Fender Strat single coil (bridge) favorites

A Seymour Duncan Hotrail works/sounds like a humbucker in the bridge position. I replaced the original pup on my Strat with one, because the original sounded somewhat thin and icey.
 
did some reading on the SD SSL5 and general consensus is its a good pickup but very hot and compromises that position 2 quack. tradeoff which i suppose is what I need to sort out. Am i tryin to force a fender strat to sound like humbucker guitar? there's the rub. other possibility is the Texas Special in the bridge which is supposedly half the output of an SSL5. I sense i'm tumbling down another rabbit hole.

If you put a humbucker in a strat, it still has a lot of the strat characteristics.

Have you futzed with the bridge pickup height?

I'd say make some tweaks to your presets and see how you feel about it in March.
 
HSS or at least SSS with a very hot bridge really is the golden combination for a Strat, Unless you play elevator music of course, in which case it's insane overkill.
 
Ever heard of Blackmore?????
He didn't need a single coil in the bridge position and as I recall his tone was all but anaemic
 
My favorite bridge pickup is the Chris Buck pickup that Radioshop Pickups make. It has a baseplate like a tele-pickup, and sounds really fantastic with gain. I use that pup for all kinds of classic rock tunes. It will give you what you need without sacrificing the in-between tones.
 
You could try the Lollar Dirty Blonde bridge PU, it's a bit over wound but still capable of cutting through like single coils and P90's can. BTW maybe a P90 can do as that one will conserve some strat quake in 2nd position.
 
did some reading on the SD SSL5 and general consensus is its a good pickup but very hot and compromises that position 2 quack. tradeoff which i suppose is what I need to sort out. Am i tryin to force a fender strat to sound like humbucker guitar? there's the rub. other possibility is the Texas Special in the bridge which is supposedly half the output of an SSL5. I sense i'm tumbling down another rabbit hole.
Having a high dc resistance is not always the only consideration. Texas special is actually nothing like SRV's pickups it was a guesstimate. Texas specials sound pretty bad with OD IMO. You could just go for a mid output with a less strong magnet . The alnico 2 or 3 single coils are a lot warmer sounding than 5.
 
I would personally just keep the guitar with 3 vintage sounding singles, but put in a superswitch. Wire the second tone control so it just works in position 5 (bridge only). That way, you can smooth out the bridge and not sacrifice the 4 position quack. Also, try some different cap values until you find one you like. Everything from 1.5-100 nf is fair game.
 
Why change the value when it has a control? The best tone control on a strat for me is a phone book cap and they are 0.1mfd instead of the modern 0.033mfd. The reason I like this cap is it seems to not just kill the treble.
 
Man I have struggled with the same thing. I tend to find Strat pickups too bright and thin especially in the bridge position. I find myself trying to get hotter and hotter pickups until it kind of screws up the Strat sound. I also tried a lot of different humbuckers in the bridge spot that makes the mismatch really bad and they are too hot and muddy sounding in comparison.

Right now I am running noiseless pickups in my Strat because I hate hum and buzz, it's really distracting. I'm running Dimarzio Area 61 neck and middle pickups and swap between a Virtual Solo (the hottest Area they make) and a Chopper. I prefer the Chopper a bit right now. It sounds like a humbucker, not a single coil, but it's a little lower output and a little less bass/more focused. The Virtual Solo is surprisingly low in output in comparison but rather than a big fat single coil sound it's kind of a lot of midrange and rolled off in the highs and lows. Not like a P90 but more like a single coil hit by a tube screamer?

I tried the Area 61 because I really like Nick Johnston, and the specs were kind of similar to his Duncan Texas Antiquity pickups. So I may try and find an Injector in the bridge position to match up. You can kind of see the spec comparisons here and here. The Area 61 has inductance of 2.9H and loaded peak of 3.3kHz where the Texas Hot neck/middle are 2.9H and loaded peak of 3.6kHz.

Another thing I'd like to try would be the Fast Track rail humbucker...it's supposed to be the next step down from the Chopper. I think that may be a cool blend of the single coil and humbucker thing.

You mentioned the Suhr ML pickups...I have a set of those and don't love the bridge. It sounds a bit bright and thin again. I added a Fralin base plate and that didn't do much. The neck and middle are pretty good. Although I had and didn't love the V60LP from Suhr, I would probably lean at least towards the bridge pickup over the ML. To my ears the ML have a little more midrange push where the V60LP are a little more laid back in the mids with warmed up high end.

I also recently tried a set of Fralin pickups. Not sure on the exact models as the readings didn't match the website, but I'm guessing Blues Special bridge with Vintage Hot neck and middle. Those are really good, maybe better overall sound than the Suhr pickups except they seem even noisier.
 
Why change the value when it has a control? The best tone control on a strat for me is a phone book cap and they are 0.1mfd instead of the modern 0.033mfd. The reason I like this cap is it seems to not just kill the treble.
Personal taste. I don't like 100nf at all. For a single tone control I prefer something around 10nf. If I had a dedicated tone control for a certain pickup like on a strat, I would probably go with the Lindy Fralin fat cap value (1.5nf). It works nicely for fattening up a single coil in the bridge position. Useless for woman tone or jazz though.
 
You might try the DiMarzio Super Distortion Strat pickup with a dual-sound (series-parallel) switch if you want to retain the SSS layout. The parallel sound should get you in a good range for the cleaner, brighter stuff, and series gives a good punch with fatter mids. Thinking about their Tele version for a future tele-oid guitar....
 
On my recently acquired Fender Strat Performer, which I'm really enjoying, is currently loaded with their Yosemite pickups. I'm happy with the middle and neck pickups but finding I'm not using the bridge much at all. I've alwasy been a humbucker player so maybe just finding the bridge anemic relative to humbuckers but really dig @2112 Suhr ML pickups in the strat he often plays in his youtube vids. I'm considering just the ML bridge in my Strat. Wondering what other Strat guys out there think? I'm looking for the times i want some more dirt/girth from a single coil bridge without totally compromising those classic Strat tones. When I think of those classic Straty like tones, im not usually thinking of the bridge anyhow; mostly the 2/4 positions so dirtier bridge would still be handy w/o going to humbucker style.
If your looking for good quality noiseless pups, you should at least explore the "Kinman" site.
Huge selection of pups and very well made preconfigured/wired switching systems.
There is a lot there to take in and regarding quality, you will "get what you pay for".
 
Personal taste. I don't like 100nf at all. For a single tone control I prefer something around 10nf. If I had a dedicated tone control for a certain pickup like on a strat, I would probably go with the Lindy Fralin fat cap value (1.5nf). It works nicely for fattening up a single coil in the bridge position. Useless for woman tone or jazz though.
I don't like this value with any other cap . Have you tried the phone book?
 
They just seem to roll off in a more musical way, hard to put in to words but very noticeable. Tone on about 7 is fat and warm without the lack of high end clarity you often get with some controls.
 
Lots of awesome suggestions and potential directions to go here. Looking at Lindy Fralin SP42 into the mix for consideration.
edit: also the Fralin Blues Special Strat has my eye currently...
 
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