Upgrade stock pups in my MIM Strat?

[dirtdog]

planning on doing what the thread title indicates.

Not that I don't like my pickups, but I'm going to put the existing ones in a project beat-to-hell MIM Strat I'm working on and upgrade my "nice" MIM Strat.

What are some good options that would be considered and upgrade from stock?

I play through a DRRI, use a SparkleDrive and a Fulltone OCD and play mostly overdriven blues and '60's, '70s rock.

I've been leaning towards the Tex-Mex since I am a huge fan of Jimmie Vaughan's tone. Can't seem to find these anywhere.

What about the Texas Specials? I have heard that these produce a nasaly sound.


Any other suggestions?

DD

[rudutch]

GFS seems to be the new favorites - I have not tried them

[pseudocat]

What about the Texas Specials? I have heard that these produce a nasaly sound.

I have a friend who dropped a set into his strat, and to my ears they do sound nasal, and kind of muffled.

After trying a bajillion pickups, I've gone the GFS route, and I'm thrilled with them. GFS 60's Repros are the bomb. There are several threads about them here, so a quick search might get you more testimonials than you'd want.

[Plugger]

Not that I don't like my pickups,

This makes it tricky. Obviously, if you are starting from a position if being dissatisfied with the sound, then changing things are likelier to result in something more pleasing, or at least less displeasing. If you are fiddling around with a winning combination, things are much more likely to get worse. If it aint broke...

Now, I know that some pups are inherently "better" than others according all sorts of objective criteria -- no doubt about it -- but the sound you end up getting is going to be the result of a match (or mismatch) between the tonal characteristics of the guitar and the pups. I've been in the position of putting "better" pups in an instrument that already sounded good thinking it would get even better. Well, not necessarily...

The problem is that sometimes cheaper pups will balance out the natural tonal qualities of the guitar in such a way that replacing with "better" pups actually results in an lesser result. So if you've got a guitar that sounds good with stock MIM pups, changing to a very different pup might not work out as well as expected.

OTOH, it might work out brilliantly, but, as I say I have been in somewhat the paradoxical position of rejecting the more expensive pups over the lesser for a particular instrument, because of the whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.

This is one of the reasons I tend to be a little bit skeptical when I read gushy pup reviews... most of the time people are talking as if it's solely the pup creating the sound they are hearing, ignoring the fact that the pups are part of a "tonal team".

Anyhow... usual disclaimers apply...

-Mark


-Mark

[dirtdog]

I guess for the price of a set of GFS pups, it's worth a shot. I'm not about to run out and pickup a set of Texas Specials for close to $200 in the name of experimentation....

OTOH, if I can find a used set of stock MIM pups, I'd be just as happy and have one less soldering job to do...

DD

[LoveBandit]

All I can say is the GFS grey bottom 70's pickups and a Callaham real heavy steel trem block made such a difference in my 2004 MIM Strat that it is OBSCENE. Best "tone money" I ever spent.

LB.

[concert410]

Is anyone still happy with their Rio Grande Vintage Tallboys? A few years ago, they were the flavor of the month.

[chuckocaster]

LB, you are adding fuel to my 2nd strat fire... damn you!

as for your MIM DD, i've been down this road before. my MIM has had about $1,000 worth of pups stuffed in it. all i can say is that it sounded good no matter what i did to it. if you have a good guitar, then swapping pups is little putting sprinkles on a cupcake. sure, the cupcake is good without them, but it takes on a whole other stance once they are on.

the real difference i heard was moving one of the tone pots to the bridge pup, and rewiring the switch to get the two outside coils. this made a strat more useful to me, and more pleasing to the tones i wanted and the way i played. YMMV.

[pseudocat]

Is anyone still happy with their Rio Grande Vintage Tallboys? A few years ago, they were the flavor of the month.

I have one that I like a lot -- and I'm popping it into the neck position of my Squier '51 this weekend.

Before I got my GFS set, I considered getting a another set of the Rio Grandes, but for the price of one Tallboy, I can get an entire set of GFS 60's Repros.

[dirtdog]

hey lads - i pulled the trigger on a set of gfs vintage alnico staggers. i'll put 'em in the beater i'm building and keep the stock pups in the "nice" MIM....

thanks for the suggestions - i'll keep you posted on the results....

DD

[dirtdog]

OK, I finally got delivery of my GFS vintage alnico staggers and put them in the beater MIM that I have.

