Pickup suggestion for 80s Charvel Model 1a?

[nightlight]

If you are going the humbucker route by changing the pick guard, do look into a Super 3. I once had one in a Greg Howe Fender Strat and it was an awesome sounding pup. A couple of other options are a Wilde Bill Lawrence L500XL or (possibly controversial option) Seymour Duncan Invader.

 

[rstites]

I was gigging back in the late 90s and out a Tone Zone in a guitar I had at the time. I didn't like it at all. It probably wasn't a bad pickup, just didn't have my sound.

The TZ is a very distinct pickup that only works in a handful of guitars in my experience, and when it doesn't, it just doesn't at all. It was designed to try to equalize thin-sounding guitars with floating Floyds, so far as I can tell. It'll do ok if the guitar is thin and/or bright, but otherwise it tends to sound like high gain mud.

 

[rstites]

If you already have a bunch of guitars with humbuckers in them, it is fun to have one "real" strat around for that sound with a great neck. It's at least worth a consideration. I have an old Jackson strat that came with 3 singles in it. It came with the Duncan blade pickups in it, which sounded fine but I already have a bunch of super strats with full humbuckers. I ended up putting a set of Barden's in it and just use it as my strat: pointy headstock, real Floyd, and all. Sounds great. Plays like butter.

If you do swap pickguards, it's just screws to take them off and swap them, though you need to solder/desolder wiring to the jack and bridge (or snip them) as part of the process. Make sure to track one down that has screw holes that line up with the Charvel holes. You don't want to add new holes to the pickguard or definitely not the body.