Replacing SCN's

[mr_sooty]

Wasn't sure whether to put this under pickups or wiring, but anyway...

I'm thinking of replacing the neck pickup in my US Deluxe Strat. The SCN's, while amazingly silent, just lack that single coil spank to my ear. They're a little lifeless.

So I was thinking of just replacing the neck pickup, as it's the one I use the most clean. Maybe a Texas Special or something.

But the issue is that the SCN's have three wires, as opposed to a normal single coils two. I'm not much of a techy, I just follow my nose, or instructions. So I'm wondering, is it possible to replace the SCN with a normal single coil while retaining the S1 switching features, or not?

[ChrisK]

Yes, but to get the answer you have to send the SCN pickup to me first.


Actually, there are three wire pads (but you knew that);

Circle - output
Rectangle - shield
Triangle - signal ground

Just connect the new pickup's output and signal ground wires to where the circle and triangle wires went and ignore the shield connection.

This particular guitar is one of the first ones made (late 2003/Jan 2004) and the shields weren't connected at that time.

[mr_sooty]

OK cool. Putting this idea on hold now though as I messed with the pickup heights and managed to get some better tone out of the SCN's.