It was a rough start, had major tuning issues, tone was not what I wanted... But it felt good to play. After surgery in my hand and a pretty bad car accident a year ago, I'm constantly struggling with pain and comfort had to be priority.
Tuning issues were resolved when I out of frustration just put the guitar apart and back together. I thought it was solved, but leaving the strings out of the string tree pretty much made the guitar giggable. Nice.
Tried a few pickups, the set that stayed for quite a while was 2 SD Classic Stacks and a Little 59. Guitar never sounded great, but it was workable.The little 59 was fine actually, the classic stacks were not bad, but if I had to use a work to describe them it would be "bland".
Out of nowhere a bridge pivot head just broke. Had to buy another one, saw the knife on the bridge worn in a weird way after a couple of years, so I decided to take a chance and got one with a wider spacing, which my sausage fingers appreciate. New Gotoh 510 ordered.
As I was changing the bridge I decided to go all in and order Dimarzio Areas. Widely accepted as a great single coil sounding noiseless pickup, which is important for me for gigging - but I have to say I was very skeptical it would solve my tone problems with this guitar.
Bridge and pickups installed.
Area 58 neck and 67 for the middle. Had to rewire the 59 because it was out of phase, easy to solve.
Had to remove a bit of wood to make space for the slightly larger block on the new bridge. The larger spacing worked great.
The guitar sounds WAY better now, much more I would expect from a strat, I'm really happy with the tone.
The new bridge for some reason stays in tune even better, now I don't even have to bypass the string tree. The E and B strings, especially the E, would ring a bit weird when played open, now it's perfect! I can really abuse the whammy bar and it stays in tune perfectly!
Both changes were actually major improvements! I'm very happy
TLDR: New Gotoh 510 with larger spacing worked great / pickups are Area 58, Area 67 and little 59. Much better tone, much better tuning stability.
So, I'm only second guessing the Little 59 right now. It's good, but I really think it could be a bit better. Anything closer to a PAF while still single coil sized? I'm not discarding going to full sized HB, but for now I'm open to try other single coil sized ones.
Tuning issues were resolved when I out of frustration just put the guitar apart and back together. I thought it was solved, but leaving the strings out of the string tree pretty much made the guitar giggable. Nice.
Tried a few pickups, the set that stayed for quite a while was 2 SD Classic Stacks and a Little 59. Guitar never sounded great, but it was workable.The little 59 was fine actually, the classic stacks were not bad, but if I had to use a work to describe them it would be "bland".
Out of nowhere a bridge pivot head just broke. Had to buy another one, saw the knife on the bridge worn in a weird way after a couple of years, so I decided to take a chance and got one with a wider spacing, which my sausage fingers appreciate. New Gotoh 510 ordered.
As I was changing the bridge I decided to go all in and order Dimarzio Areas. Widely accepted as a great single coil sounding noiseless pickup, which is important for me for gigging - but I have to say I was very skeptical it would solve my tone problems with this guitar.
Bridge and pickups installed.
Area 58 neck and 67 for the middle. Had to rewire the 59 because it was out of phase, easy to solve.
Had to remove a bit of wood to make space for the slightly larger block on the new bridge. The larger spacing worked great.
The guitar sounds WAY better now, much more I would expect from a strat, I'm really happy with the tone.
The new bridge for some reason stays in tune even better, now I don't even have to bypass the string tree. The E and B strings, especially the E, would ring a bit weird when played open, now it's perfect! I can really abuse the whammy bar and it stays in tune perfectly!
Both changes were actually major improvements! I'm very happy
TLDR: New Gotoh 510 with larger spacing worked great / pickups are Area 58, Area 67 and little 59. Much better tone, much better tuning stability.
So, I'm only second guessing the Little 59 right now. It's good, but I really think it could be a bit better. Anything closer to a PAF while still single coil sized? I'm not discarding going to full sized HB, but for now I'm open to try other single coil sized ones.
I'm in the Digital forum so much I just forgot to change it 
