Mini-humbucker & Irish Tours for Strat

[DaveCarter]

I have just bought a Squier Deluxe strat, and a pickup upgrade is very much required!

For the band that this guitar will be used in, I spend about 90% of my time on clean tone, either neck or neck/middle positions. I absolutely love the sound of the Texas Specials in my friend's Fender Strat, so am I right in thinking that Irish Tours are the best BKPs for this sort of tone?

The remaining 10% involves big powerchords with big distortion, so I have decided to go for a a single-coil sized humbucker on the bridge. It appears BKP do not make any of these, so I was wondering if anyone here had any experience/opinions of the Seymour Duncan JB Jr, or perhaps the DiMarzio Tone Zone S? I know these types of pick-up are not to everyone's taste, but I would rather get as close as possible to the sound of a humbucker, rather than simply a hotter single coil.

Does this combination of Irish Tours neck+middle and mini-humbucker bridge sound like a good idea? I would be coil-tapping the humbucker so I can still get a single-coil bridge/middle tone when required, then full humbucker for maximum rock at other times.

All opinions welcome!

Thanks guys.

[Telerocker]

I had a Tonezone T in Yamaha Mike Stern-tele and it was one of the worst pickups I had. Bland, muddy, cleaned up terrible, but ok, that's just mho. I don't know how your Squier is routed, but if it is a bathtub, you could get another pickguard and install a fullsize humbucker. Anway I think BKP Trilogy Suite or a Sinner would be a better option than the pickups you mentioned.

[DaveCarter]

I did consider a Sinner, as I've heard some great clips of it for the sort of stuff I would be using it for. Would it not be a drastic mis-match with the Irish Tours in terms of volume/gain?

[Telerocker]

I did consider a Sinner, as I've heard some great clips of it for the sort of stuff I would be using it for. Would it not be a drastic mis-match with the Irish Tours in terms of volume/gain?

Yes, I would, but you will have a hot contemporary bridge and vintage(hot) singlecoils. Best of both worlds. Anyway if your strat has a bathtub-routing, you can think about a fullsize-hb and pick something less hot. By the way, The Crawler in my HSS-strat has of course a bit more output then the IT's, but the difference is bearable.

[darkbluemurder]

I did consider a Sinner, as I've heard some great clips of it for the sort of stuff I would be using it for. Would it not be a drastic mis-match with the Irish Tours in terms of volume/gain?

Yes, but if you use the neck or neck/middle for clean and the bridge for lead the output plus may be even welcome.

[Telerocker]

I did consider a Sinner, as I've heard some great clips of it for the sort of stuff I would be using it for. Would it not be a drastic mis-match with the Irish Tours in terms of volume/gain?

Yes, but if you use the neck or neck/middle for clean and the bridge for lead the output plus may be even welcome.

I have two HSS-strats and I like the extra volume (it's just a little) and the push from the bridge-hb's for solo's.

[DaveCarter]

Thanks for the input, guys. BKP also recommended matching a hot bridge with vintage-hot neck/middle, so it sounds like a plan. I think the Squire Deluxe has HSH routing under the pickguard, but I'd rather stick with the traditional look of SSS plus it will be fun to experiment with a hot single-coil for a change, as this is actually my first single-coil guitar in over 10 years of playing.

Irish Tours neck & middle and Sinner bridge ordered!  :D

[DaveCarter]

Just collected my strat, complete with all mods and my BKPs fitted; love them!

Cheers to the guys who recommended the Sinner, I thought it might be an absolute animal compared to the IT's, but there's actually no difference in volume. It's perfectly usable for crunchy tones in positions 4 & 5, but then once I switch to hi-gain that's when the difference between a Sinner and standard single coil is really noticeable; great saturation and plenty of sustain. I rolled the threshold on my amp's noise-gate back a bit, and it basically felt like I was playing a humbucker-equipped guitar.

I would definitely recommend this combination to anyone who's looking for funky strat tones, with some serious muscle on the bridge when required. Service was also excellent, the order was received on Wednesday morning (parchment, vintage stagger, RW/RP) and the pickups must have been dispatched on the Friday. Top notch!

[Telerocker]

I'm glad it work out so well! I love the IT's for a lot of musicstyles, especially clean stuff or some gritty necksolo's. The Crawler in my strat does the heavy stuff, but produces a nice tele-esquetone when splitted.