The Strat Bridge Pickup: Use? Avoid? Good Solutions?

[Jonny D]

The bridge pickup on a Strat seems to come up here often on TGP. Some love it. Some Avoid it. Some Mod it or Swap it.

What is your solution to the Strat bridge pickup?

 

[giantrobotswinbig]

I don't particularly care for single-coil strat bridge pickups. Instead, I prefer to have a splittable humbucker in the bridge, so that I can get a thicker bridge sound but still have a more traditional strat sound in "position 2" on the pickup switch.

 

[Lespaulsignature 74]

My solution was a Lindy Fralin SP43 single coil pickup. It has similar output and tone to a P90. No ice pick in the ear, smooth and rounder highs...

 

[hotmod]

I have a Kinman trad on my strat wired to the tone and use it all the time,no probs.

 

[R13D]

I love the stock bridge PU, yep, just hook the tone control.

 

[Planespotter]

My '87 American standard has the tbx tone control wired to the bridge pickup and it gets a great raunchy crunch with the time rolled off and plugged into a marshall. If you have the "bridge always wide open" wiring I recommend rewiring it so the tone control is on the bridge pickup instead of the middle pickup. It makes a huge difference.

 

[J-E-M]

BG pups S90 - strat sized P90.

 

[Promit]

Humbucker + tone control.

 

[shane8]

several solutions
1/ turn down the treble on ur amp
2/ put a TONE pot on it
3/ install a dimarzio pro track

imo the bridge is the best position on a strat

 

[slopeshoulder]

Ron Ellis "hot" bridge, .047 cap, good quality one pot wired to the bridge pickup, sometimes a clean boost.

 

[Jonny D]

My solution was a Lindy Fralin SP43 single coil pickup. It has similar output and tone to a P90. No ice pick in the ear, smooth and rounder highs...

I might have to that one a try. Sounds nice to me.

 

[Lilsam]

Zhangbucker p90 single coil sized pup in one of my strat.

 

[VaughnC]

Rewiring one of the tone controls to the bridge pickup is a good place to start.

However, the pickup height adjustments can offer something too. I use my ears for setting the pickup height's and I generally end up with the bridge pickup a little closer to the strings than the neck & middle for the best balance. Personally, I don't care for a mushy/humbuckery/overwound sound in the bridge position of a Strat and the right pickup height settings generally work for me. But, one man's mushy is another man's round or warm...so who's to say.

Another thing I did to one of my Strats was to install a good Tele bridge pickup in the bridge position. Took a bit of work to make it fit but it was worth the effort. Beefier sounding than the Strat pickup it replaced but the clarity I like is maintained.

 

[Cussion]

Using a Fuzz Face with it

 

[Jonny D]

Thus far my solution has been to install a neck-on switch that gets me the bridge/neck sound, which I love very much. Otherwise, I don't use the bridge at all.

 

[gmann]

Rewire it so it has a tone control. You can move one wire, the one that goes to the middle pot so that the bridge pup has a tone control. This leave the middle pup w/o a tone control. Or, just add a jumper wire fm the middle to the next lug over on your switch and the middle tone control will work for both the middle and bridge pup. Don't know why Leo didn't do this.

 

[stormin1155]

Tone control. Both my strats have fairly robust winds at the bridge. BG Phattys in one, Benson Texas in the other.

 

[Average Joe]

I'll pile on and say that the bridge pickup with a tone control is a quite useable sound.Ad some drive and it's a cool rude sound as well

 

[64 Tele]

Rewire it so it has a tone control. You can move one wire, the one that goes to the middle pot so that the bridge pup has a tone control. This leave the middle pup w/o a tone control.

This variation is what I'm going to try on my next Strat. In the past, I've gone the route of no tone control on neck pickup, move tone 1 to middle, tone 2 to bridge pickup.

 

[hitchorange]

Been experimennting lately, don't put an overwound bridge in it. Just wire it to a tone control, if you want to keep the in between posittion. Learned this yesterday when experimenting with a beefy bridge pickup.