Having invested in a VOX AC4HW1 amp I feel that I need to upgrade the electronics in my trusty old alder bodied yamaha to try and do some justice to the amp! I realise I could probably upgrade the whole guitar but I love the action on the yamaha and it has that good ol' sentimental value 
However, the volume and tone pots are all scratchy and I can't imagine its pickups were ever really that brilliant, so in some ways anything might be an improvement! That all said, it's an HSH combination and I was contemplating swapping them out for the following:
Neck: Jazz neck DCR 7.5
Middle: Classic Stack Plus Strat Middle DCR 8.6
Bridge: Alnico II Pro HB Bridge DCR 8.4
I thought I might need a trembucker owing to the vibrato arm but the spacing from middle of E to middle of E seems to be bang on 2 inches at the bridge pickup so I think a humbucker will be fine? Am generally looking for clean sounds, more jazz or blues than metal / hard rock. Strings I use are typically Ernie Balls super slinky's 9-42's in case that makes any difference. The current single coil installed always seemed particularly feeble so I wanted something that would be on a par with the humbuckers in the middle. Given the DCRs, and what folks know about these pickups, do you think these would balance out ok?
I am also tempted to replace the 5 way selector with a 3 way selector (assuming that is possible - I think I would use a tele selector right instead of the strat?) and just be able to choose each of the pickups in isolation. My thinking for that is that I never really make use of positions 2 and 4 currently. However, I wonder if that's because the middle pickup is a bit feeble and with better pickups the 2 and 4 become more useful? Presumably the norm would be to split the middle with half of the humbuckers, would that work with the above options in terms of RWRP or not for the middle? Are there any advantages to going with a 3-way selector, perhaps simplicity of wiring? Another thought I had was to use 2 and 4 to just select half of the humbuckers only. Again I was curious if that would be possible / what other folks would do here?
Thanks in advance for any tips or advice!
Daniel
However, the volume and tone pots are all scratchy and I can't imagine its pickups were ever really that brilliant, so in some ways anything might be an improvement! That all said, it's an HSH combination and I was contemplating swapping them out for the following:Neck: Jazz neck DCR 7.5
Middle: Classic Stack Plus Strat Middle DCR 8.6
Bridge: Alnico II Pro HB Bridge DCR 8.4
I thought I might need a trembucker owing to the vibrato arm but the spacing from middle of E to middle of E seems to be bang on 2 inches at the bridge pickup so I think a humbucker will be fine? Am generally looking for clean sounds, more jazz or blues than metal / hard rock. Strings I use are typically Ernie Balls super slinky's 9-42's in case that makes any difference. The current single coil installed always seemed particularly feeble so I wanted something that would be on a par with the humbuckers in the middle. Given the DCRs, and what folks know about these pickups, do you think these would balance out ok?
I am also tempted to replace the 5 way selector with a 3 way selector (assuming that is possible - I think I would use a tele selector right instead of the strat?) and just be able to choose each of the pickups in isolation. My thinking for that is that I never really make use of positions 2 and 4 currently. However, I wonder if that's because the middle pickup is a bit feeble and with better pickups the 2 and 4 become more useful? Presumably the norm would be to split the middle with half of the humbuckers, would that work with the above options in terms of RWRP or not for the middle? Are there any advantages to going with a 3-way selector, perhaps simplicity of wiring? Another thought I had was to use 2 and 4 to just select half of the humbuckers only. Again I was curious if that would be possible / what other folks would do here?
Thanks in advance for any tips or advice!
Daniel