I expected these pickup to have a bit more clarity and bite as compared to the stock ceramic pups in my other MIM strat. The stock MIM a 2000 model with a rosewood fretboard, the beater is a 1992 model with a maple neck/fretboard. Everything else is essentially the same.

But I didn't expect the difference to be as sizzling it was, even accounting for a fresh set of strings (which are the same on both guitars).

While I don't consider my stock MIM pups to be muddy as others state, I consider them more "throaty" - with a nice deep timbre that you might associate with the SRV tone...

These GFS pups are just ear-shatteringly bright and the differences between the stock MIM pups and these guys are, well, staggering - and not in a good way to my ears....

Now, I've only had the chance to run these through my desktop mixer/headphones and through my DRRI at very low volumes. I guess the real test will be how the perform in a live setting.

But, so far, for all the rave reviews on these GFS pups, I have to say that I'm not overly impressed on first blush.

Would crappy soldering abilities affect the tone? I'm certain that I've got solid contacts for all the solder joints, all controls work as expected with no noise, crackling etc. so would there be anything else in the "system" that would make the difference so wild?

I'll try to put up some sound bites later on tonight....

DD

[dirtdog]

How close are they to the strings? .

yeah, fezz, I figured that would be a factor - I had them fairly far from the strings to start with (like almost 10mm) and then adjusted them according to Fender's Strat Setup Guide (see below) and also compared measurements against the "known good" of my stock MIM which I am comparing against and I'm pretty sure I'm in the ballpark for a decent pickup height.

Fender specs from fender.com


Vintage style
Bass Side: 6/64" (2.4 mm)
Treble Side 5/64" (2 mm)

That said, I'll experiment a bit with different heights and see how that affects tone.

I'm guessing alnico pups could account for the vast majority of the difference compared to the ceramic pups?

Would an aftermarket bridge/trem unit of non-Fender origins make a big difference?

[FrankJohnson]

I had a sililar experience with some aftermarket pups in a strat that I got 4-5th hand.

Just curious....what rating are the pots in there? Mine had 500k and it was like a rusty icepick into the ear! Replaced with 250s and a cap already attached (not sure what ) and it sounded MUCH better.

Just a thought

[dirtdog]

Ok, fezz - I'll use my ears!!

What I'm hearing right now is the exact opposite of what you describe - the alnicos sound like icepicks and the ceramics (assuming they're ceramics since the guitar is stock MIM circa 2000) are nice and meaty/throaty sounding....and I mean that in a good way.


I'm almost certain the pots in the beater MIM are 250K.

Pickups are brand new from GFS and I'm using the basic wired pickguard assembly from GFS as well (the low-end one, not the high-end handwired one).


Thanks guys - will continue to tinker....that's what this project is all about for me - tinkering and learning along the way.

I started like this rebuilding mountain bikes a decade ago and now I'm pretty damned good at building bikes, so there's hope for me with guitars....

DD

[dirtdog]

The Low end wired guards that are the cheap ones are not AlNiCo pickups. They're ceramic bar magnets.

Yeah, I swapped out the pups that came stock with the pickguard for the GFS Vintage Alnico Staggereds....

So basically, I took the pots and 5-way switch, plus all the wiring/caps from the GFS kit, transplanted that to a Fender pickguard that I had lying around (that fit much better than the GFS pickguard and has already been nicely relic'd), mounted and wired in the GFS V.A.S. pups and installed that into the beater MIM.

Again, I'll tinker around with pup heights tonight and see what happens....

DD

[dirtdog]

Cool. Guitars is fun ain't they?

oh yeah baby! Almost as fun as bikes!

It was even more fun when I had my four-year old daughter looking over my shoulder while doing the soldering when she said: "I like doing whatever you're doing, Daddy"....then she went and grabbed my other guitar and said: "We're making that one just like this one, right?"

OK, sweetie, now just hold this wire right...here....that's it!! Junior Woodchuck guitar tech in the making me thinks....

DD

[dirtdog]

Ok, messed around with pup height and that has tamed things down a bit. Still the GFS Vintage Alnico are quite bright and will take a bit of getting used to. If this is what a Strat is "supposed" to sound like, I've got some learnin' to do. Also shows me that a MIM Strat with stock ceramic pickups can sound pretty good too.

Also realized I hadn't soldered the ground to trem claw. Once I did that, it took care of all that crazy buzz I was getting....

Anyways, onward and upwards and thanks for the kind assistance boys!!!

