A lot of players think the treble pickup sounds a bit too trebly. I wired this pickup to the bottom tone knob, and then dialed the tone back to 5 the whole time. The result is a thicker tone and I have a pickup that sounds good enough to play single note riffs and lead. By some it's called the Eric Johnson mod. Cannot recommend highly enough doing this.
However the best mod is to get rid of the bridge pickup and put in a humbucker. This mod gives you a great tone without having to meddle with the tone knob, and a small volume jump which is necessary for lead work to punch over the top. I won't do this mod because my strat is a CS reissue and I'd damage the resale value spectacularly. Super strats are a great invention. You can get funky tones on position 2, and two great lead tones on 1 and 5. You get heavy riffing tones on position 5. You know all this already, but I think I have finally come around after years between toggling between Les Pauls and teles/strats.
Strat pickup mods
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- werdna
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Re: Strat pickup mods
Just get a single coil sized humbucker. Hot rails etc... or a new ssh pickguard then swap back if/when you sell.
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Re: Strat pickup mods
Twice I have bought and installed Seymour Duncan Lil 59s.
Twice I have immediately wondered why.
But I do hve GAS for a proper HSS.
Tone pot on the bridge pup is an essential Strat mod.
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Re: Strat pickup mods
Or, you can wire the rear tone control so that it brings in the middle pickup in series, so you get two humbucker options made by front and middle, or rear and middle.
I have this wiring on the Strat I just built, and I absolutely love it. The sound is not the same as a normal hum I let, more like a wide range humbucker on a Tele. It is awesome. And it still works like a normal Strat when you want it to.
I have this wiring on the Strat I just built, and I absolutely love it. The sound is not the same as a normal hum I let, more like a wide range humbucker on a Tele. It is awesome. And it still works like a normal Strat when you want it to.
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Re: Strat pickup mods
My answer was to buy a set of the bellbird strat pickups from Mr Glyn, now I have a bridge pickup that is not a trebley piece of crap the stock texmex set sounded like pants IMO.
I'm with you on the humbucker in the bridge idea though, gives you the ultimate versatility in a strat, but likewise my 60s roadworn is only routed for single coils and I don't want to mess with it, so I'm thinking of putting together a super strat but with HSS pickups, just dithering over whether I'd want to stick to vintage style like the bellbirds I have in my current strat or go to the hotter ones Glyn makes... first world problems the main thing is I know with my amp lower output pickups sound much better to me so that will likely make the decision easier!
I'm with you on the humbucker in the bridge idea though, gives you the ultimate versatility in a strat, but likewise my 60s roadworn is only routed for single coils and I don't want to mess with it, so I'm thinking of putting together a super strat but with HSS pickups, just dithering over whether I'd want to stick to vintage style like the bellbirds I have in my current strat or go to the hotter ones Glyn makes... first world problems the main thing is I know with my amp lower output pickups sound much better to me so that will likely make the decision easier!
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Re: Strat pickup mods
Big fan of HSS here for all the reasons mentioned. I've got an SD JB in my ex. Oleg strat. 250k pots and no tone control. Counter intuitive one would think, but it works really well, especially for them times when you need to be heard. It splits really well for the quacky positions too.
I'm intrigued with using the back tone as a blend. Going to look into that.
I'm intrigued with using the back tone as a blend. Going to look into that.
- blackstratblues
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Re: Strat pickup mods
Having a 500/250K volume pot helps with the HSS setup.
Here’s a vid I made explaining how mine is wired
Here’s a vid I made explaining how mine is wired
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Re: Strat pickup mods
First mod on my strat was just to change the wiring to a master vol/tone and remove the pot closest to the strings which I kept whacking.