alder body, maple neck and maple fingerboard

[jimbob]

hi I have a alder bodied much loved yamaha pacifica 112 which is about 8 years old...have always had this idea of possibly upgrading the pickups on it...but the advice I have had has been contradictory at best, some people just tell me that upgrading the pickups will make NO effect whatsoever and then others who say it will ruin the guitar....so just wondering what peoples views are.

specs are....humbucker/single/single configuration

alder body,
bolt on maple neck plus maple fingerboard


I definately dont want active pickups...but apart from that I am interested what peoples views are....and please please be realistic in your advice cos if its hardly gonna make any difference to the overall guitar I wont splash out my limited cash!

music I am into is very varied, from blues, rock, classic, grunge, punk, bit of metal,

I like john frusciante (californication era and beyond),gilmour, hendrix, amongst others (i guess these are the single coil slingers)

re the humbucker....I have NO idea....ideas welcome

thanks to all you may respond,
best wishes
jimbob

[kevinr]

Upgrading your pickups to BKPs will certainly help your sound, I'm sure that if your guitar sounds OK to you now it will be a giant improvement with BKPs over the stock pickups, so just choose a set to suit your needs, I have a HSS set Mule bridge and Mothers Milk single coils, the MMs would suit your single requirements, may be a VHII at the bridge! I'm sure someone with more knowledge will join in.

[jimbob]

thanks for the reply, I am suprised no others have jumped in...anyone out there? please help
cheers

[BigB]

It's hard to tell if a pup upgrade is a good idea without trying the guitar. Now I've never played Pacifica but heard some good reviews, and if you still love it after 8 years I bet it must be a more than decent guitar.

What I can say for sure is that, on the two guitars I upgraded with BKPs - a MiJ '81 Vox Custom 24 and a CiJ '62 RI Tele custom - it made a huge difference, and was definitly worth each and any penny.

wrt/ your own guitar, and from the styles and player you mention (BTW, yes, Frusciante, Hendrix and Gilmour are mostly strat users), I'd suggest Mother Milk or the new '62 spec'd (not officialy released so far) - or eventually Irish Tour for more midrange OD tones - strat single coils,  and a Crawler bridge. Now I've never tried the BKP strat sets so far but I think you're mostly after these early 60's specs (Hendrix, Frusciante...). I do have a Crawler set on my Vox Custom 24 and the bridge pup is just great for blues to classic rock to old school hard rock to hardcore punk - lots of bite, sharp as a knife yet still warm, singing and never harsh -, and it's been designed to work well on brighter woods (alder, maple etc).

FWIW, we seem to have similar tastes, and the above set(s) are what I'd personnally put on a HSS strat  8)

My 2 cents...

[38thBeatle]

Apologies for the lack of response from me-I have been gigging or rehearsing solidly for the last week or so and my forum visits have been sporadic but this is normally the sort of thread I would chip in on.
Firstly, I would ask whether you are particularly unhappy with the tone( I suspect not after 8 years) in which case then yes changing the pickups might be an interesting way of changing things. If you are happy but just fancy trying to see if there is anything else out there( in other words in the same place that I was with one of my guitars) then again, yes go for it.
As for choice- this is always hard because the choices are always subjective but looking at your tastes, I would echo Bigb's thoughts- they were similar to mine though I have no experience of Irish Tours and have only briefly played a guitar with Mothers Milks in them. The 'Milks seemed to do the job on the guitar I played but it was a Rosewood board late 1960's type Strat. But I would also say look at Apaches ( conventional wisdom has these as aimed at the 1950's and therefore maple fretboard Strat type guitars) but they are a vintage style pickup and maybe you might want something hotter- but I get some pretty beefy tones out of mine so don't let the vintage description put you off unduly. To to add to the confusion there is a 1962 type set.
As for the humbucker- I really can't say I am sorry to say. I don't have a great deal of experience of them in "fender type" guitars ( I have a hb equipped guitar but it is a semi) but conventional wisdom is for a Crawler but perhaps others will chime in.
I have probably muddied the water here but in summary, I'd say that it is probably worth trying a new set- you should certainly find a richer and more articulate tone than you have now. It is a small outlay on a guitar you obviously enjoy. I have played a few Pacificas and they are great guitars.

