Your thoughts

[TBurst Std]

Ok. I am cash strapped and cannot finish a build that would handle this need.  Needing a vibrato bar Guitar with HB and SC type tones.  For the type of music, the Doozy and Gretsch don’t fit the need.  So I’m thinking some interim pups for my strat.

Looking at GFS lil killers with their super strat harness and pickguard.  While I’m not a fan of all those toggles, that’s how they do it and will allow for a quick and easy change (and future change back). All together the pups, harness and guard are under 150.

Thoughts on the solution and the pups.  Have watched a few videos. Most were so bad I wouldn’t make a judgement.  One was so so. The other was quite good. 

The subject in question is a surf green body with canary neck.  Currently hardware is parchment.  Thinking on the interim solution, thinking MOP guard, Black pups and black knobs. The visualizers show this isn’t a bad looking combo. 

 

[Cagey]

I've used those "Li'l Killer" pickups a couple times and been pretty pleased with them. If you've every heard SD's "Hot Rails", you've heard the "Li'l Killers". Basically a more articulate PAF-style humbucker.  I'm not sure how they sound split to get the single coil sound, though. When I've tried that in the past with other single coil-sized humbuckers, it hasn't worked out that well. The coils are smaller, so there's not a whole lotta output there. They bring out all 4 wires so you're able to do it if you want to, but I think that's just to keep people from bitching that it's not possible, not to provide any useful utility. Although, I suppose if you were of a mind to do series/parallel wiring, having the leads exposed would facilitate that.

 

[TBurst Std]

This was the good video. Split sounds fine in it

[youtube]https://youtu.be/PPnXgH7hTiM[/youtube]

 

[Cagey]

Sounds good to me. Go for it!

 

[Sovereign_13]

One thing to note with the Lil Killers is that, AFAIK, they only come with the Kwik-Plug setup now.  You still get 4 wires but they aren't the usual 4 wires for some reason.  You can do coil splits in (the "center tap" of the coils is permanently tied together) but there's no way I can see to do series-parallel switching.

That's not to take away from the pickups themselves, just a FYI.

 

[TBurst Std]

Ended up ordering them today as well as harness, pickguard and knobs.  Went cream/ aged white. 
Should be an easy and inexpensive drop in to get me by. 

 

[Cagey]

I think you'll be pretty pleased. They're good parts.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

If going purely for SC voicings, their NeoVin's and Tru-Coils are quite nice.

 

[TBurst Std]

If going purely for SC voicings, their NeoVin's and Tru-Coils are quite nice.

Nope, I’m needing humbucker type voicing as well.  If SC alone
Would handle it, the Fralins in it would get the job done.

 

[TBurst Std]

Well my insights so far:

My strat body is a MIM 2001 and sort of special. It has the traditional 3x sc route with channels for the wires between pups.  Even has the 8 hole
Guard drill and vintage bridge mounting spacing. 

(IE: you can search and see where I have said saying MIA or MIM is not enough info to know specs)

1: the pickguard does not line up.  I’m not talking only 8 vs 11 hole, I mean there are holes in the guard that lookover the route cavity. Needless to say, those screws aren’t used. 

2. The pickguard does not accept the bridge pup.  Was aware this might be the case.  A couple needle files and a cider took care of that.

3. There is not enough route depth for the pups. It appears if you have a vintage type routed Strat, you will have these issues.  I can barely lower the pups enough. 

Tone: only had 15-30 min to play.  Initially thoughts:

Positions 2 and 4 quack even in humbucker modes.  Not a ton of quack, but the essence of the tone is there.

Negligible volume loss between SC and HB modes.  HB is darker and stronger as expected. 

SC mode is workable.  Have heard worst and better.  The Fralins kick their azz in SC mode.  Then again that’s me monitoring here.  In a live band mix, I’d expect most of that to be Minimalized

Quack is there in 2 and 4 in SC mode. Not as much as the Fralins, but distinguishable. 

This I believe will get me by in the interim. Will kno after a practice or 2. Overall.  It feels slightly cheesy. I had to tap the bobbins to even get the screws to go into the pups.  I can’t put all the screws into the pickguard as they overlay a vintage cavity route. Can’t adjust the pickups to the desired height due to the vintage cavity route.

All in all. A mixed bag I’d say. It will do for now.

 

[TBurst Std]

Additional thoughts of you do this:

Have a computer with the GFS site handy.

1. The pups only have their part numbers on them. No measurements on the box or pup. If you pull them all out at lose which box they came from, you’ll have to use a meter to which is which.

2. The harness comes with no info.  It’s up to you to know which of the 3 pots are which and which of the 3 switches are which. If you are not confident in how guitars are wired, be prepared to spend some time online at the GFS site and see their drawing and note the differences so you know what is what.

 

[fdesalvo]

Instead of splitting them and losing the volume, you could try coil tapping.  Might preserve more volume.