Personally, I wouldn't change a thing on your pedal board. It looks to me like you have very sound-specific pedal types, and most likely use them to fill out your sound or perform certain songs that call for a specific effect. You won't get a chorus or flanger type sound from your amp alone. That being said, I can (and do) appreciate the sound of a tube amp without pedals; but I also recognize the need and/or desire for them, as well as use a plethora of them myself.

Moving on to the main reason this thread was started, I would suggest replacing the nut on that guitar with a nicely made bone or even a graph Tech model. It will help a lot with tunung issues. Of course, a proper set-up is a must. If you are unhappy with the sound coming from the guitar, in particular the bridge pickup - yes, change it. As was mentioned before, preview as many soundclips you can before choosing, but realize they were not made with your particular rig, so there may be some tonal differences. These areas alone, if modded and set up correctly will make a night and day difference in that guitar.

My point was that before you change the bridge pick-up there are a few things that need to be addressed before a pup replacement. It often is not the pick ups as the deficient part but rather the way the amp is dialed in, or the caps and tone volume pots.
You can chase a tone by endlessly changing pick ups but that is the last resource, My strat build has the MIM pups which came with the Players Deluxe, those pups are great but they needed a tone pot (TBX) that would allow them to perform.

As a matter of fact, I can play my MIM pups thru my Magnatone amp and most people ask what kind of custom pups are those. It isn't the pups but rather the amp.
The guitar/pup equation is only half of the total equation. A good stock set of Pups will often surprise as to what they are capable of doing.

There is nothing wrong with the stock Fender nuts, they do however need to be fine tuned as often most previous owners never were clued in to the minute details that have to be performed to set up a guitar to be at a Pro level of performance.
I disagree with the soundclips, the same soundclip played thru my G4 Mac with Bose speakers will sound different than your set up or the OP's. When it comes to all this modded sampling, it is just that. Too much information and usually useless since the variables are never within a lab constraints.
I firmly believe that in a live gig situation you need simplicity, especially in a venue such as a church which are optimal acoustic chambers due to their high ceilings and ovalized construction so that sound waves bounce off at oblique angles rather than right angles.

To me a choral ensemble with a clean guitar as back up is going to be awesome. Too many effects and it becomes a caucaphonic wall of white noise.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

[quote="daversatek"]Personally, I wouldn't change a thing on your pedal board. It looks to me like you have very sound-specific pedal types, and most likely use them to fill out your sound or perform certain songs that call for a specific effect. You won't get a chorus or flanger type sound from your amp alone. That being said, I can (and do) appreciate the sound of a tube amp without pedals; but I also recognize the need and/or desire for them, as well as use a plethora of them myself.

I originally got the pedals because of the wide variety of songs we cover and I'm not sure how to get the sounds I need without them. Does it make sense to get the best sound out of the guitar and amp without the pedals and then add the pedals after that?
I run my pedals through the effects loop of my HRD.

Yes it does, it allows you to every so often go back to basics and reassess your sound, best way to know if it works is to be aware of the reactions from other band members, but especially the audience when you are playing.
Watch for the subtle signs as in subtle facial expressions, that will tell you if you need to adjust or not..People will often come up afterwards and say nice playing even though as a musician we prefer honest criticism otherwise we don't know something is not working until it becomes a mess..

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

That's not electron blue. My main guitar is electron blue and the poster and pics say/show that it can sometimes look a deep purple, my electron blue does not do that and I know it's electron blue because I contacted fender and asked with the serial number.

I believe that in the strat plus thread there is a picture and lots of comments regarding a color just like this that looks purple and blue depending on lighting and if I recal correctly it is called Navy blue. Also if you look at fenders color chart pic of navy blue mettaloc it looks somewhat like the shade of blue in the pics provided.

Here are some pictures of the electronics side of the pickguard. The humbucker does have 4 wires, so can it be used as a split coil?

I've also included a picture of the body without the pickguard. There are 3 holes routed on the right side of the pickup routing... what is their purpose?

Yes it can, I suggest getting a hold of the book " Guitar Electronics for Musicians " by Donald Brosnac. It is not new but still contains the best explanation of pickups and their various wiring possibilities. I have an old version but I think the newer ones have been revised.




