Pickup recommendations for my strat?

[matthoggard]

Hey,I have a 95 mexican strat. Dont laugh. This thing plays like a dream.Im thinking of upgrading pickups. Any thoughts?I played a Telecaster at GC the other day with "TexMex" pickups and was impressed.. Anyone have any experience with these?Also, How about wiring in series opposed to parallel?M~

[kjhman]

Hey Matt,I went on a Strat pickup quest earlier in the year. Mine is also a mexican, from 1998. It had a great one-piece maple neck that I moved over to my Telecaster. I had a custom neck made for the strat.Anyway, I have also played a Tele with TexMex's that sounded really nice. For my strat, I settled on the Kinman Blues set. Kinman is a guy in Australia that makes amazing sounding strat pickups, and they are completely noise free. I tried some of the other noise-free pickups out there, like the Fender Vintage Noiseless, and was unimpressed with the feel and dynamics of those. The Kinmans sound as good as the best single coils out there and hum way less than the humbuckers on my Gibsons! The one mild complaint that some people have had is just a little less chime in the inbetween positions. I've been happy with mine. They are a bit pricey but worth it.http://www.kinman.com/As far as the series-parallel question, I actually pulled out my 5-way toggle switch and replaced it with 3 individual switches, one for each pickup. I also put a series-parallel switch on there. I can get the 5 typical strat combinations plus Bridge-Middle in series, Neck-Middle in series, and Bridge-Neck in series.The Bridge-Middle and Neck-Middle in series are what you would get if you wired with the standard 5-way toggle in series instead of parallel. The sound is like a really fat and dark humbucker. It pretty much is a humbucker with the coils spread farther apart. My current band is a fast hard-rock/classic punk sort of band, so those series settings actually work if I crank the treble on my amp a bit. It gives me the sustain and girth that I just can't get from single coils. But I also have the luxury of being able to flip a switch to put it in parallel if I want that classic Strat sound. If you are sticking with the standard 5-way switch, I'd stick with parallel. It'd be a shame to have a strat with single coils that can't get that signature quack sound. The series has a tiny bit of that quack in it, but is really just more of a roar. You could always wire a series parallel switch into the circuit if you don't mind drilling holes in your pickguard...

[ernstinen]

Hey Matt,It all depends on the sound you want, of course. The bridge pickup in my '63 Strat had that "bite" that some guitarists like, but since I was looking for a more "thick" hard rock sound, I went with a Seymour Duncan "Hot Rail." It gave me MUCH more output, yet has a "push-push" pot on the volume knob which switches it from a humbucker to a single coil sound. The single coil doesn't sound 'quite' like the original pickup, but it's close.Plus, with a Hot Rail, you don't have to rout out the guitar, which I would NEVER do with a '63 Strat! I've got the original single coil pickup locked in a safe if I ever want to sell my baby (which I never will! ).I've got a 5-way switch, and use the neck and middle pickups quite a bit for a different sound. The "fourth" position between the neck and middle pickup also has a cool sound, but if I want to go "balls to the wall," I use the Hot Rail humbucker, and it really cancels out the single coil noise very well.My only gripe is that when Hot Rails first came out, you could only get them in black, where the other two pickups are white. I think they sell them in white now, but I don't really care --- all I care about is TONE, and I have a wide variety with the three pickups!HTH,Ern

[mojobone]

Kinmans are nice and you can get 'em prewired as a pop-in replacement, pickguard and all, but I'll take a wild stab in the dark, here, that you might be interested in a classic Strat tone in a country vein; I'd suggest you check out Lindy Fralin's offerings. They've been described as having "lacy" highs, if that makes sense to you; it will if you're a fan of early sixties Strats.

[matthoggard]

I am looking for a classic sound. The pickups in this strat are hot. Its got that mid 90's hard rock feel. i can pull off some volume and switch pickups positions but even with low gain, It just WANTS to growl.I love the sound but Im looking for an americana/country/rock sound right now. I really liked the sound of the "texmex" pickups in the tele I played. Ive seen Lindy Fralin's pickups, Ill see if I can get a sample to try out. I want a bit of twang but I dont want alot of high end.I still like to turn it to 11 once in awhile.

[kjhman]

The good thing about Fralin is that he'll wind 'em any way you want based on your preference. I've tried one of his "steel poled" pickups. It was a little hotter than I wanted for a Strat, but it sounded fantastic. A friend of mine has Fralins in his Tele and loves 'em.

[mojobone]

Hard to get a vintage tone with hot pickups; the old ones de-magnetize slowly over time and weren't 'hot' to begin with. If you have an early-sixties-style Strat pickup with too much slice, the trick is to back off the volume knob a notch when you want to throw some dirt on-at the edge of breakup, where a single note sounds clean but a chord has hair on it-that's the chime zone.

[matthoggard]

Yeah thats what I want. Id like to go from some clean sustained chicken picken then bump the volume knob and get that warm, full, semi-hairy sound for rythm.Like Audley Freed meets Stevie Ray.

[jazzstan]

khj.. thanks for the info about Kinman. I've been oogling those for a couple of years, but - yeah - they are pricey. But if I stand on my toes and twist at just the right angle and don't move, my Strat's hum is much less noticable.

[weapon]

If you really want great pickups that you can customize try a company called Vintage Vibe, I had mine custom made with gold plated posts and covers, they were about $185 dollars fro the set and killed anything else out there for sound. Also they come with ceramic and alnico magnets so you can pick your sound, I use the ceramic magents on the middle and bridge pickup and the alnico on the neck for the sweet lead sounds.http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/pickups.html