strat pickups

The Seymour Duncan Custom Shop engineered the period-correct wind, aged the magnets, and color-matched the covers until Joe deemed these pickups a “spot-on” recreation.

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Replacing key components—such as the pickups, string nut, and tuners—can turn a workhorse guitar into a killer axe!

Rather than spending a cool grand or two on a new Custom Shop or topline American Stratocaster, many guitarists opt to find a solid Mexican or Japanese Fender Strat and trick it out. Often my clients ask me how they can upgrade one of these instruments to make it gig-worthy. There are several ways to customize a budget Strat without spending a fortune. Replacing key components—such as the pickups, string nut, and tuners—can turn a workhorse guitar into a killer axe!

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Adjusting pickup height sounds simple, but pickups that aren’t adjusted properly can cause problems.

Guitars with two or three pickups offer lots of sonic variety, but they also introduce a particular problem that single-pickup instruments—such as Fender Esquires and some Les Paul Juniors—don't have. When you switch pickups on a multi-pickup guitar, you can experience volume differences between one position and another. This can be rather annoying when you're in the studio or playing a gig. Just as frustrating is when your treble strings sound weak, but the bass strings are ridiculously loud. In both cases, the fix can be as simple as adjusting your pickups.

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