I'm not sure as to exactly how they are used, but I do know that they are either location or clamping holes used at Fender when the bodies are running thru the assembly process.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Quick easy tuning problems fix..

Lubricate the nut string slots with graphite from a sharperned fairly soft pencil. Get as much of that black dust into the slots as you can.

I don't know if your guitar came with the 2 strings trees, or if someone has added a 2nd. In my experience the need for the 2nd string tree is marginal and depends on the individual guitar and set up. Try taking off the 2nd one and see what effect it has. If the sound of the strings it presses down becomes weedy or just odd, then the break angle over the nut is insufficient. Put it back on. If it sounds fine, leave it off - you don't want unnecessary friction points. String friction is the enemy of stable tuning (which is also why you lubricate the nut). Whatever you do with the string trees (one or two), lubricate the underside of them to minimise the friction they cause on the strings. Use vaseline or lip salve (Fender recommendation!) I use lip salve personally..

Learn how to tie your guitar strings onto their tuning posts. (I can advise if you don't know how to do it). This is almost as good as using locking tuners - or did you say you had these already? Whatever, minimum number of string winds on the tuning post is a good thing.

3 (often repeated) worthwhile tips that will cost you nothing except a few moments of your time, and may possibly resolve all your tuning issues.

Love the colour of your Strat with that white pearloid scratchplate - excellent look..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

I will definitely try to find " Guitar Electronics for Musicians " as I really want to learn more about guitar electronics in general and pickups in particular.

It's good to know that those holes are there simlply for the assembly process and that I'm not missing sonething.

Thanks for the pencil lead trick... you can bet I'll be using it when I restring!

My understanding is that the guitar originally came with only one string tee and that the second was added later. I will take the second one off and see if makes a differance in keeping the guitar in tune. Thanks!

It is a noticeable difference with or without the string tree's. Replace them with the roller style, because they are higher off of the head stock, the nut to tree to post angle is not so severe and therefore friction is reduced all the while the rollers do not catch the strings as they move from being sharpened or flattened.
Also make sure all the strings are nestled in a round slot angled to the tuner post hole and are not binding because the slot is too narrow.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

Here's an update on my project...

After listening to a lot of pickup sound clips, I've ordered these three (all are Seymour Duncan):

Bridge: SH-6 Distortion Humbucker
Middle: STK-S4m Classic Stack
Neck: STK-4n Classic Stack

Also ordered "Guitar Electronics For Musicians" by Donald Brosnac, as recommended by 53magnatone.

I plan to get more parts, but the pickups wiped out the "guitar fund" for now, lol!

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2005 MIA Strat HH Hardtail
Modified 2000 MIM Strat HSS

Probably everyone else on this forum knows this (I have to learn things the hard way, lol!), but in the world of Seymour Duncan humbuckers, the ones with proper f-spacing are called "trembuckers". I didn't know this, so, silly me, I ordered SH-6 "humbucker". Anyway, I called MF, and I am exchanging it for a TB-5 Trembucker.

I have received the STK-4n single coil neck pickup, but the STK-4m single coil middle pickup and TB-5 trembucker are on back order from MF.

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2005 MIA Strat HH Hardtail
Modified 2000 MIM Strat HSS

Don't worry about it, Seymour Duncan stand right behind their products. They'll exchange that no sweat at all.

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No no and no

I was actually going to recommend a pickup maker named Travis Morris out of TN. He made me a set of pickups for my strat that sound great and it was only $110 for the whole set including shipping (I then later ordered a humbucker from him as well, because the seymour duncan in there (it was a pearly gates) didn't cut it next to the other three pickups (Yeah my strat has four pickups...) which would be good for the kind of sound you're looking for, actually. Bright, open, very dynamic. As far as I know the humbucker is exactly the same as the strat pickups (but with flat pole pieces) and is simply two single coils housed together. So, I guess you could say the guitar has 5 pickups, actually.

I agree a coil tap would be a useful thing to add but be aware that it will also cause the humbucker to stop bucking the hum plus the output will be cut roughly in half, so a weaker humbucker (like say an 8k total [aka 4k each coil]) might sound weaker than your other two strat pickups if you coil split. I think that trembucker is fairly strong, though, so you should end up around 7k or so if you split it which is around the resistance (read, winding numbers) of a strat bridge single coil.