DD

[Plugger]

Now, I know that some pups are inherently "better" than others according all sorts of objective criteria -- no doubt about it -- but the sound you end up getting is going to be the result of a match (or mismatch) between the tonal characteristics of the guitar and the pups. I've been in the position of putting "better" pups in an instrument that already sounded good thinking it would get even better. Well, not necessarily...

And everything else I said above, especially the "if it ain't broke..." bit.

Just sayin'...

Don't beat your head against a wall too much if the "better" pickups (or whatever the latest hyped or advertised "tone-improver" doohickey is) don't actually make things "better". Happens all the time. Trust your ears, certainly before whatever you read on the interweb.

-Mark

[dirtdog]

So, last night after mucking about with the gear, I laid down some tracks on disk using the exact same settings on both guitars and on the modelling software on the 'puter. A/B'd the tracks and, when mixed with drums and bass, there wasn't an appreciable difference in tone between the two. Maybe the GFS guitar was a bit brighter due to fresh strings, but that was it.

Weird.

DD

[chuckocaster]

we nerds sit in our mancaves for hours on end stressing over subtlies. it's a madness sure, but it is a cross i've learned to bare.

as for the not making a huge difference in the mix, that's usually the case. my MIM sounded great with the stock pups, but wasn't quite right. all pups really do is adjust the EQ curve.

[melody]

Ok, messed around with pup height and that has tamed things down a bit. Still the GFS Vintage Alnico are quite bright and will take a bit of getting used to. If this is what a Strat is "supposed" to sound like, I've got some learnin' to do. Also shows me that a MIM Strat with stock ceramic pickups can sound pretty good too.

Also realized I hadn't soldered the ground to trem claw. Once I did that, it took care of all that crazy buzz I was getting....

Anyways, onward and upwards and thanks for the kind assistance boys!!!

DD

To my ears the GFS pups sound clearer than the stock MIM pups. Learn to use your tone controlls... Allso the MIM lack a bit in the ass end where the GFS shine in that area..

[deepblue1963]

There were 2 things I didnt like about my Olympic white MIM Strat...

First, The pups were weak. I had 3 Texas Specials put in and it made all the difference in the world.

Second, The frets were too flat. I had Dunlop stainless 6105's put in.
Now I can do some serious bending without fretting out. The 7.25 radius is a little too curved for my style, so the taller frets were a huge blessing.

I have an SRV Strat as well, and this MIM with the upgrades sounds just as good. A little brighter than the SRV, but thats okay.

[TommyJ]

I cant say that I have replaced many p'ups,
But I will say this the fender set up guide for my strat sucks,
you set the string height and p'up height to the spec's they give and its flat and buzzy,plus 5/64 bass 4/64 treble at 17th fret yeah if
you like a buzzy playing sloppy guitar.
I had my guitar rite on with advise that fezz gave,set p'ups buy ear
and volume to each other and raise the action some.
Now I have to re setup my strat,because I thought I could get it to play better with factory spec's..
Sometimes its best to listen and learn,when I get it back to the way I had it Im leaving it be..

[djinn1973]

How close are they to the strings? The closer they are to the strings, the more harsh any pickup will sound. Drop all the pickups flush with the guard. Raise the neck pickup until it sounds good, then match the volume/output of the middle, then the bridge. Strat pickups, even vintage style, sound like ass when they're too close to the strings.

You know, you posted this advice in another thread some where on the board. And when I read it (then did it) it changed my life.
Thank you Fezz

[frank thomson]

DBLPOST

[frank thomson]

we nerds sit in our mancaves for hours on end stressing over subtlies. it's a madness sure, but it is a cross i've learned to bare.

as for the not making a huge difference in the mix, that's usually the case. my MIM sounded great with the stock pups, but wasn't quite right. all pups really do is adjust the EQ curve.

10 words or less.

that always works for me

and DD, what i usually do it just buy a loaded USA guard for like $100. u get all the pots too...and those pups ain't all that terrible....and if u change pups, you can see just SELL the US pups to offset you new ones.

[dirtdog]

Hey Frank - I ended up not doing the mod as I alluded to in my original post.

I ended up buying a prewired guard from GFS and loaded that into my beater Strat. I swapped out the stock prewired pups for a set of GFS vintage alnico staggereds. (See my other thread on the topic of the results of that).

As it stands, I just ordered a set of GFS '60s Repros and plan on loading those into my main MIM Strat to see how that sounds....

....but thanks for advice anyways!

I'll second djinn1973's motion....I, too, followed fezz's advice about the Fender setup guide and his advice re: pickup heights and using your ear to determine optimum setup! Thanks again fezz!

DD