Changing the neck pickup on my fender strat

[ChanMin]

hot rails or lil 59 at bridge would be able to produce good rythm rock tones .... no probs there man...

hot rails are abit too high output for me.. u might wanna get the lil 59.. its more smooth..

 

[man_kidal]

I play heavy stuff on my strat all the time .... You should try to use the bridge pickups more .... It's better for heavy stuff ..... But i dont really know what you mean by heavy anyway .... i find strats good for all types of stuff ....

 

[calibre2001]

Its strange ‘cause most people would opt to swap out the bridge pickup for a hotrail. As for getting decent distortion, I used to experiment with my Strat a lot for getting a nice distorted tone. For me, I found the fourth position (middle + bridge) pickup the most accommodating for that, with the tone knob (I don’t remember which) reduced to around 4-6 and volume adjusted to taste. With a tubescreamer, I could churn out okay sounding jangly punk rock sounds. And whenever I needed a decent clean, I just switch to the bridge pickup and its good sounding clean. Try a tubescreamer or some equivalent derivative of it ‘cause it works great with Strats. That said, once I got a double hbucker guitar, I never tried overdrive tones with my Strat.

 

[qwerty]

well the initial idea was just a thought as i felt the neck was a little muddy, after playing with it for a while i find that i do like all the single coils, however sometimes if i feel like playing something heavier i feel that my strat can't cut it.

like if i want to play heavy distorted rhythms i find the bridge pickup doesn't really cut it, like it sounds too whiny and lacks power and punch. not meaty enough. lol. say i want to play palm muted rhythms, i feel the bridge pickup not heavy enough. like very trebly with no mid and bass. just my opinion i'll keep fiddling with my strat and see... still quite new to guitar and stuff so not really too sure about it all... thanks everyone... please continue to give me more input.... maybe i should invest in a good pedal first? don't have one of my own

 

[man_kidal]

I'm using an SX strat and the pickups are good. Don't intend to change anything soon. Wanted to put hot rails in bridge but dont bother now. If it's muddy i honestly think its the amp problem and not the guitar's.

 

[calibre2001]

Of course it'll be treble and extremely sharp sounding. That's what gives the Strat its trademark sound and make it hard to achieve a Darkness tone. The tubescreamer is a good idea. I bought a TS7 (not the overpriced TS9) and was happy with it and later modified it. Check out the SD1, which is great and has more gain. Both are fairly priced IMO.

 

[qwerty]

ya i know its supposed to be sharp and trebly as its a strat. Just thinking about maybe switching the pickups so its more versatile. Like i said earlier if i had more money i'd keep the single coils and buy a double humbucking guitar. if i had the money.. :? haha. lol so maybe using this as a cheap alternative.

 

[man_kidal]

I had a squier humbucker guitar called Squier standard double fat strat. I wanted to change the pickups, but then sold it off anyway.

 

[teleholic]

a little off topic, but i really wanna get a Fender tele sometime in the near future..now i'm caught between jap fender, highway 1 and us fender,which is a little pricey..any suggestions? The jap fender teles are supposed to be good yeah? But rather pay a little more to get a US made one, the highway 1..

 

[MrE]

ya i know its supposed to be sharp and trebly as its a strat. Just thinking about maybe switching the pickups so its more versatile. Like i said earlier if i had more money i'd keep the single coils and buy a double humbucking guitar. if i had the money.. :? haha. lol so maybe using this as a cheap alternative.

If you want better bass response and a meatier sound from your strat. why not try getting an EQ pedal? you can boost the bass frequencies to make your tone chunkier (i wish it could make other things chunkier too :twisted: ). But i digress.... it wont make your single coil sound like a humbucker, but it will give your sound more balls
:wink:

 

[MrE]

a little off topic, but i really wanna get a Fender tele sometime in the near future..now i'm caught between jap fender, highway 1 and us fender,which is a little pricey..any suggestions? The jap fender teles are supposed to be good yeah? But rather pay a little more to get a US made one, the highway 1..

For about 1200+, you can get a jap tele with Texas Specials pickups, which are hotter than the default ones in the Highway 1, i believe. I think the jap fenders and the highway 1s are about same price (someone pls correct me if i'm wrong), so might as well get the jap one for the upgraded pickups.

Just my 2 cents

 

[guitarnub]

once i have the money i wanna get a tele with a b-bender, but i guess thats not any time soon

too pricey

 

[subversion]

the maple fretboard contributes to a more treble-inclined overall tone but it's rather marginal. you wouldn't hear a vast diff in tone but it's there.

on the issue of the Highway1 Fenders- these are really good Fenders but after talking to many players about it, it seems that the domestic reception is of distrust & confusion. why do i say this? many less informed players dismiss the Highway1 as being a 'lousy' guitar because it's compromised in certain aspects. it's a valid opinion but 'lousy' is a disillusioned term of reference.

keep in mind that the Highway1's body finish was conceived to be such, intentionally. non-Fender electronics & hardware were also included to propel the Highway1's philosophy in addition to cost cutting. i'm not a Fender salesman & gets no free Fenders by saying the above...