Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

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NickCormier

New member
I dunno if im keeping my strat, its either keep this or get a tele (with BKP bridge and duncan jazz humbucker neck) - but Im looking at options on my strat. I love how it feels of course, but i hate how the stock pickups sound (its like really crappy stock, its a turser body so lol) - I just find strat pickups in general have such a compressed sound..

So, what I am looking for, is opinions on the most versatile, awesome sounding pickups to fill the H-S-S config, ideally affordable (so I wont be getting BKPs for this most likely)

I play mostly funk and jazz, so clean tones are #1 priority.. think Wes Montgomery, Jamiroquai, Tower of Power, Jimi Hendrix, all the way to like RHCP and even Maroon 5's guitar tone. I know thats typical strat "quack" but ideally, I'd like to achieve that with noiseless pickups. Think thats possible?

Overall though, I like really smooth lead tones. The Dimarzio thing never worked for me ever.. I believe Alnico magnets satisfy me while ceramic seem to always dissapoint. hmm

For the humbucker, I want it to split well for that funky stuff, but also work good for metal. I was thinking of using a Duncan Jazz in the bridge, think that would work? I love the jazz, its my fav neck pickup by far.. but I wonder how it'd do on rhythm duty.

any suggestions under $150 for a complete set? In a white pearloid HSS strat pickguard would be perfect actually.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

I know you said noiseless, but I think a cool combo would be aps-1 neck, ssl-1 mid, & your jazz bridge. As long as you get one of those singles in RW/RP, you can wire it for 3 out of the 5 positions being humbucking.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

Jazz bridge? Nah.

Get a random JB, they can be had for cheap and split well. Or a DD.

Cheapish and good singles are plain SSL1s but they have noise. The noiseless I liked best so far is the lace sensor gold, which can also be had very cheap since they came in a lot of Fender and were changed out.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

not a fan of JB's much.. they are a good "middle ground" pickup that does everything ok but nothing great, imo
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

uOpt said:
Jazz bridge? Nah.

Get a random JB, they can be had for cheap and split well. Or a DD.
Click to expand...

A Distortion or a JB to primarily play clean funk & jazz? I'll borrow a word, nah. Also, just my opinion, but noiseless singles have gotten WAY better than Lace golds since the 20 (or so) years since they were introduced.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

HSS never did it for me. neither does HSH.
belive it or not i reckon you get more versatility from either SSS or HH.

Here's why:

firstly a couple of generalizations:
sc pups like 250k pots - 500s make them too bright/brittle
hums like 500k pots cos 250s make them too dark and compressed
sc's like .047uf caps whereas .047uf takes away too many highs on a humbucker.

so...
when you wire up your HSS...what volume pot you gonna choose? what tone pots and what caps?
somewhere along the way they will share the volume pot etc.. What that means is you have to choose which pups you want to sound best - either the hum or the 2 singles.
What that means is you get a guitar with a couple of great tones and a couple of uninspiring ones.
Also, you have output and eq mismatches when you mix sc's and hums. this is a problem too, cos if you set your amp up for a killler strat type neck tone, then the bridge will sound muffled. If you set up the amp for the humbucker to rip, then the neck pups will sound thin and reedy.
So what you end up with is and axe that is actually less versatile, cos it either only sounds really killer in a couple of its positions, or you just end up compromizing on your pots and amp set up and get a guitar that does nothing really well.

So SSS gives you five killer tones of you choose your set carefully - maybe get a hotter bridge pup if you want the extra kick in the pants for the amp.
HH gives you 3 killer tones - but a pair of hums is also very flexible and forgiving when it comes to using your volume and tones - so thats a great axe too.
Even HHH can be really great (such as 3 sc sized humbuckers) - but of course just like HH, it wont do true sc sounds.


ssh gives you (if its set up for the singles) 3 killer tones and 2 not so good.
or (if its set up for the humbucker) 1 killer tone and 4 not so good ones.

there has not been an axe created that can cover ALL sounds and styles perfectly...so what you have to do is choose what sounds are most important to you, and go from there.


ok so fwiw heres what id do if i wanted maximum versatility but still have killer sounds:
jazz/jb set with push pulls to coil tap. Set the whole thing up with pots and caps for humbuckers.
that way youll have 3 killer humbucker sounds - plus all the flexibility of being able to use your vol/tone knobs....
plus 3 more sc sounds (not so killer admittedly - but jbs split pretty well for the odd occasion you really want the sc sound)
plus...bridge hum and split neck
and neck hum and split bridge.
so you end up with 8 sounds.....thats pretty versatile really....
 
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Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

Good points, gib. But, if he went with something really bright w/low dc res like the Jazz he's talking about using, don't you think he'd minimize those issues? I imagine, as you say, there'd still be a volume jump (I've never tried a Jazz-b), but 250k pots probably do okay with it.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

lots of ppl use pg bridges in strats hss setups it quite popular. but a quick search will find they have the same issues. I think there was one recently where a bro installed an HSS (pgb) and loved it, then posted a week later how he could fix the mismatches etc.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

I've got a JB with 2 Kinman singles, 2 x 250k pots and a .001 cap on the tone pot.
The key to it for me, was to set the JB at 4/32 on both E's.

Total versatility. :friday:
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

Some of favorite strat HSS combos are:

Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates & Texas Specials
PATB-1 & PA-STK
Breed & Injector
Air Norton & Heavy Blues II
Suhr Aldrich & Suhr Single Coils
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

Regarding the pots issue, I circumvented it by having a seperate volume pot for the bridge/rest of guitar. I also worked through a new wiring to give me the following options, though you'll need super switch:

1) neck
2) neck + mid parrallel
3) bridge + neck parrallel
4) split bridge + middle
5) bridge

HSSwiring-1.png

(this is lacking the second tone pot but it's easy to place it)

The tone control in my guitar works for the entire guitar, and I have volume (bridge) + volume (neck + middle). I.e. I can preset a clean sound on positions 5 or 4, and come back to an overdriven sound on position 1. Works a charm and it sounds incredible with the right pickups.

My favorite combos so far:

Duncan APII Pro + APS1 + APS1
Duncan '59 + SSL1 + SSL1

And I'm soon about to try a CustomCustom + SSL6 + SSL6 for more beef.
I also really liked the Bareknuckle Crawler and right now I'm liking the DiMarzio AT-1 although it's not as thick as its Duncan/Bareknuckle counterparts.
 
Re: Suggest me: Strat (HSS) pickups for max versatility

i have an ssl1 neck, an aps1 middle and a phat cat (A5/A8) in the bridge. 500k pots with resistors for the singles to make them see 250k pots, works for me.
 
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