Pickups for an all-maple Strat?

[Superlizard]

I know I'll change my mind 100 more times before this thing is built, but the advice has been very helpful. Thanks!

True, there's tons of options to consider.

Best thing is to make a specific goal that you know you'll dig, and stick to it.

Besides, one guitar can't do it all.  That's why us guitar players have more than one. 

 

[Patriot54]

Besides, one guitar can't do it all.  That's why us guitar players have more than one. 

That's why I'll focus on a chunky (higher output) rhythm sound for this maple Strat, my headless Strat for the high end and smooth distorted sound, and more vintage sounds in an ash Telestrat I'm planning to build.

 

[Strat Avenger]

And if I have hum-cancelling single coils, the wiring would be similar to 3 humbuckers, right?

Typically, no - they're still single coils and therefore voiced like single coils (bright/chimey/etc)... unless you're doing super-hot
output single coils.  

If they're hum-cancelling pickups, there are two coils in them. They're not "single coils". The difference between the traditional humbucker and the Strat style is in the Strat style, they stack the coils vertically instead of laterally. On some designs, they may rotate the coils 90 degrees on the long axis, but it's still 2 coils. That is, they're all still humbuckers, just packaged differently.

The ONLY thing they have in common with standard humbuckers, is that they "buck" the hum. They are like single coils in every other way, and they are also out-of-phase with a standard side-by-side humbucker just like a standard single coil. So careful attention must be paid when wiring them up, or the in-between positions will sound "honky" and a major volume loss will occur.

The dual rail single-size humbuckers are wired in-phase with standard humbuckers.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Many pickup manufacturers designed hum-less single coil pickups to satisfy the 60hz hum complaints
of single coil pup users... they offered these players single coil tone without the hum (I still say
they don't have the tone quite right yet).

Again, it's about the tone, not the construction.

They absolutely HAVE gotten the tone right. It's finally been figured out. The old "HS" series Dimarzios, for example, did not have true single-coil tone. They of course had a similar single-coil attack, but were severely lacking in high-end, as well as in dynamics when compared to a true single-coil. Those days are now OVER.

As far as a stacked humbucker being the same as a "humbucker"; not so.  I was very young when I got my DImarzio HS-3 pickups for the neck and bridge positions, and an HS-2 for the middle. I saw the Dimarzio ad with Yngwie endorsing them. I mistakenly believed that I could get all the benefits of a "humbucker" with the appearance of a stock single-coil. That, combined with not having to cut up my guitar to install them, I thought was an awesome concept.

I was disappointed to discover that not only were they weak in output and did NOT sound like "humbuckers", they didn't even sound like "good" single-coils. For years, I TRIED to be satisfied with those pickups (because I paid a lot of money for them), but in the end, they had to go.

If your style and set-up is like Yngwie's (playing 75% lead cranked up to 10 with a preamp pedal in front of the amp), then they will work, but for most other typical scenarios, they are not so great.

My Area '67s are wonderful. They have all the woody, sparkling single-coil tone, with plenty of "quack" in the 2 & 4 positions, and NO hum.

I can understand wanting to keep a vintage, collectible Strat or Tele completely original by keeping the stock noisy single-coils in it, but for anything else, it is absolutely ridiculous to have pickups that buzz & hum. Noise DOES NOT improve your tone.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Copper foil shielding in pickup/control cavities only serves to make the installer feel good, and make the build pictures look good. Past that, it's a waste of time. Why do you suppose none of the OEMs use it? Even the ones who charge thousands of dollars for their guitars and could easily afford the labor and materials don't do it. They know better. Some of them will give it a lick and a promise, putting a little bit of foil behind the pots/switches on the pickguard, but nobody knows why. Probably just to say they did. It certainly doesn't have any shielding effect.

A properly wired guitar with hum-cancelling pickups won't make noise. A properly wired guitar with single coil pickups will always make noise. There's nothing you can do about it. The best you can do is minimize it with proper wiring.

+1

 

[Kostas]

...I can understand wanting to keep a vintage, collectible Strat or Tele completely original by keeping the stock noisy single-coils in it, but for anything else, it is absolutely ridiculous to have pickups that buzz & hum. Noise DOES NOT improve your tone.

Completely agree with you. Unfortunately the majority of guitarists are not keen to accept new things. How many times times have you heard "If it was good enough for Hendrix, it's good enough for me"? Or reading about people not shielding guitars cause a little hum won't hurt you or classic records were made with hum etc...

 

[Cagey]

How many times times have you heard "If it was good enough for Hendrix, it's good enough for me"? Or reading about people not shielding guitars cause a little hum won't hurt you or classic records were made with hum etc...

Except nobody heard Hendrix bitch about the noise, or the bad tuning, or this, or that, or the next thing. He had little choice, knew it, and was constantly in search of something better. You DO hear about how he'd go into guitar stores and buy up several Strats at once, trying to find one that would sound right and behave itself. Everybody though it was just him being excessive, but those old vintage guitars were terrible that way. You could sit down in a well-stocked shop and play 15 different Strats, and they'd all sound and behave differently. It was a minor miracle when you found one you could live with, albeit with some aggravation. It was just the one with the least aggravation, so you made a conscious choice to grin and bear it.

