Fender 95 mex strat

[lamouche]

Hello there
I have a Fender 95 standard mex strat and I'd like to change my Pups... this is the first time and don't know how to do, so please be cool
so, I mainly play pop/rock/blues stuff and would like to have good warm and fat sounds... like playing on Fender and Vox amps... so what kind of Pups do i have to choose?

thanx

[Sebster5696]

Hi Lamouche and welcome to Guitar Nuts,
I would recommend Seymour Duncan or DiMarzio pickups. There are single coil sized humbuckers from both manufacturers which may give you a fatter sound than normal single coils.

Seb

[ccso8462]

Hi lamouche, and welcome to Guitarnutz2!

I just changed the pups in my Mexican Tele a few months back, and I can assure you that it is pretty easy to change pickups.

Along with the pickup change I highly recommend a Qtb job, especially if you want to cut noise at higher volumes/distortion. Take a look at: which is the original Guitarnutz site. If my link doesn't work, just look at the top of this page and click on the link to the original site.

If you have any questions about the job, feel free to ask. There are plenty of folks here that are tremendously helpful and have lots of experience.

Sebster posted a couple of links to excellent pup makers. Check 'em out, I think you'll find something you can use.

[newey]

lamouche said:

... so what kind of Pups do i have to choose?

Hi Lamouche!

I'm afraid to say that I don't think anyone around here can give you a satisfactory answer to that question. Wiring it up, there's plenty of help to be had here on that. But your question concerns your individual perspective of the sound, the tone, you're looking to achieve. And that's about as subjective a subject as there ever was.

IMHO, for playing "pop/rock/blues stuff" the stock pups are a pretty good all-around pup to begin with. But since you want to change them, that's apparently not your (again, subjective) opinion.

The only advice I could offer is, to the extent you can, try before you buy to see what you like. If you have a friend with a strat with different pickups, play his and see what you think. Go to one of those mega guitar stores, they may have a Seymour Duncan- equipped Strat on the wall you can play. Also, many pickup makers offer sound clips of their products on their websites, for example:

www.riograndepickups.com/sounds.htm

Of course, the clips are done by a pro guy using the best amp, etc., so you can't necessarily draw any firm comparisons.

The one thing you don't want to do is to go out and drop a few bills on a set of new pups just 'cause someone told you they would do what you want. Particularly if that someone is the one selling you the pups . . .

[lamouche]

Hello all

many thanks for all of you, I think you've been very helpful... I took a look at the sites and it helps a bit... I'll try all these and decide what to buy and of course, I'll get back to you

anyway, Newey you're absolutely right about the fact that I shouldn't get me new ones 'cos someone told me... actually, I took this decision by myself 'cos I'm searching for another sound, a warmer one, don't know how to explain but I know what I want... just I don't know how to get it, with which pups... so I'll try some guitars in the shops before taking any decision of buying.

[morecowbell]

hey lamouche,

I've got that exact same strat model. Well, it was until I started modding it, beginning with new pickups. I put some Fender Vintage Noiseless pups I got on ebay in mine. I love them, but as you know, it's all subjective.

Most anything you swap the pickups out with will be an improvement over the stock ones, IMHO. For what it's worth, GFS pickups (at guitarfetish.com) sound great and are real bargain.

Sounds like you know the sound you're looking for, so I might offer another thing to think about while you consider pickups: add an EQ pedal to your rig if you don't already use one. You'll be amazed how much it helps define your sound beyond the standard tone controls on your amp. Just a thought. I never used one until last year (and I've been playing for over 20) and now I wouldn't dream of going without one no matter what pickups I'm using.

[ChrisK]

Since you indicate that you are looking for a warmer sound, I presume that this means less treble and brightness.

There are some simple things that can be done with existing pickups to tailor the existing frequency response.

The first is the most obvious in using the tone controls which are a high frequency cut circuit. Try them at "7" or "8" or a little lower.

Other things involve adding a series resistor and capacitor across each pickup that you want to tailor.

A simple solution in time, but costing money is to add a StellarTone tone control (which does exactly what the series cap and resistor does).


What I do is to have the selected pickup on with the guitar's volume/tone all the way up/off at "10" and use an external circuit between the guitar's output jack and the cable that has a 100 to 1500 pF variable capacitor in series with a 250K pot (even at 250K, the cap has little effect) to "dial in" the sound that I want. I use a variable cap as well as a variable resistor since it's much faster empirically.

[mattskully]

Check out fenders noiseless or lace sensor gold,silver,red/blue!Quiet pickups and whatever you need cover all styles. see fender website.