Silimtao

I don't know the guts of a Strat, or any guitar really to know any better. This looks more like the backside of one of my Strats. FENDER STRATOCASTER AVR '62 PICKUP/PICKGUARD COMPLETE - eBay (item 300392594482 end time Feb-05-10 19:21:33 PST)

I'm just kinda surprised there was no reserve on it. Or maybe I should just buy the kind of pickups I want and slap them in the Strat with the noiseless pups. I dunno. If anyone can say for sure this looks like real Strat pups, I may put down a nominal bid on it. Thanks.

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SLCONKL

Looks pretty legit to me, again its still hard to tell if the pickups are original, most of the strat pickups i have seen have the fender logo on the back of the pickup. If that logo is on there then they are original. Thats what i have seen anyways.

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Parralax view

Many places are now selling complete strat pickguard and pickup assemblies, all you have to do is remove the existing, and solder the ground lead to the claw and screw everything back to gether.

Now, that said, make sure if you go this route, you get the proper spaced screw holes. Some strats are 11 holes, and some, mostly older are 8 holes. Additionally where the pickguard meets the neck sometimes is not exact, and you may have to exacto knife the pickgaurd by just lightly shaving the plastic till it fits correctly. On line, Acme Guitar sells complete set ups ready made. But the pricing is a bit of bait and switch. "Completely assembled Fender strat pickguard assemblies, 179.00, what they don't tell you is pickups are extra, special no solder connections are extra, color of pg is extra, etc...What starts at 180 bucks quickly ends up north of 300...

Silimtao

That's what I thought, but if you sawt the pictures, I really couldn't see anything that identified them as Fender pups. Some gearheads can tell things practically from smelling them alone.

I was thinking possibly going this route also. There's a dealer on ebay I've dealt with before that sells everything Licensed by Fender. I like the pickguard on the Strat I want to replace the noiseless pups with. It's paisley, and kinda grew on me, so what I really want are pickups only. Individual pups can be a bit pricey. ~$80 each (or more), so I'm at a bit of a crossroads here. I don't want to pour a whole lot of money into this. I'm on the search for prices for a set of 3 I've seen on vendor sites like Seymour Duncan.

What I may do is, swap the pups out of a different MiM Strat I have, into the Strat with the noiseless, and put the noiseless pups into the other. For me, this would be major surgery, as I'm not terribly comfortable doing it. Dunno why; I have no problem in building my own pc's. When it comes to my guitars, it just feels like a royal waste of time doing the modding. I'd rather just play 'em. If I had just a body to mess with I wouldn't mind half as much.

Which do you prefer Parallax, stock Fender pups, or, say, Highway 1's, or a Seymour Duncan Hotrail; I hear Fralin make good pups for Fender also. My '84 American Strat has stock pups, and that nice chime-y sound when clean, but with some bite. And they sound great through an overdriven tube. I'd be happy with almost anything at this point except for the noiseless Fender pups, they sound nice enough, but lack that bite, if you know what I mean.

Thanks for input guys. I wanted to spend the next couple of weeks setting up all my guitars, and possibly selling some. Not replacing this for that, etc. It's giving me a headache. My major project really is re-setting up my American, going down in string gauge from 12's to 10. When I put 12's on it, I had to spend hours getting the intonation right. And this is the strange year Strat where there's no rear access to the springs, and you have to take the pickguard off. Not looking forward to that at all.

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Instant Karma's gonna get you......

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Parralax view

Personally, I have only changed pickups on one strat. My 95 AmSTD came with what ever it came with stock, I fought with it for 10 yrs to cure the wimpy tone. I finally relented and installed VanZandt Vintage blues in all three holes and it's a monster. I am sold on VZ pickups, and I am not a mod guy. They give a distinct bite, increased volume and cut that put the guitar light years away from stock. That said, they are also very very sensitive, every clam, every false strum is going to be heard, and distinctly. I have probably only one of two or three strats on Oahu that have VZ's but when I play out, I always get remarks from other players about how much balls that old black strat has...

On the MIM strats, I actually prefer the stock ceramic magnet pickups. They distort quicker and need a bit of tweek at the knob to create a good clean. That said, I'm more of a "rude, snotty, tone" guy than I am a "mellow" tone guy.....;-)