Author Topic: Pickup recommendations for Bling strat H/S/S (Read 2028 times)

Xyphod · « **on:** February 10, 2007, 06:05:22 PM »

Hello all,
a quick hello from a newbie and some questions.
I am currently building myself a bling strat from warmoth parts with the following specs
Swamp Ash body with quilted maple top (rear routed so no scratchplate) with a birdseye maple neck (CBS style but reversed). Hardware wise it will have a Wilkinson trem. Yet to decide on tuners, but will be of the locking variety. Now however for the picks-up. For the neck and middle pickups I'm obviously looking for single coils, just which ones? My Fender strat has Texas specials which I love, but that is on an alder body. This one will be quite bright sounding compared to Alder.
Then the bridge Humbucker. Do I transplat the Jeff beck from my Axis style guitar (mahogany) as it sounds a little muddy with such a dark sounding guitar (was thinking of a Rebel Yell), or a new pickup for this project.

There should not be a radical volume difference between the singles and the HB.

Styles of Music, High octane blues, i.e. SRV, Gary Moore, hendrix, floyd, etc, etc.

Any recommendations would be greatly appriciated.

Xyphod · « **Reply #1 on:** February 11, 2007, 01:34:04 PM »

Been listening to various sound clips and have come to the following conclusion.
Irish Tours for Neck and Middle
Either a Stormy Monday or a VHII for the bridge.
Which one would get me closer to that Gary Moore "Still got the blues" tone, considering I'll have a fairly bright sounding guitar??

Xyphod · « **Reply #2 on:** February 11, 2007, 02:41:18 PM »

Scr@p that, Just heard the clips for the crawler. Thats the one for me.

froglord · « **Reply #3 on:** February 11, 2007, 03:12:36 PM »

Sounds like you've almost decided!

The Crawler sounds very Gary Moore to me. However, Tim is now making custom BKPs for Gary, so you might want to phone him up and get the lowdown.

The "official" single coils to go with the Crawler in an HSS set are the Mother's Milk, but given that you like SRV, Irish tours sound like a good idea.

For locking tuners, I'd go for Sperzels. You might also want to think about using a 500K volume pot for the humbucker and a 250K for the single coils.

Xyphod · « **Reply #4 on:** February 11, 2007, 05:23:06 PM »

I was thinking of a three way switch.
i.e. Neck, Neck+Middle, and Bridge on its own.
The trouble with having two volumes is that I like to use
volume swells using my pinky, so two volume knobs would be a bit of a problem. I don't care about tone controls I never use them on the guitar anyway (thats why I have a nice programmable rack).

Antag · « **Reply #5 on:** February 11, 2007, 06:30:38 PM »

The two Warmoth strats I built were what brought me to BKP in the first place :)

I don't have a Crawler yet, but imagine it will work well with Irish Tours - I have a Holy Diver/Irish Tour HSS set in my korina strat & it's an absolutely wonderful combination. The ITs are pokey enough not to get totally overpowered by the fairly meaty HD so they ought to work pretty well with a Crawler too.

Good luck with the assembly... :)

froglord · « **Reply #6 on:** February 11, 2007, 07:17:15 PM »

Quote from: Xyphod

I was thinking of a three way switch.
i.e. Neck, Neck+Middle, and Bridge on its own.
The trouble with having two volumes is that I like to use
volume swells using my pinky, so two volume knobs would be a bit of a problem. I don't care about tone controls I never use them on the guitar anyway (thats why I have a nice programmable rack).

It may be possible to use a dual concentric volume pot, but to cap it with a single knob, so that both volume controls are operated simultaneously.