Which Pickups do you recommend?

[Jan]

Hi everyone out there!

I want to fatten up my Fender Strat Plus 1996. Now it has 3x Lace Sensor Gold. The guitar itself sounds great: Great sustain and good feeling while playing. Pickups sound good for any clean and crunched sounds, but distortion really is noisy and full of treble with almost no punch. It´s got an alder body and a rosewood fretboard.

I want to reach the following: Bridge must have a lot of output and good punch in the basses (no mud). Neck should sound warm and clean for pearly clean and crunch stuff. The middle position should give me some twang like a tele or the quack of a strat. I play kinda alternative-rock. So it has to be this versatile...

What do you recommend? I thought of the following:

Bridge: Hotrails or JB jr.

(the Hotrail is kinda noisy in my Framus, but good punch. The JB jr. seems to have too much treble in the tone-chart)

Middle: SSL-1 reversed oder Twangbanger (?)

(hope that the output from the SSL-1 is high enough for the hotrails or jb)

Neck: Lil ´59 or Coolrails


Please help me, I´m kinda confused...

 

[Travis]

Re: Which Pickups do you recommend?

I'm a big supporter of the Hot Rails and Cool Rails. I've got a Hot Rails in the bridge of my Hamer Mirage and it's got no mud at all. It is nice and loud, crunchy with tons of harmonics. The Cool Rails I have in a mid position (neck position is on order right now) of one of my Charvels. It has a nice balanced, smooth tone able to keep up with the high output of the Hot Rails. Think of it more like a vintage humbucker. These two will definitely beef up your Strat. I have no experience with the SSL-1 or Twangbanger, but I opted for a Quarter Pounder for the mid position (matched with a JB and Cool Rails) to keep up with the output of the other two pickups.

 

[benji657]

Re: Which Pickups do you recommend?

if you don't mind a full sized humbucker for the bridge, i recommend a JB. It has a lot of output, its punchy, and not muddy.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Which Pickups do you recommend?

Personally, my favorite set of Strat pickups from SD is the Antiquity Texas Hot set with the Antiquity Custom Strat bridge pickup. My other favorite would be the SSL-1's for the neck and middle and then a hotter pickup for the bridge position, but that set is brighter and glassier and probably not what you want. The Texas Hots are fat, warm and chunky and still have a real vintage vibe. I can do anything with them: Dire Straits or SRV or Jeff Beck or whatever. At almost 10K, the Custom Strat bridge pickup is fat and toneful...probably my favorite Duncan Strat bridge pickup. Highly recommended. Lew