My new MIM Strat :)

[Dr.Pain]

Mexican standard Strat and I love it!  It feels amazing to play, is well made and just unbelievable you can get these so cheap.  I am looking to change the pick up's though and I'm thinking about a super distortion but not sure about the single coils.  I'm thinking noiseless as I do like my gain and this strat is very noisy on all pick ups.  It's first job is to spew out some badly played Maiden but I'll like to have some nice single coil tones too.  So some deciding to do but I'm in no hurry as I want to make the right choice.  I've had it two days and only made a trem adjustment as it was tuning flat and I put some foam under the trem springs.  I'm happy with how it came set up.

[Philly Q]

Looks great!  I haven't been keeping up to date with the Fender line recently, I hadn't realised they're now using a sort of hybrid '70s logo on a '50s headstock.  It works.

[blue]

a white strat with a maple board is the only one I'd go for, so you have my approval :)

[Mr. Air]

Nice looking strat you got there. Happy NGD!

[Telerocker]

Nice buy, white strats always look good.
The noise could be a lack of good shielding. I have two BKP-loaded HSS-strats and no problem playing the single coils with huge amounts of gain. They will hum always a bit more then a hb, but they're relatively quiet. I had my guitars set up by a pro guitartech for optimal tuningstability and playability.
Btw, this guitars screams for a HD/IT's-combo.  :)

[MrBump]

Nice geetar.

Just out of interest, what pots do you use with a HSS setup?  Do you need to do any elec-trickery with resistors and superswitches?

[Slartibartfarst42]

Beautiful looking guitar. White Strats are the business. The only Fender Stratocaster I've ever owned was a Mexican Ritchie Sambora model and it probably the most versatile guitar I've ever owned. If you're after a real 'Maiden' sound with an HSS configuration, why not follow the Adrian Smith route and go for a Super Distortion and Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups? For Bare Knuckle I'd go with a Holydiver and Trilogy Suites.

[Philly Q]

Just out of interest, what pots do you use with a HSS setup?  Do you need to do any elec-trickery with resistors and superswitches?

If you just want an automatic coil-split in position 2, it can be done with a normal five-way switch - the only compromise is that you have to choose which two pickups the tone controls will work on, you can't have bridge + middle sharing the same tone control like on a modern Strat.

Anything more complex than that, you need a superswitch.

For pot values there are many options!  I think Fender stick with 250k on their HSS guitars, but I'm not 100% sure.  When I bought an HSS scratchplate from BKP, Tim suggested 300k pots as a sort of halfway house.  I would like to try the Suhr wiring where you use 500k plus resistors so the single-coils "see" 250k and the humbucker "sees" 500k.

[gwEm]

i've used 300k pots on one of my strats too, works really well

[Plenum n Heather]

That looks really sweet!

[Dr.Pain]

I am thinking of something similar to an Adrian Smith Jackson.  Super D and SCN's but SCN's seem hard to find.  I'd go black too on the scratch plate, controls and pick up covers.  Although all white really works but I can only find black, cream or chrome super d's.

I'm not sure what the pots are as I haven't had the scratch plate off.  All the pick up's are noisy but out of phase they are fine.  I've only had humbuckers before this and mostly actives at that but I didn't expect this humbucker to be so noisy.  It kind of sounds like 1 and 1/2 coils running to me.  But I got it as it seems a really good platform to mod.  Turns out it's just a really damn good guitar for peanuts.  Got to love that! :)

[Philly Q]

I am thinking of something similar to an Adrian Smith Jackson.  Super D and SCN's but SCN's seem hard to find. 

They used to be quite easy to find on eBay, but I guess Fender aren't using them any more on recent production models?

Never tried the Strat SCNs, but I have a Tele neck one and wasn't particularly impressed.  It sounds OK, but nothing special.

[Dr.Pain]

The only guitar I've been able to find them in is Adrian Smith's USA made Jackson.  They are not listed on the fender website.  Only Hot noiseless, vintage noiseless and N3 listed under accessories.  I'm not overly worried about the singles at the moment and I may keep what's already in it.  It's early day's with this guitar and the singles in it sound pretty cool.  I played it more today trying different amp settings and channels.  It's more the humbucker as I want something hot but not too hot.  I've seen Holydivers mentioned a lot for Strats.  I would like to try another BKP but I know Dave and Adrian use super distortions.  I don't want to copy the exact tone but to be close would be nice.  If anything I run more gain.  Most of my guitars are active humbuckers and I run an MXR 10 band eq KFK as a boost to get a good metal tone.  Quite often when I swap to my Les Paul I don't back the gain off or turn off the eq and I like the difference between the actives and the Gibson 57's pick up's.  So I guess the humbucker I want has to work well in that environment but still give me those nice Maiden type tones even if I have to back the gain off some what.

I don't want to blind myself by just focusing on one specific pick up as I may miss something that would work very well for me.

[Slartibartfarst42]

The issue of the Super Distortion came up in a thread quite recently if I remember correctly and there doesn't seem to be a BKP that the same. Of the bridge pickups I've tried (Cold Sweat, A-Bomb, Holydiver, Miracle Man), the Holydiver is the one that will get you closest to what you want.

[Dr.Pain]

I found this on youtube and it's Adrian's live channel from Rock in Rio III.  It's interesting and maybe it might help.  Something that could do this would be nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz53gFRLQ1g