Wanting to beef up my American Strat...Help!

T

twebb0716

New member
I have an american special strat with the HSS configuration. I love the look and feel of the guitar and it plays amazing. I'm normally a humbucker guy though and these single coils are just to thin for my taste. The humbucker sounds ok but even it could use a little more bottom end and growl. I want to replace my pickups to give me more warmth, fatness, and bottom end on the clean side and more bottom end and growl and sustain on the dirty side.

I mostly play in a modern p&w band. Our style is heavier than contemporary p&w more alternative rock. I also enjoy playing really heavy metal/death metal so I'm looking for a pretty versatile set up pickups. I've been playing guitar for a while but I'm pretty new to pickup changing. I'm really sure I'm looking for high output humbuckers and hum cancelling single coils, but I honestly don't know and I hate to lay out the cash the the work without some input from people who know more about this than me. Thanks for any help!
 
Re: Wanting to beef up my American Strat...Help!

I don't know what p&w is, but a good setup for the rest would be a JB or Custom/Vintage Rails/Hot Rails. That will cover just about anything.
 
Re: Wanting to beef up my American Strat...Help!

The custom really looks like it's what I'm looking for. Is there a major difference between the custom and the custom custom? The Little 59 seems like a good fit for the neck for what I'm looking for as well. What do you think? It says the little 59 works for middle and neck so maybe I could go with two of those along with the custom. One thing I have always wondered though is why you would have the same pickup in 2 different positions? Does the wiring of each position give the same pickup a different sound at the neck and middle?
 
Re: Wanting to beef up my American Strat...Help!

twebb0716 said:
The custom really looks like it's what I'm looking for. Is there a major difference between the custom and the custom custom? The Little 59 seems like a good fit for the neck for what I'm looking for as well. What do you think? It says the little 59 works for middle and neck so maybe I could go with two of those along with the custom. One thing I have always wondered though is why you would have the same pickup in 2 different positions? Does the wiring of each position give the same pickup a different sound at the neck and middle?
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Its the distance between the 2 identical pickups combined in parallel that give that Strat Quack. You could try slightly differing pickups with good results, but YMMV.

I know its not what you say you want, but I'd vote for keeping a single in the neck and middle or Vintage Rails (My experience with stacks left me wanting something more), then pick one of the humbuckers mentioned above. SSL-1's are fine. Ilitch Electronics makes a backplate to cancel most of the noise if you elect single coil. Adjustment makes a lot of difference.

Wire up for auto split in Position 2 (split humbucker and middle).
 
Re: Wanting to beef up my American Strat...Help!

I think I'm sold on the custom. It seems like exactly what I'm looking for. I'm leaning towards doing a little 59 in the neck and the middle because it's described as having the warm and darker tone I'm really looking for. It was mentioned above and I've heard elsewhere that the hot rails in the neck and a vintage in the middle is a good combo as well though, kinda torn between those two options.
 
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