[backporchpicker]

Just bought an American Special HSS Stratocaster. Great guitar but the atomic humbucker is a dud. Have a Bluesbucker in my Les Paul and like it. Anyone have an opinion about a Bluesbucker in the Strat with a coil split or spin a split?

[corypheus]

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on your purchase! I love HSS strats, theyre so versatile.

I never tested Bluesbucker at all, but one thing to keep in mind is your HSS uses 250 kohm vload, unlike your lester, this will definitely roll down some treble and air outta pickup.
So it wont sound the same. Whether it will sound good or not in different wood and load, is another thing. Ill let someone more experienced with this particular pickup fill in.

I can understand why you dont like the Atomic, its essentially a Duncan JB but with slightly different wind, less character and not as huge midspike. Lots of people dont like that pickup. Specifically if they want something more traditional sounding.

Regards,
Cory

[darkbluemurder]

The Bluesbucker in the bridge should work well with a 250k volume pot. With a 500k pot it may be very bright.

The only potential issue I see is if you intend to split the Bluesbucker in #2 since the "designed" active coil is the screw coil which normally is close to the bridge. Some people prefer the combination of the bridge side coil with the middle pickup - I don't. With most pickups it's a simple rewire to get the other coil active in split mode but since the Bluesbucker's slug coil's function is mainly to suppress hum, this may not work as intended, and the only way around the issue would be to flip the pickup so that the screw coil faces the neck and wire it as per DiMarzio's instructions.

Cheers Stephan