Full-Sized HBs for Strat

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Gitfiddler

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I am looking to replace stock pickups for a 2016 USA standard strat. I didn't know that the body is routed for H-S-H and was only looking at single-sized humbuckers.

I am thinking of going H-H. What do you recommend for heavier shred rock? Duncan JB and Jazz (have in another guitar and don't dig, but it may be the guitar)? Tone Zone/Air Norton? Evolutions? Liquifire/Crunch Lab?

I had a Luke III with Transition pickups and dug those.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
 
I use Suhr Aldrich and Dimarzio Super Distortions in my Stratocasters.
I prefer the Dimarzio.
Both sound fantastic.
 
Badronald":2yo1a2iv said:
I use Suhr Aldrich and Dimarzio Super Distortions in my Stratocasters.
I prefer the Dimarzio.
Both sound fantastic.

The sd in the neck position too?
 
Your question leaves a wide range of pickups. First of all, you've got to decide what kind of power you want in a pickup. The thing is, strats aren't as resonant as Les Pauls, so generally you need a bit more output. Check your pot values. If you have 250k or 500k pots, that will make a difference. Check sparkguitars.com and you'll see that my builds have all different pickups, so I know humbuckers and strats very well. Moreover, I've done a LOT of pickup swapping, magnet swapping, and even a couple of hybrid conversions. Even knowing all this, I can hardly give you recommendations without more information.

First of all, you said heavier rock/shred, so I'm going to assume that you're not really looking for death and destruction pickups like the X2N, Nailbomb, Nazgul, or something. The pickups you mentioned are med-high output pickups. If you want to shred, then you definitely need something that has character, dimension, definition, punch, and not too much compression. Basically an expressive medium to medium-high output pickup.

A second consideration is the magnet type. Your most basic options are Alnico and ceramic. Alnico tends to have a flavor while ceramic is kind of colorless. Pickups with ceramic magnets typically have more output than Alnico pickups. Ceramic magnets typically have more definition or less mud, which is another reason why they're used for metal. However, guys like Schenker used high-output ceramic pickups to drive vintage amps. There is something really great about the way high output pickups drive an amp.

That's another consideration because there are basically two ways to go about it, drive your amp a little or use medium to low output pickups that don't push your amp. When you drive your amp, it compresses a bit, so for shred, you want some compression but not too much. You need that openness because it lets the notes sing and the dynamics don't get compressed.

That's another thing. What kind of shredder are you? If you're the kind who mostly picks notes or mostly uses legato, either style makes a difference. For legato, you want more punch and output so that you don't have to work too much for sustain. For picked notes, you need some quack or snap so that you can hear all the notes flutter as you speed around. Pickups combinations like the Dimarzio Norton/PAF Pro, Duncan Custom Custom/Full Shred, Bareknuckle Mule/Riff Rafff are all excellent for both picked and legato runs.

Pickups like the Dimarzio Fred, AT-1, and Bareknuckle Holy Divers are very upper-midrangy and kind of bright, and they have pretty good output, so that makes them very good for legato. Legato tends to have a warmer attack than striking the notes with a pick, so brighter pickups may be better. Hot pickups aren't really that good for legato because it's much harder to get dynamics from legato than from picking, so you don't want too much compression.

From what I've learned over the years, it's not always simple buying pickups. It's like buying the right speaker. You really need to know what you want to achieve with it and what compliments your gear. Pickups respond to wood, coated/uncoated strings, fret material, etc., so you want pickups that either compliment the components or augments them in some way that achieves a desired effect.

What this means is that if you have say an ash strat with a maple neck and ebony fretboard, stainless steel frets, Cleartone strings, and vintage bent saddles, then chances are your strat will be on the bright/snappy side, nice deep lows, and more balanced midrange. Alder, for instance, would be a bit warmer and thicker in the mids. Therefore, you probably want a pickup like a Dimarzio Air-Zone or Duncan Custom Custom. If you installed say a Bareknuckle Holy Diver or Dimarzio Steve's Special, then you'd have a very bright guitar.

One the flip side, let's say you have a basswood strat that lacks a bit of low end and has a warm high end, but you want more low end and brighter treble, then you'd probably choose something like a Dimarzio Tone Zone, Bareknuckle Crawler, or Duncan PATB-1. Those pickups would augment the sound of your guitar to give you a bit more of what you want.

Having said all of that, I'll generally give you some suggestions which comfortably fit in the "strat with humbuckers for shred rock" category that are good for alternate picking, legato, riffing, and still sound good clean or mildly overdriven. Here are some models from the most common brands that I'd suggest:

Dimarzio Air-Zone/Paf Pro
Dimarzio PAF Masters
Duncan Custom Custom/Full Shred
Duncan Pegasus/Sentient
Bareknuckle Mule/Riff-Raff
Bareknuckle Crawlers
EMG H4A (passive set)
David Allen P51 Mustangs
Lollar Imperials
Fralin Pure PAF (8.4k)
 
Well said SavageRiffer

Only thing I would add is if coil splitting is being considered, as some pickups split better than others.

Its amazing how long sometimes it takes to get the right pickups in the guitar, sometimes it has taken me 3 or 4 tries, other times I nailed it on the first try.
 
Not much to go on, but when I hear "shred" as the style, I think high mid spike pickups. All the pickup sites (SD, BKP, Dimarzio) will have a little EQ chart showing the pickups EQ curve. Look for ones with good mids. I've gone through the gamut and I love the Evolution bridge/Humbucker From Hell neck config for this.
 
