MIM Strat Pickup Recommendation

[-Will-]

Sorry guys, another pickup question, but what else do you guys have to do? I did do a search first but really didn't find anything I considered relevant. Anyway, I have a MIM Strat and I want to replace the single coils with humbuckers. Any recommendations? I'm kind of leaning towards the Dimarzio YJMs but I've always been leery of signature models, don't know why. I will be playing mostly Christian rock/pop songs, but will also be playing a little jazz and blues.

[GuitarPlayerFL]

The YJM is basically the HS-3 but with staggered pole pieces. I almost bought a couple of them but stuck with my Duncan Hot Stacks because I already had one in the middle postition.

 

If you're looking to retain the single coil sound in a humbucker configuration (stacked coils), go to Duncan's website and check out the sounds of each pickup.

 

I find Seymour Duncan pickups to be closer to traditional sounding and Dimarzios to be more modern. I prefer SD...I've never been really happy with Dimarzios because it wasn't the tone I wanted, not because they're bad.

 

I like my Hot Stacks. They're a punchy and beefy sounding pickup with more body than traditional single coils.

 

The body wood and neck fingerboard with have a bit to do with the sound of which pickup you choose. Also remember that a traditional Strat tone is going to be thinner sounding than the louder, beefier pickups can give.

 

Listen to all the pickups and see which you prefer. Dimarzio has sound clips for a bunch of pickups too, but they have band clips and it's impossible to hear the pickup by itself with no effects added.

[Screaming Stone]

I replaced the single coils in my MIJ strat with humbuckers (stacked single coils) I specifically wanted humcancelling, keep most of the guitar's original tone, add a little more bite. I went through countless variations of Seymour Duncans - and ended up putting 'Lil 59's in all 3 positions.

 

From what I can recall:

Hot rails - seemed to overpower and take away my guitar's tone

Cool rails - very clean, didn't really give the bite I wanted

Duckbuckers - these I remember very well - they gave my strat more strat "quack" than the original single coil pickups - very cool if you want that strat quack, but not for me

Lil Screamin deamons - not enough bite

Jb Jr - these almost did it for me until I tried the Lil 59s

Lil 59's - for me, these hit the spot, gave me exactly what I was looking for. They have ceramic magnets so more bite, they are relatively low output which for me means that they still retain the guitar's original tone (very important)