Just had to rave about the pickups in the Highway One Stratocaster that I bought. I purchased the HSS format for the humbucker on the bridge. I was expecting a little bit of attitude from the Atomic Humbucker but was pleasantly surprised at how much the two single-coils snarl! I also have an American Deluxe and it's like night and day. The Deluxe with SCN pups sounds clean and refined. The Alnico III pups in the Highway One scream! They sound great with distortion and especially with a Wah pedal.

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

The Highway 1 Strat is a great guitar. I absolutely love mine. I bought a SSS and converted it to a HSS. I did not get the Atomic Humbucker though, I opted for a Dimarzio Super Distortion. I left the neck and middle single coils stock. Mine snarls and screams too.

Enjoy your guitar.

RK

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

love mine. have a few 2007's highway one sss strats
with the Alnico III pu's they simply RULE! any style
of playing out of these and a lot more. there legends!!!
enjoy your highway one!

yeah,
ive been loving the tone i get out of my hwy 1 sss lately.
to the point of considering taking in a 699 damage control, while adding a new axe to my arsenal. with a maple neck. all my other guitars have rw fretboard.

i love position 4 (mid and bridge) tone rolled down to about 2, the middle tone stays wide open, and i get this screaming humbucker tone thanks to the greasebucket circuitry.

agree, sounds sick with the wah wah pedal.
by the way, i can play clean stuff like lenny on it, and 2 seconds later jamming out some bridge of sighs.

I'ver had my sss H1 strat for a little over a month, now, and I couldn't be happier with it.

It really suits me, and I like the sound of the Alnico 3 pickups. It was weird at first, getting used to the differing tone controls, but I've adjusted pretty quickly; despite years of playing guitars with the more traditional tone configuration.

It's my favourite guitar - what more can I say?

As a proud owner of 6 (!!!???) Highway One Stratocaster HSS's, I have to shake my head at how mediocrity is applauded and accepted.
I think the Highway One Strat is a fantastic piece of resonant wood, with a great neck and frets. A PERFECT platform for building a dream guitar!

The stock pickups.....hmmm........totally SUCK!! Aside from the obvious 60 cycle hum....they were WEAK!!
With the mousyiest of tone ever to be heard! They HAD to GO!!

To make my guitars remotely playable....I gutted them and put in all new pickups.

Now.....and only NOW....are they total stage guitars!






The 5 Highway One Stratocasters.........
All pickups have been changed to protect the innocent!!
As well as the tuners..(.Don't EVEN get me started on those cheap assed PING Tuners....total CRAP!!!.)....all have Fender/Schaller locking tuners as well as Ferraglide saddles.

LtoR:
Fender Vintage Noiseless, Gibson 57 Classic Plus
fender Vintage Noiseless, Gibson 490T
DiMarzio Area 58, DiMarzio 30th Anniv. P.A.F.
DiMarzio Area 58, DiMarzio Virtual P.A.F.
Fender Vintage Noiseless, Gibson 498T

NOT SHOWN: 6 th Highway One Strat HSS
DiMarzio Area 61, Gibson BurstBucker 3

Sorry to pee on your parade people...but I speak from experience...again I own 6 of them! I could haul these thing onto ANY stage and be proud! Very rarely does a guitar come off the rack and meet MY standards!

I hear what you're saying. I like to tinker. My American Deluxe is so refined that there really isn't much that I want to do to it. I bought my Highway One specifically to modify and build on it.

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

My point exactly!
The guitars are indeed quality, resonant, toneful pieces of wood that need to be "tweaked" for them to reach full potential!

You get it!

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

HWY1strat...

What model Ferraglide saddles did you use? PG-8000-F0?

I forgot what year Fender started making the Highway bridge assemblies in Mexico.
But on my older ones...I got the ones for Vintage Strats.
On the newer ones I had to get the ones for Import Strat; they fit the Mexican bridge assembly.

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

hwy1strat,
actually, i happen to like my alnico III pickups that came stock.
but, how are the noiseless pickups with gibson hb, are they pretty balanced?

Hey...if YOU dig them.....great!

For me....they were weak,mousey, and just all around crappy!
And of course....the dreaded 60 cycle hum! I HAD TO do something about that!! This is the year 2009....there is NO reason why we can't have a nice "Stratty" sounding single coil pickup that DOESN'T hum!

One of the best moves I ever did for myself was to replace those pickups. As far as the balance.....everthing IS nice and even.

You can obviously tell when I kick in the humbucker...it's chunky and ballsy!

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

I see...so even thought my 2007 Hwy 1 was built in the US...the bridge assembly may have been made in mexico...and assembled in the US...

BINGO!!!!
Yep....that "Made In America" tag is a thing of the past!

There is a distinct miniscule difference (yeah...it MATTERS!) between American bridge assemblies and Mexican ones.

I brought my guitar guy a set of the Vintage ones for one of my newer HWY's and he had a fit.......he didn't have a grinder on premisis to correct the situation. Even if he ground them, they'd have black grind marks on 'em!

You can't win!

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!