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Hey everyone,
First of all just wanted to say hi, found this place when looking for pickup reviews and have been checking it out and finnaly decided to join !
Well anyway, I've been playing guitar for a few years and am starting to get bored of just having to live with the stock pickups so im attempting to enter the world of custom guitars and thought this might be a good place to get some pickup feedback. So finally to my point, I was hoping you guys could reccomend a sweet set of seyomour duncan pickups ( a humbucker, a P-90 and a single coil strat) to put on a studio guitar to make it extremely versatile and be able to play everything from jazz to rock. They will be put on a custom strat with 3 mini swithces to replace the 5 way and 3 concentric pots to get maximum flexibility in tone and volume. If someone could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Welcome to the forum.

I assume you will put the P-90 in the neck, strat pickup in the mid, and a humbucker in the bridge. Dependng on your amp, I would go with a Phat Cat in the neck (makes it easier to mount in a pickguard), a Vintage Staggered in the mid, and a Custom or Custom 5 in the bridge.

this setup should cover a lot of ground. good luck.

I think the phat cat in the neck is a good idea (unless you already haev a guitar routed for a p90 shape in the neck, in that case id go with a duncan vintage p90 or a custom p90 if you wanted a bit more heat), and then id actually go with a duckbucker or vintage rails (same pickup, just whether you want rails or polepieces) in the middle which would get rid of the hum but still sound like a good single, and then id go a JB in the bridge which is a pretty hot pickup but it can do rock very well, has an alnico 5 magnet as opposed to the ceramic of the custom which sounds better to my ears, and would probably cut a bit better than a custom 5. But if you arent worrying about cutting since its a studio guitar then maybe a custom 5 would be a good choice too, it would probably have more of a vintage vibe than the JB.

Hey man,

Sounds like one interesting guitar! let us know how it turns out....

That seems really mundane to me to put all of those pickups in a strat and go through all of the trouble to wire all those switches and stack pots. Regardless of what you do it is still a strat and it will always have more strat characteristics. You can't make a Strat sound just like an ES-175, its just not in the cards. If you want everything from hardrock to jazz put a Dimebucker or JB in the bridge and a Jazz or JB (JB is darker and better for alder/poplar body). Then just do a 5-way switch and 2 volumes and 1 concentric pot for the 2 tones. It's a much more practical and viable solution. Goodluck.

-Michael

Don't rain on the new guy's parade! That sounds like a really cool setup to me. Obviously a Strat will never sound like a jazz box, and I don't think that's the point here. I've always wanted a three P90 Strat - I bet that would sound sweet.

Benjy's recommendations are very good, except I'd go for a lower output humbucker in the bridge to balance with the other two pickups better. I always recommend a Pearly Gates for a Strat. If you don't care about balance and want an aggressive rock tone, go for the Custom 5 or the JB. You've got a 21 day exchange on it, so just go with your instincts.

Best of luck!

Also, I just thought of this ... if you want a completely noiseless setup, try a P90 Stack in the neck, and a Classic Stack for Strat in the middle to go with your humbucker. This will ensure you don't get too much hum when combining pickups. The stacks really sound great IMO, but they're not a quot;perfectquot; vintage tone.

Alright guys thx for all the tips!

Welcome to the forum. Good luck on your quest for the perfect tone!

Amen to Ratherdashing's 3xp90 idea. Sounds tasty.... I also like Squires idea of a Tele with 2 p90s in it.

Welcome aboard, maniac.

I don't think I could come up with anything better than what's already been suggested. One of those combinations should be your best bet.