Strat Pickups

gdgross

Experienced
So I've got two HSS strats. One is a partscaster with kinman Avn-69s in the neck and middle and a semi-traditional tremolo (actually a trem-king if anyone's familiar with it). It's been my main guitar for several years now. I'd say the avn-69s are hot for strat pickups and have plenty of bass, maybe a tiny bit much.

I'm just getting together the second strat after refinishing. It's a (was) a Japanese made foto finish that I just refinished to a bumblebee yellow with a black pickguard. It actually looks pretty cool. This one is also HSS, and has a floyd rose tremolo and locking nut on the neck. There's a seymour duncan humbucker in the bridge, which is just perfect for the Richie Sambora/Steve Stevens/etc tones. Love it.

The neck and middle, though...I have lace sensor holy grails in the neck and middle. They sound pretty good and spanky to my ears, but man are they thin! (Is this what the old strats from the 50's sounded like? I had no idea; never having played one.)

I do really like their tone but it also seems I need to get them really close to the strings to get the output I'm used to from the kinmans and bridge HBs. And I'd definitely like a little more bass. Maybe the kinmans are just more bassy pickups in general, and that's what my ears have gotten used to?

Any suggestions? Pickup height? Different pickups? My ideal strat tone in my brain is closer to the Lace sensor holy grails than the avn-69s, but somewhere in the middle. Lets say like the holy grails, but with more bass/balls.

Also, it may be heresy to some, but I definitely need to use noise canceling pickups. I have a regular gig that wreaks havoc with my singles, true singles buzz like crazy, even in a well-shielded guitar. I think it's the light dimmers or something, but it's really awful with true singles. Noiseless pickups were the only thing that saved me.
 
Budz Pickups
Budz S-Style Custom Hand Wound Pickups
If you want the vibe of old school lower gain strat, they do a very good job. The neck/middle fit fine with the tom holmes humbucker in the Tyler Landau Classic I gig with. Fully replaced the stock pickups, and I've had great luck dialing a big variety of tones.

These of course are all passive. Between axe-fx input gain, cabs and tone shaping tools, I've had no issues.
 
50s pups are going to have a bit more of a scooped mid sound. 50s pups are not as hot and have more bright, chimey, snappy sound. This may sound thin to your ears.
 
I bought a set of the "vintage" Zexcoils for my '94 Strat & couldn't be happier. I had a set of Holy Grails in this guitar & was never happy with positions 2 & 4. The Zexcoils are dead quiet even in the noisiest environments where even the Lace pickups pick up a little noise, and I love the tones.

Zexcoil Hum Canceling Pickup Technology - Noise-less Guitar Pickups

Scott used to have a "tour set" that you could get & try in your guitar and then pay the shipping to the next person on the list. Don't know if that's still available, but you could PM him. Scott is great to work with. Here's the TGP thread on it: Zexcoil Vintage Tour Set - Try Our Hum Canceling "Singles" - Page 5 - The Gear Page

Good demo here:
 
Just to chime in that I love my Zexcoils too. I have the 'juicy bucker' which give HB & SC sounds in the bridge, and I think an S5 in the middle and S5+ in the neck. I can get a vintage tone, or rev it up a bit when I need to with this set. A friend brought over his stock '58 strat, and I like my 'quack' more than his!

Scott's a great guy, and a great engineer, and his pups are the Bee's Knees.
 
I bought a set of the "vintage" Zexcoils for my '94 Strat & couldn't be happier. I had a set of Holy Grails in this guitar & was never happy with positions 2 & 4. The Zexcoils are dead quiet even in the noisiest environments where even the Lace pickups pick up a little noise, and I love the tones.

Zexcoil Hum Canceling Pickup Technology - Noise-less Guitar Pickups

Scott used to have a "tour set" that you could get & try in your guitar and then pay the shipping to the next person on the list. Don't know if that's still available, but you could PM him. Scott is great to work with. Here's the TGP thread on it: Zexcoil Vintage Tour Set - Try Our Hum Canceling "Singles" - Page 5 - The Gear Page

Good demo here:


Thanks for that--I might try these in my '96 strat. Have to decide between vintage set and the other options.
 
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