Dirty Fingers

[Doadman]

That sounds great, I'll make sure I check it out then. As far as what might be suggested to me as a possible pickup, some factors are worth mentioning.

1) I do not consider myself to be a good player so I don't want a pickup that punishes mistakes or sloppy playing.

2) At the moment I usually play through the clean channel of a Marshall DSL401 using a Hardwire Metal Distortion pedal. The sound is too thin for my taste so I usually engage an MXR Super Compressor with the output and sensitivity almost maxed out and the attack virtually on zero. This improves things a lot because it fattens things up a bit, it sounds better and seems to suit my playing better. Maybe all it does is mask my sloppy playing but either way, I like the sound better.

Whether that helps at all in thinking of the right pickup for me I have no idea but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

[Nolly]

In that case I stand by my Warpig recommendation - I personally think the alnico version would be spot on, but the ceramic would work too. With the high output they are very fluid to play, and their natural compression and fat voicing might mean you can forego the compressor in your signal path.

[Doadman]

Nolly mate, having you on the forum is like having another Tim! I think you're probably right about the Warpig as it seems to match the fat but articulate sound I'm after. The question now is what I use for the neck and middle positions. I was originally looking at Slowhands as I wanted a fat, creamy, almost humbucker-like tone and they seemed to fit the bill but even with a baseplate I can't imagine they'll live with a Warpig. My next thought was Sinners because I read they were also quite humbucker like but the shop says that they only do a bridge model. Does that mean that with a Warpig it just has to be Trilogy Suites? I was looking for something like the Dave Murray neck tone, ideally more like when he was using a DiMarzio PAF but I accept that's likely to be impossible with a single coil.

[Nolly]

Thanks mate, I've been lucky enough to play the full range so it's nice to be able to help people out.

Yes, the Slowhands would be underpowered, and besides are not humbucker-like in tone - they're still very much a strat sound, just with a much fuller mid.
However, the Sinners are available for the middle and neck position, the site is somewhat out of date. They are wound at 15kΩ and should produce a tone close to what you're looking for, though as you say, a strat single coil can never sound like humbucker.

[Doadman]

Final question here seeing as I'm now pretty settled on a Warpig and Sinners set. Having read a bit about the Warpig I've found it's not only extremely versatile, it's also good in different configurations such as being coil tapped and moving between series and parrellel wiring. I wasn't going to mess with the guitar in this way but I believe that I'll need to change the pots (I assume that means both volume and tone) to 1 meg anyway so I figure I may as well go the extra half mile when they're fitted. I have no idea about electronics so I need help as to how I do this. I want to keep the 5-way selector operating exactly as it does at the moment and I don't want to add any additional switches so I wondered if I could do something with the pots instead. For instance, can I have the 5-way switch select the same pickup configurations it does now, have a push-push or push-pull volume pot to activate the coil tapping and a push-push or push-pull tone pot to change between series and parrallel wiring on the Warpig. I assume that would mean that the series/parrallel control would only operate when the coil tap isn't engaged. Can this be done and is there an easier/better way of doing it?

[Prawnik]

lots of quote from me there :)
 subtlety isn't the strong point (though bizarrely they [Dirty Fingers] do roll-down cleans well).

I thought I was the only one who noticed that....