopper to the Lil59​
 
the surfer set is fantastic if you want an early 60s strat sound with the normal bridge. the custom bridge is great and id guess most people would prefer it over the vintage setup. the surfers are vintage type single coils, relatively low output and bright, but compared to say a late 60's strat pup, they sound a big thicker and meatier. to me, the ants hit the sweet spot for vintage tone. i dont find noise to be an issue. im a blues rock player and most of my playing is gigs, i dont find noise to be an issue 90% of the time. there are some clubs that have shitty power or huge old neon signs (the rum boogie in memphis has the old stax neon behind the stage, and its a nightmare, for example) during a song, no one hears the hum. its only when its quiet, so i roll my volume off. problem solved
 
ToneFiddler said:
Never tried a cool rails, but could be cool;) (if i would find one used, i would try it, but they are not too popular)
Click to expand...

And that's a shame. The Cool Rails is in my "Top 3" favorite Duncan pups. Sweet, clean, spanky & punchy.

If you were in the USA, I'd send you one to try out. Shipping, and customs, to Europe might be a beach.
 
ArtieToo said:
And that's a shame. The Cool Rails is in my "Top 3" favorite Duncan pups. Sweet, clean, spanky & punchy.

If you were in the USA, I'd send you one to try out. Shipping, and customs, to Europe might be a beach.
Click to expand...

I agree with this for, just thinking about tonight swapping my lil 59 out and moving the cool rails back to the bridge and putting a loose vintage stack into the neck of that guitar.
 
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