Gitfiddler":urfxwfad said:
Badronald":urfxwfad said:
I use Suhr Aldrich and Dimarzio Super Distortions in my Stratocasters.
I prefer the Dimarzio.
Both sound fantastic.

The sd in the neck position too?

If I have a loud pickup like the Aldrich in the bridge I like the Dimarzio Injector at the neck. It's loud.

I have another with the Super D at the bridge and I have a Dimarzio PAF Master in the neck. I love that pickup!
 
I have an Aldrich set in one of my alder strats. It's kind of bright, the bass is a bit loose, and it's not as thick in the mids as a Dimarzio. They're better in a Les Paul, but I have a mahogany strat which I tried swapping them into for a bit. However, my mahogany strat has a Padouk neck and stainless steel frets. I think the Aldrich pickups are great for mahogany guitars, but because of the neck and frets, it had a bit too much sizzle in the high end, so I put them back in my alder strat. I'm pretty happy with them, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend them for shred. Probably the SSH+ or DSH+ would be better in a strat than the Aldrich.

Seymour Duncan isn't my favorite, but they also make a P-Rails pickup which is actually very good for lead work. They split very well in all kinds of ways, so that's a great choice. They don't have a real big low end, but they don't really lack low end either. I forgot to mention those. They also have a real nice output without being too compressed.
 
Badronald":1azfm829 said:
I use Suhr Aldrich and Dimarzio Super Distortions in my Stratocasters.
I prefer the Dimarzio.
Both sound fantastic.
This!
 
I'll play devil's advocate here and say "pickups schmickups!".
Pickups are a small part of the equation and should be regarded as icing on the cake. Amps and pedals make more of a difference and unless you know the exact sound you're after, you're going to spend a lot of time and money experimenting. And...if pickups made a big difference...dont you think that by now someone would have made a comparison matrix? Maybe there is one on youtube somewhere but i haven't seen it.
 
It seems the distance the bridge pickup is from the bridge makes a difference too. My LP has a relatively short distance from bridge to pickup, my Chubtone is much farther (both are in my avatar but not easy to see). My Warmoth was routed to match a WD Music H-H pickguard which places the bridge pickup much closer to the bridge than the standard Warmoth route.

EDIT: here's a bigger pic
JvSUQ3Fl.jpg


I disagree that pickups don't make much difference. I recently got a new guitar and tried a few sets in it and the difference was striking. Some sets took it in the exact opposite direction it needed to go and were a terrible match. And it was surprising how different the same pickups sounded in the two alder Strat types, one Wilkinson (Warmoth) and one Floyd (Chubtone) and the different spacing between bridge/pickup. What worked in one did not in the other.

FWIW, after all the swapping I have a Duncan Pegasus in the bridge and a Dimarzio PAF Master Bridge in the neck. The PAF Master bridge pickup is only a tiny bit hotter than the regular 36th Anniversary and a tiny bit lass bass/treble. Really helped warm up the neck position in this guitar. A 59n there for example was really scooped/shrill.

One last thing, if it matters to you and you mix/match brands, the colors for cream bobbins won't always be the same. Dimarzio is way darker than some. Heck, even the trem-spaced (53mm) bobbins sometimes don't exactly match the 50mm bobbins of the same brand.
 
SpiderWars":27kdo5og said:
It seems the distance the bridge pickup is from the bridge makes a difference too. My LP has a relatively short distance from bridge to pickup, my Chubtone is much farther (both are in my avatar but not easy to see). My Warmoth was routed to match a WD Music H-H pickguard which places the bridge pickup much closer to the bridge than the standard Warmoth route.

EDIT: here's a bigger pic
JvSUQ3Fl.jpg


I disagree that pickups don't make much difference. I recently got a new guitar and tried a few sets in it and the difference was striking. Some sets took it in the exact opposite direction it needed to go and were a terrible match. And it was surprising how different the same pickups sounded in the two alder Strat types, one Wilkinson (Warmoth) and one Floyd (Chubtone) and the different spacing between bridge/pickup. What worked in one did not in the other.

FWIW, after all the swapping I have a Duncan Pegasus in the bridge and a Dimarzio PAF Master Bridge in the neck. The PAF Master bridge pickup is only a tiny bit hotter than the regular 36th Anniversary and a tiny bit lass bass/treble. Really helped warm up the neck position in this guitar. A 59n there for example was really scooped/shrill.

One last thing, if it matters to you and you mix/match brands, the colors for cream bobbins won't always be the same. Dimarzio is way darker than some. Heck, even the trem-spaced (53mm) bobbins sometimes don't exactly match the 50mm bobbins of the same brand.

I agree that pickups make a huge difference. With just a pickup change, a guitar can go from okay/meh to great sounding.

I recently changed the stock pickups out of an epi les paul for and put in gibson '57 classic and super '57 pickups. My friend is blown away by the difference, super happy with the change in clarity and articulation.


Back to for the strat, Anderson makes some nice pickups too, I have an H1- and H2+ in a fender HH contemporary tele and those sound great. The H2+ and H3 would be good ones to check out. they also spit really well too, with the large pole pieces.
 
I'm not a Dimarzio guy personally but have had great luck with the Duncan full shred and a Duncan 59 with an a2 magnet set pretty close. Both sound nice clean too.
 
I have 2 Super Distortions in one of mine. They sound great.

If it works for Dave Murray, it's good enough for me.
 
I ended up buying a prewired pick guard with a super distortion in the bridge and a Paf 36th anniversary in the neck . I was concerned that there would be a drop off in volume switching between the pick ups. It’s a great balance, and they sound good together. Happy. Thanks for the suggestions
 
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