• Replacement pickups for a knock-off Encore strat
    5 replies, posted
I bought a stratocaster-style Encore guitar from someone at work for £20 and the thing is lovely. Very nice tone on a clean setting, but once you add distortion the pickups hum like crazy. The pickups are all single coil, installed in an "SSS" layout. I would like to replace the bridge pickup with a humbucker of some sort (suggestions would be awesome). Is this an easy mod to do assuming I can find another scratch plate for HSS pickups? Or should I fork out and have a proper techie do it?
You'd need to look under the scratchplate. If it's routed swimming pool style or HSS then it should be a simple changeover, provided you find the right size of pickguard (most places will offer a custom cutting service) What sort of sound are you looking for and how much do you want to spend? And are you wanting to replace the whole set or only put in a bridge humbucker?
I only want to put in a bridge humbucker. I can spend around £200 on this project and I'm looking for quite a warm sound Iron Maiden style. I'm not looking to re-create their sound, just something similar to. It also doesn't have to be a humbucker, if I can get away with no hum using single coils (or maybe those Seymour Duncan JB Jr's?) that's fine too.
Well for Maiden you could either get a DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker or a SD Hot Rails for about £80, if you want to go boutique, Bare Knuckle Rebel Yell or Cold Sweat probably (~£100), or if you want to go cheaper, something like Tonerider or Irongear can be had here for pretty cheap. What is your amp? I know this is a tired question but if your amp is low rate I would go for an Irongear then save for a new amp
My amp is a little Ibanez 10 watt practice one at the moment. I'm keen to get another one once my mate's soundproof shed is finished but I'm still searching. I play a lot of Gamma Ray, Metallica and some Dream Theater, so the kind of sound I'd want from an amp would be something between all three. For Metallica I just stick the tone all the way up on my guitars and add a little treble, while Gamma Ray I back the tone and treble off a bit. You could say I'm still trying to find "my" sound.
I would recommend a proper humbucker then. SC sized humbuckers have their place but they do sound different, and considering the other stuff you play they're probably too different. Depending on how much you want to spend check out the places I recommended, all of them will have a fairly high output humbucker available which will do what you need it to. But before you do that I would hold out for an amp upgrade to really appreciate the difference
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