Blade/Rail-type Pickup options for Clear-perspex bodied strat copy

[christoff]

Just got this clear-perspex bodied strat copy brand-new for £135! (~$250) Obviously it's no dan armstrong, but I've just had it set up and it plays alright.

The pickups on there are EMG's believe it or not, they're just very, very cheap and nasty EMG's. Problem is that with a cheap neck the string spacings are off on some of the middle and neck pickup magnets resulting in a muddy sound. So rather than buying a decent neck and having the problems of machining the body to fit it, I want to get around this by replacing them with the rail/blade-type pickup.

I'm looking for a sound that's more les paul-like rather than vintage strat. I had my eye on some kent armstrong's - mostly because they're half the price of anything S-D and dimarzio have to offer. I was thinking of putting a hot one in the bridge and the other two would be cool rails (I don't mind the volume drop.) I'll get better switch & pots put in at same time.

Just wondering what people's thoughts were on this - any advice or recommendations welcomed!

[Bizarro]

The SD hot/cool rails are very nice. It's hard to go wrong with those. I haven't tried the Dimarzio versions.

[Bongo Boy]

The quality of the neck (by any measure) shouldn't have any effect on the alignment of the strings over the pickup pole pieces--even if the nut were handmade by a monkey you shouldn't see significant alignment problems at the pickup. Any chance you can take a close-up that frames just the pickups and all 6 strings?

I like the headstock a lot--looks a lot like an Ibanez to me.

[christoff]

Here you go - as you can see the bridge one is aligned ok but the other two are only lined up on the d and g strings.

The guy in the shop told me that the original early 50's strats actually had different sized pickups to accomodate for this but then they switched to using all the same size to save money...

[Bizarro]

Bill Lawrence has "tempered" pole spacing on his pickups. www.billlawrence.com

He makes incredible pickups and they are inexpensive since they're handmade by his family. In case you don't know, he was the head of Gibson design for many years and he designed many of the best Gibson pickups. Nuno Bettencourt and Dimebag Darrell also used Bill Lawrence pickups in their signature guitars for years, but Dimebag recently switched to a different company. Bill also designed the new Fender SCN pickups used in all the American Deluxe strats. He's a legend in the guitar design world, but relatively unknown to the masses.

I have a set of L280/290s in my gigging strat. They are amazing for classic rock. If you call them up they can get the pole spacing and pickups customized to work for you. I think my pickups were about $45 each. FYI: only order from his website, there are cheap imitations out there!

www.fenderforum.com also talks about his pickups quite a bit.

[Rizla]

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/products.html

[christoff]

Yeah I've heard good stuff about bill lawrence. Apparently he's the guy who "taught the world how to make pickups" -trouble is the website says there's a 2 month waiting time; but I'll definitely be buying stuff from them in the not too distant future!

lol! Is dimebag darrel actually sober for long enough to know what guitar he's holding let alone choose some pickups?! I saw some pics of him at the metal hammer mag awards over here a couple of months ago, apparently he'd been drinking for 3 days solid prior to turning up - rock & roll! Needless to say his award acceptance speech was interesting to say the least...

Besides, it's too late now anyway because I've already ordered some kent armstrong humbucker-type rails. Figured might as well buy local for convenience (and the delivery was £2/$4) plus the name was recommended to me. They were the best value rails I could find online in the uk at 38 quid each (~$70, 55 euro's):

http://wdmusicproducts.co.uk/Merchan...gory_Code=STRT

[Bizarro]

I've never used the Kent Armstrong pickups. You'll have to post a sample when you get them installed!

[Bongo Boy]

Originally Posted by christoff

Here you go - as you can see the bridge one is aligned ok but the other two are only lined up on the d and g strings.

Got it. Having never even held a strat I've never noticed this before. Yeah...all three pickups have identical pole spacing--nothing wrong with your neck. Obviously you can't use identical pickups in all 3 positions and have them aligned with the strings.

To my mind, pickup replacement is the correct solution--not just a work-around. But, you may not have to resort to the blade-type units if the standard single-coils are being made with correct spacing.

You probably already knew this, but I just found out that Dan Armstrong passed away in June this year. Interestingly also, the pickups on his Perspex guitars were made by Bill Lawrence. Small community, I guess.

[phantom]

that guitar looks strange but beautiful...i wonder how it sounds.

[Bizarro]

FYI: Dan and Bill were friends and business partners a long time ago...