Pickup advice

[Thrawn]

I'd like to have a sugestion on wich pickup to buy for my
fender squier korean. I'd like to replace the neck pickup to have a better clean. I thought about a Seymour duncan humbucker Jazz...

I'd like to have a good clean sound like a tele or a strat on the neck pickup (I know I will never get close to that sound but that's the kind of sound I like anyway).

p.s. I cannot buy a new guitar right!!

Thanks a lot!

 

[memphissound]

Consider getting a new guitar.

By the time you get a high quality PUP from SD, change pot values for the humbucker, and route the body to accept a humbucker (if you go that way), you'll probably have doubled the cost of what you payed for the Squier and all you'll have is a cheap guitar with a good PUP.

I think I would hock the Squier and try again.

Peace <><

 

[bongolation]

Consider getting a new guitar.

By the time you get a high quality PUP from SD, change pot values for the humbucker, and route the body to accept a humbucker (if you go that way), you'll probably have doubled the cost of what you payed for the Squier and all you'll have is a cheap guitar with a good PUP.

I second that.

Note that I _always_ advise against modifying guitars as in one way or the other it always winds up being good money after bad. Either you spend money you can't get back out of a cheap guitar, or you spend money you can't get back out of a good guitar, plus you've degraded its resale value by screwing with it.

People have _fits_ when I say this, but this is what I was told when I started dealing in instruments in the '60s, and it was the best advice I've ever gotten regarding buying and selling guitars.

Get a stock guitar that works for you, then leave it alone. When it doesn't work for you any more, sell it and get one that does.

That's about thirty-five years of dealing in quality instruments talking.

 

[Gidge]

what exactly do you mean by "better" as far as the pickup......the Squiers have decent enough pickups.....

Id sell the Squier and get a $149 Yamaha Pacifica......

 

[Thrawn]

I finaly bought a SD Jazz pickup (Before I saw the reply doh!!!)
and I'm very, very happy with it!!

It didn't broke the bank (I think pu are very cheap) and my guit sound a lot better now (to me and I think it's important). Like I said I was looking for a tele-like sound on clean and I a/b test it with my friend's tele and I was very surprise, It was a lot closer than before (IMHO and IMfriendHO).

I don't want to buy a cheap guitar now. I've been playing for about 8 years now and I would like to buy a great guitar (1500-2000$) in the next few year that I will have until I die, but I can't afford that now.

The squier I own play very fine (my friend bought one at the same store and at the same time and his guitar sound and play really bad so I guess I was lucky) and I'm really use to it.

All I want is to give a little bit more life to my squier and I'm very satisfied by now. I plan to replace the bridge pickup for the next week. In all, I will have paid 215$ CAN (140$US) for a guitar I will be happy to play with for 1-2 years more. It's far from a 2000 Standart LP....

So thanks a lot for the advices... even if I didn't follow them!!!

...and if someone want to give me an advice for the bridge pickup I would be please. I've look for SD Distortion, JB and maybe Invader or a Dimarzio tone zone... I like a good crunch on disto and the reason I want to change the stock pickup is the huge amount of "no-good feed-back" I have with it!! (I've tried to put foam under but it didn't work.)

 

[Krystof01]

Thrawn; I'd check out harmony central for pick-up reviews. If you kind of ignore the extremes ther is great scope to decide which pick-up will suit your style.

http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data2/00man.html

Good luck.

 

[Thrawn]

Thanks Krystof, It's my main source of info for pickup.

What I didn't like about it is that there is too much extreme reviews like "Best pu ever, I give a ten on ten" and "Sound like crap, give a 1 on ten" based on weird facts. But there is usefull comments sometimes.

Thanks again!

 

[Gidge]

SD Hot Rails?...

 

[Thrawn]

Maybe I'm not right but is there a humbucker size too??? I say that because I will buy one for my friend next week who own a tele and the one I will order is a single size humbucker.

(p.s. my squier is Hum - single - Hum configuration)

 

[Sentridoh]

pickup advice

I agree with Gidge you should try Seymour Duncan's HotRails for your bridge. I have recently bought one and think it is great.

 

[records4u]

Have you ever gone into the city? You see $350 toyotas,nissans,hondas with $5000 dollars worth or hydrolics and tires and rims. There is a difference between a chevette and a corvette!

 

[Thrawn]

for sure!

But my point is that I paid 560$can for my Squier (and it's not the crappy squier strat, It's crappy but lot better than those one. Btw I cannot find the model on the squier web site, it looks like a stagemaster but it's not exactly that...hum...) and I have paid
200$can for the two pickups and I must say that I am very happy with the sound.