[PhilKing]

I have a set with a Stormy Monday & two Sultans.  All alnico II.  They sound great and give nice controlled feedback and excellent classic rock tones.  The Stormy Monday matches really well with the Sultans.  For the list of players you give, you could get their sounds (you would need to split the SM to get all the tones you want - it would then give you single coil bridge tones).

[jimbob]

ok after some thought I put an irish tour in the neck position....and I have to say sadly I dont like it! I compared it to the old pickup that was in there and the tone of the original is nicer altho you can tell the BKP is better quality there is more clarity on chords while on overdrive for example but the tone of the original I think it nicer...the irish tour seems very woody and a bit boomy on the heavier strings, and have very much a POP on all strings, very pop and perhaps quacky, now I know a lot of strat people LOVE that...but its just not for me....anyone got any ideas??? would putting a base plate on it make a better tone???

[AndyR]

Hmmm... a bit late to this. I read your original post but was busy... and then forgot to come back.

As I was reading down the posts now, I was wondering Sultans for the singles, but I was thinking that an IT neck would probably be a good idea... and then it turns out you've gone for it and don't like...

Before you do anything else, do a lot of experimenting on the pickup height - I almost wonder if you've got it a bit close to the strings? My ITs have moved about quite a bit, and I've got them set fairly low at the moment, with the bass side down a bit. I've seen someone else set them even lower, but that wasn't quite to my taste tonally - seemed to work great for him though.

One of the reasons I say this is that I never used to sit on the neck pickup of a strat, but the way I have the ITs set at the moment (they're in a 60s Roadworn), the neck is just yummy - clear and bell-like, and very responsive to both vol/tone control fiddling and picking attack. It will pop and quack when I want it to, but it'll also mellow out and do "bubbly" strat.

The way I tend to look at it is I can lose pop and quack with controls/playing, but I can't put it in if ain't there already - I'm fighting with another strat that has that problem!

Another things crossed my mind - are the other pickups still the stock ones? I've always BKP'd a guitar completely so I've never had to deal with this - but is your amp still EQ'd for the original pickups? I've always found I tend to EQ the amp a bit differently for a guitar after installing BKPs - one of the things, for me, always seems to be that the BKPs have a "clearer" response at the top, so I don't need the treble/etc I was putting on to try and get the guitar clear enough. I can imagine that a mixture of BKP and non-BKP could end up a bit frustrating for me...

[Zaned]

ok after some thought I put an irish tour in the neck position....and I have to say sadly I dont like it! I compared it to the old pickup that was in there and the tone of the original is nicer altho you can tell the BKP is better quality there is more clarity on chords while on overdrive for example but the tone of the original I think it nicer...the irish tour seems very woody and a bit boomy on the heavier strings, and have very much a POP on all strings, very pop and perhaps quacky, now I know a lot of strat people LOVE that...but its just not for me....anyone got any ideas??? would putting a base plate on it make a better tone???

I know what you mean about that POP. It really gives an SRV vibe almost immediately, at least in the strat I had them in. I have a trilogy suite in the neck position of that guitar now, but I have a feeling that that's not what you're after..I would stay in the vintage / vintage hot land.

What is the guitar like, acoustically? If it's warm, you might want to put Apaches on it, if warm then maybe mother's milk or the custom 62 set (which I have). Or maybe the sultans, but I have no experience on those.

I really suggest that you define what the guitar sounds like and give a reference tone :) That'll make the suggestions a bit less varied. For example, I have the 62 custom set in an alder bodied, maple + rosewood necked warm sounding strat, and I got what I asked for..a very Gary Moore(ish) sounding strat, think the album 'Corridors of power'. Warm and woody, but clear and with bite.

But I think the Irish tour is not for you, so I wouldn't add a base plate. But one thing you could do, is to play with the height. It often has a BIG effect.

EDIT: AndyR beat me to it.

