Im thinking moddong out my us highway1 strat. Any advice on upgrades?
i was thinking about switching out the pickups with noisless vintage. Also maybe some new caps.

Any advice?

what kind of music do You play?depends on that

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Everything belongs to JESUS!

1998 Fender Deluxe Super Strat
2008 PRS SE Singlecut

Marshall MgHD100FX single
Line6 Spider ll
Crate Kx 15


Digitech GNX1
Boss DS-1 pedal

I agree, it depends on your musical taste. I play Blues, Rock, Metal, and Alternative Rock. Here is my modded Highway 1:

From this:



to this:


White Pearloid Pickguard
Black Plastic covers and knobs
Dunlop Strap Locks
Dimarzio 500k volume pot
Dimarzio Super Distortion Bridge Pickup
Fender/Schaller "F" locking tuners
Copper shielding in pickup and control cavities
and last but not least--Graphtec Saddles

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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

vintage noiseless comes with new pots, for some reason the values have to change.
if you want noiseless, try the dimarzio virtual vintage line.
ive heard alot of good reviews here from forumites.
you can get 58/67/61
or 58/58 and a tone zone bridge for rock stuff.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

I mostly play blues style mix.

Well.........being the proud owner of 9 (!!!??!!) Highway One Stratocaster HSS's; all of which are heavily modded, (and are now AWESOME guitars!) I can possibly lend a hand here.
The FIRST thing to go on any Highway that I bought were the PICKUPS.
SINGLES: I have used a combination of Fender Vintage Noiseless and every DiMarzio Area series pickup out there. The Area 58 being my favorite for the neck position.

Humbuckers: I have used a combination of Gibson (498T, 490T, 57 Classic Plus, BB3)
and DiMarzio (Air Classic, 36th Anniv. P.A.F.) with FANTASTIC results!!

Next to go were the crappy PING tuners! Fender/Schaller locking tuners were a direct drop in replacement. H-U-G-E improvement!!

Next and last were the saddles. They felt cheap and flimsy. I put Graph Tech String Savers on all of 'em! Haven't broken a string in ages!! AND....has NOT affected my sound in any way!

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

Thanks for the advice, I might end up doing a combo of pickups also. I mostly play in the neck position, Im looking at the dimarzio heavy blues. I feeel the stock pickups are lacking on any overdrive I step on, so Im looking for a configuration that sounds nice and warm clean and a little hotter when I step on the OD.

Here are the mods on my midnight wine Highway One:

920D Fender Hot Noiseless loaded, black pickguard with aged covers & tips.

Fender Schaller locking tuners (satin finish).

Black Schaller strap locks.

I have Strat with a push/pull pot to connect the Neck & Bridge pickups. When activated in position 1, it gives nice tones. In position 2 all three pickups are working. It's a really lovely sound.

Paris

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1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

While others make a good point about holding back suggested mods until they knew what style of music you played, one that could be done that doesn't change the basic tone of the guitar but adds 5 additional tones to it is adding an S1 switch like what you find on the Am Dlx. You get the 5 initial tones you started with, plus 5 others.

I play alot of different styles, im probably going to start with 3 new pickups from dimarzio. Vintage 54,and heavy blues.

Here's my modded HW1..



Body shined up..
Seymour Duncan Alnico 2 Pro single coil set (just noticed, it needs parchment coloured covers)..
Graphtech Tusque nut and saddles..
Treble Bleed mod..
Dunlop heavy duty strap locks..
Extra deep control knobs..
It's all very conservatively done - The look of the guitar was one of the reasons I bought it, so I didn't want to change it too much.

Notice my highly trained attack labrador there to prevent any sort of theft (but only if she can be bothered - which is extremely unlikely, especially if you have a biscuit..)

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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!

Finally started modding im getting graph tech saddles to start, some new tuners and looking around for what pickup config i want. Maybe change out some caps also.

I have a Strat has push/pull pot that allows me to have the following pup configuration:
1. Neck
2. Neck & Bridge
3. Neck & Middle
4. Neck, Middle & Bridge
5. Middle
6. Middle & Bridge
7. Bridge

Since the guitar came this way I'm not sure how it was done, but two things come to mind. 1. When you activate the pot (pull out) it adds the Bridge pup to the circruit. 2. That it's probibly a complicated mess under the pick guard. I don't all the details, but I do love the sound I get.

To my Black '06 Hwy1 I hand buffed it to a soft shine and changed out all the white parts for black and added some CS '69 Strat pups.