Just picked up an American Standard and I was hoping for a HSS but this one was on sale. I want a humbucker for a little better crunch and gain and I'm wondering how the stacked single coil size humbuckers compare to the standard ones? I like the clean look of the single coils and I'd rather not have to buy a new pickguard for a HSS setup. I play 80's rock, classic rock, and a few metal songs but just messing around my bread and butter are VH, Ratt, etc. I"m going to be playing through a POD which gives me quite a bit of gain to begin with. I was thinking of something along the lines of a seymour duncan screamin demon or lil screamin demon, little 59, or maybe a dimarzio tone zone. I've heard some sound clips of hot rails and they sound pretty good too, so that's a good possibility as well. I don't need super mega gain but I definately want to be able to get some good saturation and harmonics. How close is the gain between the mini hums and the standard ones?

Hot Rail or a mini jb

I've decided I want to keep the classic strat look so I'm going with a stacked humbucker in the stock pickguard. I'm thinking a fast track 2, hotrail, or lil screamin demon. I'm going to order one and see how it sounds, I might even replace the factory volume pot with a 500k one that I have but I'm afraid I'll mess up the neck pickup sound with a hotter pot.

One thing at a time, that way you know what each mod sounds like seperately.

cheers, and happy modding.