-Zaned

[jimbob]

thanks to the responders so far....so in response to a few of your responses re the pickups height adjustment that literally totally didnt occur to me! so I shall spend tommorrow tinkering with pickup height, that may remove the pop and quack woodiness, I want more sustain so I think I will lower them and see how it does, maybe the man who soldered them in put them too high or something, so thats plan A!

re acoustically, I think the guitar has a great acoustic tone, resonant and its quite loud unplugged (for an electric cheap guitar)...so this was one of my reasons to spend money upgrading a cheap guitar (well trying to lol), although after 11 years of guitaring the techy stuff is still a mystery to me re upgrading stuff.

re what tones I want, I put a lil list of cool tones in my first posting,

re the trilogy suites yeah they sound a bit too intense for what I am after, they sound more shreddy perhaps. (i cant really shred)

so say the irish tours totally dont work out in the neck....how does the "sister" (or brother) pickup to the irish tour compare....i.e the slowhand...it seems in the same bracket on the website...so now I have the irish tour to compare how does the slowhand hold up,

and to the chap who suggested the vintage ones....they are in a whole new bracket on the website! so how would those compare to the Irish tour?

cheers all this is super useful

[PhilKing]

I would think that the Irish Tour is quite bright on a maple necked guitar.  It was designed for a rosewood board which tames the attack quite a lot.  I still think the sultans and stormy monday is the way for you to go, though I don't know what your amp is.  I have used mine through Marshall, Fender and other amps, and love the tone of them.  I use a couple of pedals, and with a JTM45 I can get most of the ones you are looking for.  I also get great controlled feedback and can use the pedals to drive the amp to get the grungier sounds.  When I first tried this set out, I had them plugged into my Fender Princeton II and loved the clean tone.  It is perfect for any clean blues record you've ever heard.  I use a 4 pole 5 way super switch to give me coil split when I have the Stormy Monday and middle Sultan.  It is a really useable sound, though I have been thinking of changing the wiring a bit to give me Stormy Monday. Stormy Monday slug coil, middle Sultan, middle & neck Sultans and neck Sultan.  This would give me a bridge single coil too.

[Telerocker]

I agree with PhilKing, Sultans could be the right choice. I have the IT's in a customstrat with swampash body, maple neck and ebony fingerboard and they still have a lot of snap and pop. I like them very much, cause I like much attack, but for this guitar it may be to much.

[gwEm]

am not surprised the IT gives too much attack with a maple board. I have an IT with a rosewood board and do enjoy it however.

[jimbob]

right....im back....I have fiddled with pickup height and it hasnt salvaged the situation so the irish tour has to go!

it seemed really hollow sounding, so I guess I want something with more middle, so the slowhand seems to sell itself on its mid range??? according to the description, I wonder if that would get closer to the sound I am after?

also I have noticed all the pup single coils are alnico 5 apart from the sultan which is alnico 2....so whats the difference between alnico 2 and 5....I notice a lot of the single coil seymours are alnico 2....so wondered why most BKPS are alnico 5, so whats the difference tonally between 2 and 5?

cheers all!

[AndyR]

OK, that's a shame.

Right, from what you describe, I suspect Slowhand might be where you want to go, but I've not tried them. I'm also wondering Apache, but again, not tried them (although I might be choosing them myself soon - I'm expecting a more rounded tone over ITs and Sultans).

On the magnet differences. I understand that 2 is the weaker magnet so it can be wound more without getting muddy (don't quote me on this!)

I can tell you the difference between ITs and Sultans in my guitars though. They both have a brightness, but where the ITs have a harder edge, for a "grittier" bright tone, the Sultans have sweetness to them.

I am actually using Sultans in a maple board strat at the moment, and I like them a lot. I think they're less "hollow" than ITs as you describe it. However, I still do a lot of "snapping" of notes, the Sultans in that guitar suck me right into doing a Mark Knopfler - so I'm not sure that's what you'd want.

And... I am actually thinking of moving the Sultans back to the guitar where they came from (a rosewood board) and replacing them with Apaches to give me a more "rounded" 50s type of strat tone from the maple board guitar.

btw, I think Apaches are another magnet again? Alnico 3 I think?