my brother has a late 70's musicmaster. he's interestd in changing the pickup out for 1 with a little more oomph. he plays mostly classic rock, has a fender stage 100 amp and a few pedals, but the stock pups just don't seem to do the trick.

any recommendations? he may replace the pickguard and put in a humbucker of some sort. he can do a routing if he needs to- would this be necessary? i'm going over today and we'll be taking off the pickguard to see what's underneath.

any good place to buy the pups would also help- thanks!

I would go with a single-coil sized humbucker.

I had a musicmaster and put this inexpensive pickup in it and it sounded amazing. A good classic rock sound that sounded great clean and handled overdrive very well. I did end up selling the guitar and the guy who bought it loves it and raves about the pickup. He kept asking me how I knew to choose that pickup, but at the time I was just going for the cheapest one. It was just dumb luck that it ended up being a great match for a Musicmaster. For $30 how could you go wrong for trying it.

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... sku=300136



If you like the humbucker sound I have also heard very good things about the Duncan Little '59er which is also a single-coil sized humbucker. There are many options that would not require routing.



http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... sku=300008

_________________

thanks, kong. would you or anybody else know what a good replacement bridge for this guitar might be? the stock one is not looking great, and he wonders if there might be a bridge that would give him individual adjustments vs. the three that are on there now

thx again

I'm not sure about a new bridge, but I have adjustable saddles on my Tele, that you can adjust the compensation and get perfect intonation. There is a small screw in the middle and you can turn the saddle to get the correct intonation. They're a little expensive, but I think they might work with the Musicmaster.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_ta ... es#details

Not sure if another top-loading hardtail bridge might work. You would have to make sure the string-spread is not too wide for the neck. There are a lot of hard-tail bridges at Guitar Fetish.

_________________