Stratocaster SSS vs HSS/HH

Royale with Cheese

I've been playing guitar for about 15 years, and have owned various guitars over that time. Until recently I had always played bass in bands so never paid a huge amount of attention to the tone of my guitars, but that's changed now and I've suddenly realised I have a problem.

I bought myself an American Deluxe Stratocaster earlier in the year, all single coils. Let me just say, I love this guitar. I love the weight, the neck, dicking around with the tremolo (it actually stays in tune pretty well unlike other Strats I've owned). However I just don't think the single coils are going to produce the sound I'm after, which is a somewhat beefy heavy/medium distortion. I recently bought Guitar Rig and after much playing around I can't get a sound I'm happy with. Pumping up the gain produces this fairly harsh unpleasant distortion, even after dialing the tone knob down slightly. I have a beat up old Epiphone Les Paul here that is closer to what I want so I'm thinking humbuckers are the way to go. However I love everything else about the Strat so don't particularly want to switch to a Les Paul.

I have little interest in modding the guitar so as sad as I'd be to see it go, I'm thinking about trading it for either a HSS or HH Strat. Does anybody have experience with either? If so are they going to make a big difference or if it's really a Les Paul sound I'm after should I just get a Les Paul?

Alternatively, if there are any quick fixes to get a fuller sound out of the Strat, feel free to let me know. I would love to be able to hang on to it.

feylya

Simplest solution is buy a mini humbucker, and get a tech to install it for you. Should be more than a 30 minute job for someone competent.

https://www.thomann.de/ie/seymour_duncan_st_style_hot_rails_set_black.htm?ref=search_prv_6 is a set of them, but it will definitely give you the sound you're after. Works for Iron Maiden...

Royale with Cheese

Yeah I'd briefly looked at something like that but I had a bad experience of swapping out the pickups in a jazz bass I used to own years ago so was kind of reluctant. I've also read they don't quite produce the same sound as a proper humbucker would. I'd want to hear one for myself before I'd even think about it doing it, any chance they'd be installed on something in one of the shops in Dublin?

feylya

You can probably find a strat with pickups like that. My thinking is that you love the instrument you have, expect for the power of the pickups. It's hard to find something you really love, so swapping pickups is a sane alternative. You could end up with another guitar that you hate playing and hate the sound of if you buy something else.

Alternatively, you could have a look at Biffy Clyro's guitarist who only uses single coils, and gets a seriously heavy sound.

martinedwards

I had a test bed strat that ended up with three mini humbuckers, with coil split switches and rather than a 5 way switch I had 3 volume knobs so I could blend.....

Oh yes, and a piezo bridge.....

cd07

Have u checked out adrian smiths jackson? Google it it may well be what you're looking for

wild turkey

If you really like the guitar dont get rid of it
Afaik deluxes are routed for two humbuckers, check under the pickguard

get yourself a new pickguard and whatever humbucker you like or config you like

My favourite is a super distortion in the bridge Hss but Ive also a mini hotrails in one thats just as good.

Royale with Cheese

Awesome, I'd assumed installing proper humbuckers would mean taking a chisel to the guitar which I wasn't prepared to do. Looks like your right though, it should be routed HSH if a quick Google is to be believed.

I'm off to look a pickups and figure out if I want to go HSS or HH :-)

wild turkey

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Awesome, I'd assumed installing proper humbuckers would mean taking a chisel to the guitar which I wasn't prepared to do. Looks like your right though, it should be routed HSH if a quick Google is to be believed.

I'm off to look a pickups and figure out if I want to go HSS or HH :-)

Look under the pickguard before you do anything as there can be variants on different models.

My personal favourite is Hss with the Gilmour mod.

Royale with Cheese

Had a look at all the options, decided I didn't want to buy third party pickups as I have no way of trying them out before playing them. I did check the routing and it's a standard HSH configuration.

Was close to ordering a new shawbucker and going HSS, but was also toying with the idea of getting a Gibson SG standard. Having tried the SG yesterday I came to the conclusion that HH is definitely the sound I'm after but I much prefer the neck on my strat to the SG (I believe this is the same neck on the Les Paul standards too). So I found a loaded pickguard on eBay from the old HH American Standard strat. It's a bit of a risk seeing as these aren't the shawbuckers on the new HH strats so I haven't heard them in the flesh, but it was a good price and I don't have to mess about wiring an entirely new pickguard this way.