Strat replacement/upgrade pickups?

[Matt P]

What about catswhisker pickups? I think he makes a p90 in a strat casing, and they're mostly made to order, get your son to explain what sound he wants and he'll build it. I'm on my phone so I can't post a link, sorry.

Matt

[Roger2611]

Seymour Duncan used to offer a pick up booster pedal which, from memory, had a switch that made a single coil sound like a humbucker or a humbucker sound like a single coil, I think you can pick them up for about £30.00 that way it would save you having to alter the guitar and may just give you what you want.

[3below]

[quote name='noelk27' timestamp='1385168325' post='2285363']
Could, instead of spending £100 or £150 on pickups, spend the money on a guitar with buckers. The Yamaha Pacifica 120H is seriously good bang for the buck - £200 to £220.
[/quote]

This is good advice, particularly with the low price of kit at the moment. I have a cheapie Yamaha with h/b pickups, it is just as playable than my USA strats. I put Kinman pickups in my USA strat - the improvement was light and day, however they are not cheap. It would have been better value to trade guitar in for another. It has a baseball bat neck and an ash body to die for which is why I did the upgrade.

[6v6]

If it's only the bridge pickup, and you don't want to rout for a full sized humbucker (which is probably the "best" solution IMO as it opens up the options of what you can fit so much), the Seymour Duncan Lil-59 is a decent sounding single-coil sized humbucker. I had one fitted to my Strat for years, to cover heavier songs in our set. There are lots of other single-coil sized humbuckers out there which would also do the job in a reversible way.

The other option to consider is wiring the tone controls so the bottom one works only on the bridge pickup - this is what I now do (with a set of Lindy Frailin vintage hots), and you roll off the bridge pickup tone, and boost the mids with an Ibanez tube-screamer overdrive pedal (or similar). This gets close enough to the humbucker tone for me, and retains the single-coil bridge sound when you need it.

Yet another option is an active mid boost (Eric Clapton has been using this for years in his Strats), like [url="http://www.dc-developments.com/cornell_active_circuit_ST.htm"]this one from Cornell.[/url]

If you go for fitting a full sized humbucker, check out the Wikinson pickups if you want something inexpensive but good, I don't think they do single-coil sized humbuckers tho.

[chris_b]

Only one guitarist I play with uses a Gibson, the rest use various Fenders and they all sound great without using Humbuckers.

A very noisy (and good) guitarist in one of my bands uses a Strat with Texas Special pickups.

If guys I play with are anything to go by, the most flexible way they beef up their sound is via some good pedals.

[Conan]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1386586566' post='2301688']
If guys I play with are anything to go by, the most flexible way they beef up their sound is via some good pedals.
[/quote]

Yes, but as we say in the bass world - sh*t in = sh*t out.

If he is unhappy with the tone of the pickup in the first place, he is unlikely to like it after some outboard sound processing.

Anyway, after all this it looks like we have an alternative solution! He is planning to keep his Strat as it is and fix up his old Jim Deacon SG copy. Best of both worlds maybe?

Kids eh?

[Bassnut62]

I have an MIJ '54 Strat from the early '90s and it is a stunningly good instrument.
It plays better than any other Strat I've tried; but I didn't rate the pups much either.
They were USA Custom Shop '50s pups and original to the guitar.
They were a bit too weak and lacked definition.
After much research I settled on a new set of Lindy Fralin Hot Vintage pups with the base plate under the bridge pup, plus a rewire to allow the bridge pup to be included in all settings (via push/push pot for bridge pup tone control).
The base plate under the bridge pup makes it sound fatter.

These upgrades have retained all the classic sounds of a vintage Strat, plus they offer a hotter signal to push amp, and it throws in a Tele option via the rewired push/push switch.

Above all, those over-wound Lindy Fralin pups are fatter sounding and offer much more definition than the standard USA Fender pups.

I know this isn't a humbucker set up; but it definitely kicks out more fat heat when required and is a good way of retaining the original character of a great guitar that is already considered a classic by many.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Bassnut62

[randythoades]

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1385211862' post='2285643']
I`ve got a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck Junior in mine - same size as a regular Strat pickup. Really changes a Strat to having plenty of guts to the sound. I`ve used mine in a rock band doing Velvet Revolver/Guns N Roses type music and it wasn`t found lacking in any way.

[url="http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/electric/stratocaster/high-output/jb_jr_sjbj1/"]http://www.seymourdu...ut/jb_jr_sjbj1/[/url]
[/quote]

I also used the Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge position of my 94 MIJ strat when I was doing classic rock, Free, Bad Company, Sabbath etc and found it very good, but then I found a small company called Catswhisker pickups in Birmingham which custom make pickups to your requirements. For less than the JB cost me, he (Allan) made me effectively a P90 in a strat sized pickup which gave me the extra girth I wanted but with a touch more presence and clarity. Highly recommended.
I now use a similar P90 in a Telecaster bridge pickup as an Esquire setup and it does everything from rockabilly to Quo to Sabbath. Excellent.

[Joeyfivebags]

I suppose it depends on what tone he's looking for really but just been helping a friend update an 80's MIJ strat. and in the end he plucked for.

Neck: [url="https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=strats&sub=contemporary&pickup=trilogy_suite"]https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=strats&sub=contemporary&pickup=trilogy_suite[/url]

Middle:[url="http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/standard-strat/sds-1"]http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/standard-strat/sds-1[/url]

Bridge:[url="http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/super-distortion-s"]http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/strat/hum-canceling-strat/super-distortion-s[/url]

Think he's wired it for splitting the Super-S aswell. He played a gig with it last week and through a JCM800 it sounded sweet. Not sure if he had to do some clever wiring the get them to balance levelwise or not but it rings nearly as well as his old '78 Les Paul Standard.