My friend adjust everything for free since is a good luthier and I will be able to keep my guit for some years without thinking I own a super guitar but something that fit my needs. Like i said before I'm not ready to spend 2 grands right now!!

Thanks for your comments!!

 

[Montra]

yeah seymour makes great pickups, i had the hot rails in several diferent guitars, liked em, i really really love the seymour jb model, it really cuts through nice, i remember also trying out a seymour hot rails for tele one time (i was doing a country duo at that time) it sounded great but, i ended putting the 30 dollar pickup that came in the tele......it gave me no pickup personality influence. i needed that real raw country twang, that dwight yokam sound. the seymour hot rails for tele didn't do it, it was an awesome pickup, but there was a diference,,,,,,,just like the active emg's, had them in diferent guitars, for heavy rock stuff and for country (single coils were a fad fer a while) but after a while, the ear just knows i guess,,,,listen with yer ear thawn, concentrate on yer actually playing, yer tone, yer dynamics, your muting, your open no mute flatpicking, your amp sound, play with how close or far your pick-ups are to the strings, also record with both, now that you have the jazz pickup (it's a good pickup i remember it) and most of all....have fun...peace

 

[Thrawn]

Exactly what I'm doing!!!

Beside the fact of having a better sound and much more fun, changing my pickup help me to know much better how a guitar work. Like I said I've been playing for about 8 years an never give much attention to guitar parts and functioning and I just start to experiment with that (intonation, electronic, all kind of adjutment, etc.) . Having a Squier help me because I'm not afraid to make a big mistake...even if changing pickup is very easy...

Thanks!!

 

[Montra]

lol yeah i know what u mean, i got this old blue ford 4x4, i love it man, when i'm getting wood yer something i can like chuck the stuff in the back, who cares if it gets banged up, saposta look that way anywys....man i've had some many expensive guitars, and crapy ones that had great necks, it does mater but then it doesn't either, ya know what i mean, i'm thinking about buying a evh transperant blue wolfgange fer like 1999. canadian, but then i'm thinking, geeesh i can get a rhode or c1 mic, that 600 dollar nobody acoustic that sounds great!!! (can't remember what it was called), a mic pre amp, a pod2.0 and maybe a yamaha pacifica er somethin, put a seymore jb in it, grab a case of beer and widdle away!!!!!!!! but then again that one purchase of the evh sounds good too lol

 

[Thrawn]

lol 100% right!

Hey I got a friend of a friend who have a wolfgang peavy (I'm not sure if it's the evh) and he seemed to swear by it! Have you tried it already?? How does it sound to you???

 

[Montra]

heya thawn, yeah i've tried them, i love em, but they come with 9 gauge strings on them and i really can't get a grip on thin strings, i usually use 11-49 guage strings which don't flop around much and i then can dig in and rip some solos or when playing chords (whatever they be) just sound thicker, more positive,,,don't get me wrong, i love the guitar, it's fun, then again so is a great strat setup or a g&l tele , or the old 84 -85 hamer chapperals,,,,er the old strat schecter , man i played this strat schecter on some used hi-watt amp at a music store that had that sweet thing goin on, the ehv's seem to have that too, i think (going back to the yamaha pacifica that gidge mentioned) there are some sweet playing pacific's out there, just watch out for green necks by them, but sometimes those shrink alright and you can run some sandpaper up and down the neck then some 000 steel wool then maybe one light coat of tounge oil on it and it should feel just like the evh guitar....hey all these guys are right to extents,,,,,expensive guitars are sometimes worth the bills, just try and put together a guitar with all the parts from say.. warmoth guitar parts, yer still looking at a grand plus say 180. fer some tech to do it up right for ya, i've seen tech's work on those peavey tracer guitars, sanding the necks n stuff, hey man they turn out "jjjjjjjust great" as tony the tiger would say...peace thawn

 

[Montra]

lol oops sorry, yer name is thrawn, not thawn like i have been posting,,,,,,geeesh eh

 

[Thrawn]

hehe no offence taken!!

So I think I would add the wolgang to my shopping list aside with standart LP, Godin lgx, american fat strat and Brian Moore.... Doh!! there is nothing under a grand ($Can of course, fucking Canadian dollars,it's so weak!! hehe)

 

[Gargamel]

Stay away from making yuor decisions based on whatpeople say on Harmony Central. I've never seen a bad rating!!!!

Get a new guitar...........I have one word for you


EBAY