That's also why you hear people talk about "The One That Got Away". They finally found something that they didn't want to smash every time they picked it up, but had to sell for some reason and never found another one as good.

Today, you don't have that problem. Modern wood prep/treatment, modern machining, modern hardware, etc. all mean you can make guitars all day long that are so similar as to be indistinguishable from each other. They've got it down to such a fine art that you can mail-order guitars and parts and fully expect to get exactly what you're looking for. 30 to 40 years ago, it was unheard of to change necks on a guitar. Every instrument was so unique it would be like trying to trade eyeballs or fingerprints with your buddy. Now, everything has become so consistent and predictable that if you order a replacement neck/body/hardware item and it doesn't work out perfectly, there's hell to pay.

 

[bagman67]

Now, everything has become so consistent and predictable that if you order a replacement neck/body/hardware item and it doesn't work out perfectly, there's hell to pay.

And this is the key to Warmoth's success - the replacement parts, by and large, DO fit and DO work perfectly.

In re the original poster's question:  Steve Lukather had a famous-ish all-maple Valley Arts strat (the cherry sunburst one with a black guard)  in the mid '80's that was wired up with some EMG set or another.  You could check that out.

Bagman

 

[Cagey]

And this is the key to Warmoth's success - the replacement parts, by and large, DO fit and DO work perfectly.

It's at the point now where I'd trust Warmoth a lot sooner than I'd trust the original manufacturer. At least you know their parts are made to spec. If somebody brought me an old Strat and wanted an exotic neck put on it, I'd be sorely tempted to order it without mounting holes, knowing it would probably be safer to drill to fit. In fact, that's how Carvin sells them. They don't know what you're going to put that neck on, so they leave it up to you to mate it properly.

 

[Strat Avenger]

And this is the key to Warmoth's success - the replacement parts, by and large, DO fit and DO work perfectly.

It's at the point now where I'd trust Warmoth a lot sooner than I'd trust the original manufacturer. At least you know their parts are made to spec. If somebody brought me an old Strat and wanted an exotic neck put on it, I'd be sorely tempted to order it without mounting holes, knowing it would probably be safer to drill to fit. In fact, that's how Carvin sells them. They don't know what you're going to put that neck on, so they leave it up to you to mate it properly.

So true.

On that note, it kind'a irritates me that Warmoth charges extra to NOT pre-drill the neck mounting holes. The neck I got from USACG was ordered without the holes drilled (because I was putting it on a Warmoth body, and didn't want to take any chances, AND because I was using a custom neck plate with a different bolt pattern), and there was no extra charge for that.

 

[richship]

On that note, it kind'a irritates me that Warmoth charges extra to NOT pre-drill the neck mounting holes. The neck I got from USACG was ordered without the holes drilled (because I was putting it on a Warmoth body, and didn't want to take any chances, AND because I was using a custom neck plate with a different bolt pattern), and there was no extra charge for that.

I figure Warmoth has a standard process and anything the deviates from that is an opportunity to mess up. So if they forget and put holes in something they shouldn't, they'll have to pay to ship it back and sell it in the showcase for less and make a new one for you. The extra is probably to offset doing this occasionally.

 

[Cagey]

I don't think The Showcase is the Island of Misfit Parts. Those are speculative builds they do once a machine is set up to cut a particular piece. Setup is a bitch, but once it's done, it's as easy to make 10 parts as it is to make one. So, if somebody orders a custom neck made out of Bubinga or curly Koa, they've got to cut up board to do it, so they may as well make a small pile of them while they're at it.

You can't make guitar necks out of clay, you chucklehead!
Send it to The Island of Misfit Toys!​

 

[Lagavulin]

As for single-sized humbuckers, they aren't single coils nor like humbuckers (full-sized) either. They're something on their own. They have two coils like humbuckers but both coils pick the sound from the very same point of the string just like single coils. A part of the characteristic sound of full-sized humbuckers comes from the fact that each coil picks the sound from different positions of the string and a part of the single coil sound is that they have just one single coil.

As for pickups for an all maple strat I'd recommend Bare Knuckle's Holydiver and Trilogy suites.

edit: or if you want hollowness - Bare Knuckle Nailbomb.

 

[richship]

I don't think The Showcase is the Island of Misfit Parts. Those are speculative builds they do once a machine is set up to cut a particular piece. Setup is a bitch, but once it's done, it's as easy to make 10 parts as it is to make one. So, if somebody orders a custom neck made out of Bubinga or curly Koa, they've got to cut up board to do it, so they may as well make a small pile of them while they're at it.

I'm not saying that everything in the showcase is a mistake, but that is where they put custom pieces that weren't quite right. There was a recent example of a bass with custom pickup placement (pretty sure it was the Koi bass) where the first try put the jazz pickup on the wrong side and someone else posted about the deal they got from the showcase on the first body.