Well, I decided to change out the humbucker on my strat to a Seymour Duncan JB.


Its funny how much a difference it gives to the tone of my strat. It no longer sounds as bright or "metallic" as the stock sounded... Man, can it pack a punch now...

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Kid: "Hey Smokey! Where did you get your name?"
Smokey the Bear: "Well..."
(former user jimbo612)

haha yah the worse part was the fear of ruining a 1200 dollar guitar.... but it was a lot easier than it look

The thing that surprised me was how hard it was to remove the wires off the volume pot. Fender puts a HUGE amount of solder connecting the humbucker to the pot...

...and I couldn't get it all off. So instead I just clipped the old wires close to the solder joint and soldered the new wires adjacent to it on the pot.

Maybe when I get the time I'll just replace the volume pot and clean it up a bit. That'll be another project for another day...

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Kid: "Hey Smokey! Where did you get your name?"
Smokey the Bear: "Well..."
(former user jimbo612)

JB's dont have an F-Spaced option? Not that sonically it REALLY matters just wondering. Was the previous pickup black too?

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My Rig: Guitar into Pedals then into Amps and out into Speakers.

When you start doing $@!& like that, you've just gotta ignore the money aspect- modding guitars is great fun. The first guitar I truly modded out was my American Deluxe, now it's my favourite guitar by miles. Nothing original remains electronically.

I can also sympathise, they really do go mental on the solder side of things.

If you do go for a different pot, you may also want to consider going for more toys- different capacitors, maybe Sprague Orange Drops. Had those in my old Tele and they sounded great! Need to get some for the red monster I think...

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'01 American Deluxe HSS Strat.
'87 Japan HSS Strat.
'11 Custom Shop FMT HSS Strat.

"Without music, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines and dates by which bills must be paid."

Yeah, it´s fun modding a Strat. There´s so much you can do, endless stuff to do making a Strat unique.

Rock on \m/,
Robin

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http://www.youtube.com/robinstrower
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thats exactly what I was thinking guys. I don't ever plan on selling this guitar (it means too much to me), so why not make it my own...

It was funny opening it up, the first thing that came to my mind was "I could do a lot of stuff to this strat..." Orange drops definitely sound like a good idea to do soon. I'll probably tackle it when I can find some free time from classes


Impulse7: I'm not so sure. It would have saved me from having to drill that center hole though... The original Fender diamondback was white like the singlecoils, so I think this black gives my strat a very mean look to it

_________________
Kid: "Hey Smokey! Where did you get your name?"
Smokey the Bear: "Well..."
(former user jimbo612)

Orange drop caps have always been what I used up until 5 minutes ago. I make custom treble bleed circuits) for those who never installed one, sellers would lead you to believe that two or three are fine for every guitar, I assure you to do it right, you need many different values to course from to get it right, but I digress). I always used Mica caps for the kits, I orderEd a few with tone pot values; .022, .033,.047, so I could see how they sound compared to the Sprague's, I like them much better. They actually seem to mitigate some of the 60 cycle hum, though I don't know why. They're expensive, and not the easiest thing to find.
Me learning how to do mods to guitars, and then later pedals and amps, and eventually going to school to get accredited to do warrant work all came from getting an American deluxe stolen, and not having the cash to replace it with a Strat of equal value. I picked up a mim, became close friends with a luthier, and the rest is history.
Its at the same time the most rewarding, and frustrating thing in the world for a guitar player. One you get to make your instrument truely yours. On the other hand, if youve always been a tone chaser, prepare to become obsessive. I've spent more time tweaking and building pedals, guitars, and recently a amps, than actually playing them good luck. Remember; measure twice, cut once.

+1

I have to agree... I swapped out the pups in my MIM and ended up with a black 'bucker. I really like those tones a humbucker provides. And it does look pretty hot-rodded.

Sure like that color guitar JamGuy!!

I second that. That metallic orange is very eye-catching....

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Kid: "Hey Smokey! Where did you get your name?"
Smokey the Bear: "Well..."
(former user jimbo612)