Super Distortion in a Squier? Also, A or B pots?

[45below]

Hey guys,

I'm needing a new guitar badly as we're currently recording our first album. I would eventually like to end up with a strat-o-sonic, but for now I have a Squier Affinity Strat. (Alder body, Maple neck, Rosewood fretboard, crappy pickups.)

I was thinking about taking out the current pickguard, pickups, everything, and putting in a new pickguard with a single Super Distortion pickup in the bridge, with 1 volume, 1 tone, and 1 three-way switch (that would switch from series, to parallel, to coil split)

My first question is simply, how do you think the pickup would sound in the guitar? Would there be enough low end "oomph" or would it be all highs with the alder body? Would the cleans in the bridge (on any of the 3 switch settings) be too "twangy"? I play all forms of rock, mostly sounding like Papa Roach or Shinedown, but have a couple songs where we break into a clean guitar during the bridge. All this to say, I don't play cleans very much, so I don't need the sparkling Fender cleans, but is it passable? (I know this also depends much on the amp)

 

Also, I've noticed there are A pots and B pots. Which of these would I get? What's the difference (in a short answer)?

 

Thanks in advance. I appreciate it.

[Poster Nutbag]

A Super Distortion does cleans fine, you just gotta adjust the pickup height and balance your levels so you can roll back the volume on the guitar to get it to clean up, etc.. And yeah, it depends on your rig and what you can stomp on to take out gain.

 

About the low end, depends on your rig - it's there from the pickup, just plan on re-EQing you signal chain

 

It may be too twangy for you, but I've found that in the bridge those are twangy in a certain volume range, right between really clean and starting to break up. Of course YMMV.

 

(That's fun to say.. twangy... twangy.. twangy)

 

I don't think the Squire is gonna get amazingly better, but it'll be a step up. But I assume it has three single coils now? Why go to just a bridge humbucker? Why not bridge and neck, or.. ? At least if you keep any pickup in the neck it won't be as twangy as the bridge..

 

Oh, and I did a bridge humbucker in a Squire Affinity and I had some routing to do, I don't recall that those have a bathtub rout. You've been warned

[cratz2]

Any of the meaty pickups like the Super Distortion, Invader, Tone Zone etc will provide plenty of bottom end and thump regardless of what they are put in.

 

My guess is if you put that pickup in a cheapy strat, you'll have a guitar that will blow everyone away with how aggressive is sounds for how little money you have in it... assuming the guitar itself plays pretty great.

 

Not sure about the 3 way switch... I don't know that you can wire any sort of standard 3 way switch to allow full serial, full parallel or split. I think you'll need two switches... or one switch and push pull pot. Unless you really need the serial/parallel, I think just having the coil split will be the most useful mod.

 

The Super Distortion can 'do' cleans, but in the bridge position... I don't know... I'm a big fan of neck pickups or both pickups for clean tones. I personally would strongly consider having a nice single coil in the neck for cleans. Something cheap from the 'bay like a Fender 57/62 or a Tex Mex. Those are great pickups and something you can get those for very little money. I got a neck 57/62 for $14 shipped one time.

 

But rock it, man. Plenty of gigs and records have been done with just a single bridge HB.

 

It's ugly as sin, but my current cheapest guitar happens to be an Squier with a Duncan Vintage Tele in the neck and a Dimarzio Chopper in the bridge. PLENTY of meat and the Super Distortion is most certainly a heavier pickup than the Chopper. I also upgraded the trem block and the saddles. I'd consider doing both of those if you are going for a more meaty, fuller sound.

 

[IBDBB]

for pots you should always get A's , IMO.

b's are essentially on/off switches, they go 0,1,10.

A's have some range to them.

[mnhhngbfs]

dude how'd you get the tele neck pickup mounted like that? mines screwed into the wood as it is on a lot of teles... total pain in the ass to adjust (just to clarify, i'm talking about using the neck pup on a strat like you have it... not mounting it to a guard on a tele)

[cratz2]

 

dude how'd you get the tele neck pickup mounted like that? mines screwed into the wood as it is on a lot of teles... total pain in the ass to adjust (just to clarify, i'm talking about using the neck pup on a strat like you have it... not mounting it to a guard on a tele)

 

 

Hrmm... dunno. I just screwed it in the guard like I would a standard strat pickup. Of course, it's not quite as big and the screws are on a bit of an angle, but I didn't have to mod anything. I haven't tried to adjust it in over a year but it seems like I can't raise it quite as high as most folks probably would, but I tend to keep my single coils relatively close to the pickguard anyway.

 

I'll take a close up next time I have that one out.

[mnhhngbfs]

ahh, thought you may have modded the baseplate some how.. i tried doing what you did before but the screws were too angled to actually work with the pickup i have

[45below]

Thanks for the input! I'm not opposed to putting a neck pickup in at all... I was just thinking of how I play all (or nearly all) of my songs on the bridge setting, thus going for simplicity. I may throw a PAF pro in there if I want a neck pup.

Thanks again for your help. I think I'm going to try this out!