Strato: are pickup coils interchangeable?

Alejo

New member
Hello to all.
I bought a Strato USA, second hand. The central pick up coil was a Seymour Duncan (double coil). I wanted the original Strato sound, so this morning I changed this one for the original one that I kept when I bought the guitar.
The thing is: now, when I select medium tones with the switch, I hear the high tones, and the medium tones appear when I move the switch on the lower position. Obviously I have to fix this. I believe the last owner changed the central coil but also changed them of position. I don´t know.
If the pickup coils are interchangeable, I will fix it by changing the connetions of the switch, but if every coil is spezialized in one kind of frequency, I will have to reinstall them on their original arrangement.
Thank you very much in advance.
Alejo.
 
No I don't believe that they are specialized to position. However, the middle coil is usually RWRP (reverse-wound, reverse-polarity) so that it's hum-cancelling when combined with either the bridge or the neck pickup.

I would double check the wiring on the switch. It sounds like it's mis-wired.
 
What you say seems pretty reasonable . Thank you for your quick response and your help.
 
By the way.... is there any way I can check wich one is the RWRP one?. Does it has any phisical difference with the others? The wiring in the coil is twisted differentely or something like that?
 
No problem... I'm sure there's a way to check for RWRP, but I don't know what it is. If it's the original, it should be RWRP (99% sure of that). It's probably a wiring issue around the switch (it sounds like you're selecting the bridge pickup in both switch positions).
 
Acidrain,

These are the latest news: I opened again the guitar and I checked the connections and the electrical arrangement. Everything seems Ok. Therefore I am starting to think the middle pickup has a mayor problem. The tone I have when I select the middle pickup has not enough middle deepness, that´s why I thought it was connected to the neck pickup.

I would like to replace it. I´ve only seen Seymour Duncan pickups to sell, but not original Fender pickups. Do you know if they are sold somewhere out there?. I could´t find them on the Fender page either.

Thanks again,

Alejo.
 
Back
Top