I dont know about the pickups you have but with fender pickups if you have you pickups to close to your strings it will sound bad and also kill the sustain. the magenets really oull hard on the strings. i suggest looking at a fender setup guide/instructions and reset your pick ups and give it another go. i belive lace sensors can go closer to the strings but not reg pickups

_________________
My setups

Gibson les paul trad pro 60's neck
Gibson sg standard 60's neck
Fender mim 1993 strat
Fender 2007 american strat sienna sunburst
Epi humming bird
Peavey calssic 30 and 50
Fender 212
Pignose
Digitec rp500

I always start with setting the pup height on any guitar i get.
my upper is at least 1/2 of the height as the lower side.
pups are not that important if you get quality stuff,
your main tone will come from your amp settings, and the way you play.
it always helps to have a good ear. i have seen many many players with
thousands of $ worth of the best gear get some of the worst tones ever.
on the flip side, i have seen some of the cheapest gear get some amazing tones.

_________________
1986 Kramer Baretta
1989 Samick "The Samick" Les Paul
2007 Fender Strat MIM Deluxe / 1985 MIJ neck
1990 Epiphone Strat
Marshall JCM 2000 DLS 50 watt / Marshall 1960a 4x12

https://soundcloud.com/jim-slimjim-cassi

Turn the middle up and the bass and treble down on either the amp eq or the multieffects eq

_________________
No no and no

I'm just going to throw my opinion in here real quick. I hear this so often with people who are playing ____Rock music (insert prefix as you see fit). And most of the time when I read these things, all I can think of, is that the sounds they hear from their influences are coming from full sized hums. But they have a Strat, and want to get the same thing out of it.

Instead of swapping the pickguard for a HH configuration and buying hums, people tend to want to "save a buck and keep their SSS pickguard" and fork out the cash for 3- single sized hums. If you do the math, what have you saved? The cost of a new pickguard can be as little a $12 or so.

I quit the idea of trying to make single sized hums satisfy what I really want when it comes time to throw down some serious chunk and overdrive. My personal advice would be to ditch the SSS setup, buy a new HH pickguard, 2-fat hums, a 500k Volume pot, no load tone, good cap, and be done with trying to have singles satisfy what you know you really want.

_________________

Did some rewiring last night. Here is what I did......
I had previously 58-67-61 (n-m-b), and had changed the the tone wiring (at the 5 way switch) with mid tone pot for neck and mid, and lead tone pot for bridge.
Last nite I swapped the 67 and the 61 and ended up with 58-61-67 (n-m-b), and eliminated the loop (on the 5 way switch) on the mid tone pot to the mid pup. Now I have mid tone pot for neck pup only, and lead tone pot for bridge. The 61 that is supposed to have a fatter sound than the 67 is now on the mid position with full open tone. I also looked at the 5 way switch and saw how it works. It has a rotating blade that moves inside the contacts to the pickups; tightened those contacts with a long nose pier.
After tweaking the amp a bit, HUGE sound improvement. Mid pup is clean, bright and strong. Bridge can be nice clean country sound (with tone control) and neck is a deep bright sound. Not sure wish of the changes made the difference but was a big improvement.

I had the same problem with my custom shop strat. This is what these "noiseless" pickups tend to sound like - I replaced them with BareKnuckle "Sultan's" and lived happily ever after. But if I read the rest of the thread I see you may not really be looking for true vintage single coil sound. If you're after humbuckers, the S-S-S setup is not what you want.

Cheers

David

_________________
"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."

Righteous!

That's how it's done, LB......measured, incremental steps.

Rawk on!



Arjay

_________________
"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

boost'n'comp, then turn on the effectpedal for some rock'n'roll

Hey i read you replaced the pots,did you change out the capacitors as well? i do on my stuff my 03 mim strat has the stock pups.i cange out the pots like you did to cts but add orange drop caps and treble bleed. good luck

try some different capacitors as well

I suspect the problem may be the processor. I have never had good luck with Digitech stuff. It always sounded too hollow and weak. If the Super Champ is one of the XD models, you are heaping digital thinness upon digital thinness. Take the guitar to a local music store that has good tube amps and try it through a Twin, Deluxe Reverb, or heck even a Blues Junior.

A great amp will make a horrible guitar sound like gold. A horrible amp will make a great guitar sound like crap.

_________________
Fender Standard Strat w/ DiMarzio VVHB2 Bridge and Area 67's neck/middle
Gibson 2014 SGJ
Fender DRRI with Weber 12F150 50 watts light dope
Vox AC15C1PL stock
Vox V845, PaulC Timmy (surf green), Fulltone OCD, Dunlop Volume, Strymon TimeLine, T1M Mini A/B

The dmz area pickups have has way less magnet pull than most of the true single coil pups. They are sensitive to pickup height and may need to be tweaked to find that sweet spot.

_________________
Fender Standard Strat w/ DiMarzio VVHB2 Bridge and Area 67's neck/middle
Gibson 2014 SGJ
Fender DRRI with Weber 12F150 50 watts light dope
Vox AC15C1PL stock
Vox V845, PaulC Timmy (surf green), Fulltone OCD, Dunlop Volume, Strymon TimeLine, T1M Mini A/B

my 02 cents here would be that you need to look at an entirely different approach.

(1) Where are you heading with the music you want to play....
This should be your first parameter, if you say SRV, AC/DC, Metallica, DireStraits.....
I'm going to say can't get there from where you are at. Ort in other words you cannot adapt your equipment to play and get all the above equaslly. Their choice of equipment is extremely diverse and pinpointed to their own identification.

(2) As a practice amp, the XD is Ok but.... it is a mix of tubes and solid state for the overdrive.
This combined with that Digitech 94 sounds like the pro's ( I read the brochure ) is just hyperbole.
In order to get that overdrive sound you hear on your fave bands, you are going to have to be able to crank your amp to max and have the amp itself overdrive, not the effects loop which is a sterile digital facsimile and that amp is not designed to be at full volume on it's own like a twin reverb or even a small Champ, ) I'm referring to the real champ not the 600.
Now when you get an all tube amp like a 15 to 20 watts to crank, you will have to readjust your playing, your attack on the strings will determine your sound of that note. I warn you it will be strange but after some practice you should find how to get those pinch harmonics and various sound colors from just a guitar, cord and an overdriven amp.
Best is to go to a store and experiment with small wattage tube amps, plug in direct, crank the amp and see ( hear ) what comes out.

(3) As far as your pickup to string heights, it's an electro magnetic field shaped like a horizontal U...If your pole piece is too close to the string, the string will be pulled vertically instead of being allowed to move in an elliptical pattern, thus the resulting note will be squashed...If the pole piece is too low than the field will be too weak since the magnetic field is spread out over a larger area..
SO find out from Dimarzio what the specs are for string heights for the pups dial that in.

(4) last will be setup of your guitar or in other words, is everything as it should be or at it's optimal setting...nut string slots cut correctly, saddles adjusted for 12th fret open string and harmonic match, enough wraps on the tuners from the strings ( if not locking tuners )
all pots and wiring checked for dead spots, especially solder joints since you say you are doing your own rewiring. Last but not least new strings not old played out ones...

Good luck...

_________________
"C'est parti mon Kiki "