Hi fellow fenderians,

I own a blacktop stratocaster (rosewood). For the last 4-5 months my tone and sound taste has pretty much changed. I fell in love with fender's bright, twangy single coil neck tones which performs texas blues style and alike perfectly well (especially with tex sets) Blacktop is cool and all however its neck humbucker is way too hot, dark and muddy even with a full clean amp setting. especially low E and A bangs too too dark and muddy almost like a bass guitar even with a standard dean markley 0.10-0.46 set.
Amp settings and some amp emulators like guitar rig 4- ampli 3 etc is fiddled a lot I ve tried many things but couldnt even come closer. it's just too dark and muddy. so it's not about settings and even single coil option of that neck humbucker won't do any good

Yes I know the only solution seems like getting a new guitar like a lonestar, roadstar or any single coil setup fenders maybe with tex mex set for extra flavor. However can't do that for a long time and I don't wanna sell my blacktop.
So I decided I could replace the neck bucker and hell! even the bridge bucker with the ones to my taste.
I would appreciate your opinions about the replacements. I want a new pick-up setup that would do good for texas blues, oldies rock'n'roll and styles alike.

I was thinkin of getting SD pearly gates, SD sh 59 etc.
Would really use some help here thanks a lot

p.s: sorry for my sloppy english tho not my main langeuge so...you know.. ))

Hi Majere,

Have you tried lowering the bass side of the pickup? The Phillips screw on each side of the pups are to raise or lower that side. Too much lows, lower the bass side by turning that screw counter-clockwise. Need more treble, raise the treble side by turning that screw clockwise. I tweaked mine just a little in this manner. Works the same way for both pups. I can't imagine changing these pups, they sound wonderful.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

luthier did some work on pups back then but dont think he adjusted them for this kinda aim.. I ll give it a try now thx

ok lowered the bass side of the pup it helped just a little bit but still sounds like as if whole my tone knobs are turned off still dark and muddy

You can try using a Strat pickguard cut for single coils. You can have singles front & back. You will need to rout the body for the middle single to fit. This way you would have the sound that you want w/out buying a new guitar. Just a thought. Peace.

Im hoping I get a Blacktop Floyd Rose Strat for Christmas

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fenderguitarandamp/

Humbuckers commonly sound as if the tone nob is turned down, especially if your ears are trained to the sound of single coils. It's just the nature of the beast.

_________________
"Bring me four fried chickens, and a coke."
HOUSE-OUT!

here's a cheap solution for you , the tone cap is probably a .22uf fitted as standard to most buckered guitars go onto the bay and get one with a higher rating (the higher the number the brighter they sound ) get a 44uf or a 66uf , you would just need to desolder the old one and solder in the new one , hth , cheers
Alan

_________________

Try out the Seymour Duncan Phat cat. They are a humbucker sized P90 which means that they will fit right in in your blacktop.

P90's are singlecoils with a littler more warmth than normal singlecoils.

_________________
Please excuse my English. I'm from Denmark and even though the vikings kicked some serious $@! 1000 years ago we haven't conquered the British language yet.

isnt that risky to replace a 22uf with 44-66uf? I'd read about that in these forums some time ago. it was said that the cap replaced must be same number as the original or maybe 1-2 points higher only

Yeah I guess so.. my previous guitar was a hss

no risk at all , why would there be ?

_________________

I believe that hum-buckers typically have a .047 cap on tone control, and single coils have .022. Single coil Strats definitely use a .022 as standard. I haven't looked under the BT pick guard, but you would want to use a lower value cap for a brighter sound. If the pups have a .047 cap, then for a brighter sound use a .033 or a .022. No harm in using just about any cap for a guitar tone control as the voltage is very low. The higher the value of cap, the broader the range of frequencies that are bled to ground, resulting in a darker tone.

As far as replacing caps with only close to the same value, there are other instances when that is true, but typically for a guitar, the only consideration is tone.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

I also considered replacing the volume knob cap wih sprague orange drop. but tone knob is sometin new to me didnt know it changed tone character that much.. anyways, on the other hand, as I ve checked SD official website my best option seems to be an SD sh '59 model for neck. it's supposed to give a clean bright and articulate tone

Volume knob cap? I don't think that there is a cap on the volume pot in the BT. A cap on the volume pot would be a treble bleed circuit, affecting the tone as volume is turned down.

The cap on the tone pot is specifically for shaping the tone, and as mentioned, changing the tone cap to a different value will have a noticeable affect on tone. Also, changing the tone cap to a different type such as orange drop or silver mica can affect the tone in a more subtle way than changing the value. Even the value of the pot (volume and tone) can affect the tone somewhat, like 500K ohm vs 1 Meg ohm.

I see what you mean about the dark sound. To me this is absolutely perfect in all selector positions for clean sound. The balance is fantastic and I get great sounds on every amp. For distortion, the bridge pups is perfect, but the other full hum-bucker positions can be muddy depending on amp settings.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.