Everything is a compromise. Take from one to give to another. It's like that with everything in life.
But have faith, I have the perfect solution for you.
*Wire up your best sounding clean strat tone with your favorite pickups. That's your foundation for clean, quack, notched whatever.
*Then wire up a no load tone pot to the bridge pickup. That's your smooth.
*Then buy a ______ overdrive. That's your beef when you want it.
Duncan SS-5's
I am looking for a Single Coil bridge pickup for a Stratocaster that is bigger, fatter and smoother sounding with overdrive than a stock pup yet maintains that classic Strat tone when played clean in positions 1 & 2.
Does this pickup exist?
+1 for the Fralin Steel Poles. I put a Steel Pole 43 in the bridge position of my MIM Strat a few weeks back, and I love it. Yes, it retains the basic Statiness, but has more beef and isn't shrill at all. The 43 is hotter than the 42, but that's what I was after. I use Fralin humbuckers and P90s on four other guitars too, and I think these are excellent products all around.Fralin Steel Pole 42. It is still unmistakably a single coil, but with out some of the shrill that you can get from a bridge single coil. It also isn't so hot that it sounds like a p90 and plays well with mildly overwound singles in the other 2 positions.
+1 for the Fralin Steel Poles. I put a Steel Pole 43 in the bridge position of my MIM Strat a few weeks back, and I love it. Yes, it retains the basic Statiness, but has more beef and isn't shrill at all. The 43 is hotter than the 42, but that's what I was after. I use Fralin humbuckers and P90s on four other guitars too, and I think these are excellent products all around.
I am sort of surprised that i haven't heard what i expected to..........in a good way though.
I thought i would hear Fralin SP43.....thinking it may too hot to still maintain classic strat tones?
Also thought i would hear Fralin Blues special or Van Zandt blues......would any of these do the trick?