not sure if i should post this in the pickup or this strat forum. i'll start here if ya don't mind.

just searching for some suggestions for humbucker pickup(s) for my humbucker strat into the tonal realm of jazzy-rock/rock-jazzy. my ears & fingers likes some blues harmony in that mix too. i'm thinking more future than past if that makes any sense.

that's as simple as i can make the question for now, hope that opens the door a bit.

thx

I'm not certain I understand the question but I'll give you my thoughts. I just bought a Blacktop Strat (my first Fender) although I've owned a Fender Princeton Chorus amp for years. Much like the single coil pickups on a Fender this amp has its own unique but clean sound which I always liked for playing blues.

I thought about buying some pedals to get more distortion but it was my son who fiddled with my amp and turned the gain and the presence up all the way and turned down the volume on that set of controls to 1. Holy crap!

I've been working my way through various combinations of humbucker and single coil selections and putting those sounds through a variety of amp configurations and I just cannot believe the tonal depth and breadth that is right there at my fingertips. This "onion" has way more layers now!

So far, I do like using just the neck pickup in "full neck" mode (setting 5) which I think is a combo of both humbucker and single coil. There's more string movement over the neck pickup so it has a warmer sound. I like that warmer sound when playing blues numbers. From there, I can adjust the amp to add more rawness or hit the foot switch to turn it all off and just keep it clean.

appreciate your thoughts.

i replaced the bridge humbucker with a bit higher output one from bareknuckle : "holydiver". it should, i hope, compliment the neck pup i have that i like a lot, which has great warmth and mids but can cut fairly high if needed.

with my 5-way switch, i can get about 16 various tonal options. though due to my perceived unbalanced pups with the current two in my strat i rarely used them all to experiment with.

my gdec3 has some settings/modeling that brings some out interesting soundscapes from this strat, very happy to say.

I haven't played around and replaced any of the pickups yet. I've heard that "Lace Sensor" pickups are used by various guitarists including Clapton, Beck, Buddy Guy ... to name a few. From what I've read, these can be "humbucked" but don't need to be because of their unique design. I'd be interested in hearing about these pickups as well (comparative to the Fender HHs). I've got an old single pickup Hagstrom that I'd love to give a second life to.

if ya like your pups, no reason to replace em unless ya like to experiment.

i've read about the lace sensor pups. if i had another strat, i.e., hss or sss, i'd more than likely try em out. cost is an issue for me on such things. took a long time to save for a new BK pup.

i saw some talk on strat-talk.com about the lace sensor pups and players comparisons. check it out if ya haven't done so already. may prove interesting for you.