Wiring up new strat pickups

[gareth brown]

Hi, I just bought a load scratchplate with Fat 50s in it and, embarrassing as it is, I'm a bit stumped by which wires to put where.

I've attached a photo of the inside of my strat (80's Japanese squier I believe) and the wires in there. One from the Jack socket, (two wires inside one grey coating...and) and the ground wire from the back of the body under the backplate.

Also attached a picture of the back of the wired pickups. I know I'm probably missing something really obvious but i've never had to do this before so any help would be appreciated!

 

[gareth brown]

hey someone over at Strat Talk managed to help me out, I'd ask if someone could delete this but just in case someone else is scratching their head in future:

In your first photo - there is a strip of 3 slots on the back of the volume pot - your BLACK tremolo claw wire AND the bare wire from the jack go to one of these connections...

Below that, there is a strip of 2 connected to 2 of the lugs of the same pot - the RIGHT one in the photo, which joins to the MIDDLE lug (center out of 3 lugs) connects to the WHITE wire from your output jack...

Hope that helps!

 

[Mack_Again]

gareth, do you like how Fat 50s sound? are they just fat sounding or has higher output as well?

 

[gareth brown]

to be honest I couldn't tell you about the higher output, I'm not quite as clued up with that sort of stuff as I should be!! but as for fatter sounding, yes! compared to the original pickups that were in there.

love the tone of the neck pickup especially, sounds gorgeous! the bridge is a little quiet, dare I say quite "tinny" compared to other two, but I'm sure I just need to adjust it a bit until I get it right.

This isn't helped by the fact that the guitar originally had a hot rails style humbucker at the bridge so to go from that pretty beefy sound to the fat 50 bridge pick up is a bit jarring but all in all, great pickups and once the bridge is sorted out they'll be just fine, can't see myself swapping for anything else anytime soon.

sorry for the late response

 

[Mack_Again]

Don't worry about lateness: i am losing the concept of time, gradually. it's pretty bad.

anyway, I wondered about Fat 50s as Edge's sig strat apparently have them in the neck and middle. Im considering swapping pups of my cheap Squier strat so I kinda wondered about how they sound. pups might be more expensive than guitar, but hey.....you know...

 

[Muad'zin]

I'm so used to having a humbucker in the bridge position, or a hot rail that when I tried a regular single coil I immediately hated that sound as well. It either takes some getting used to. Or installing a hotter single coil.

 

[Mack_Again]

I personally like bridge pickups to be balls-out, powerful one with tons of harmonics as well. I raised the height of pups significantly compared to others as well as neck pups. at least that helps. I only have Strats so I happen to appreciate those tonal combination from these pickup selector a lot these days.