[appar111]

Just picked up a used '94 EBMM Steve Morse (standard blueburst with the stoptail) and the pickups seem a little.... blah/boring.  The singles need a little more oomph and output, and the humbuckers need less output and more brightness.   So I'm thinking of just swapping them all out for choices that are a little more lively.  Here's what I'm looking at so far:

Package 1:

• bridge: FRED
  single coil (next to bridge): SDS-1
  single coil (slanted): FS-1
  neck: PAF Pro or PAF Master Neck

Package 2:

• bridge: PAF Master Bridge
  single coil (next to bridge): Fast Track 1
  single coil (slanted): Chopper
  neck: Humbucker from Hell

My goal is to have a neck pickup that doesn't sound dull/muffled, but something that's got some snap.  For the bridge pickup, something that can sound good clean, which is sometimes tough for a bridge humbucker, hence some options that aren't super high output.

For the middle single coils, they need more output!  For the one near the bridge humbucker, I want more output and balls, but still sounding like a single coil.  For the slanted single coil, same thing, but a different character from the other single coil. 

I'm playing with a lot less gain than I used to, and doing a lot more clean stuff, so each pickup needs to have a very different character from the others, but also play well together.

What do you think of the options above?  I may end up mixing and matching some of the choices to come up with a "package 3" like this:

bridge: FRED
single coil (near bridge): FS-1
single coil (slanted): Chopper
neck: HFH

I'm also thinking that a 500K volume pot (stock Morse pot values are 250K) would also be a good idea for any of these choices.

let me know your thoughts, thanks!

J.

[HarlowTheFish]

I'd go with #1 with either a PAF Pro in the neck or just another FRED. I think you might get some output balancing issues and some tonal mismatch with #2, but that's just me. Definitely get 500k pots, I'd actually recommend you swap them out first and then see if you still wanna swap the pickups.

[appar111]

good idea about swapping the pot or pots for 500K first-- might save me some trouble and money!  The single coils sound pretty low output now though, and that's even after raising them up a fair bit.

A Fred in the neck slot might be a good idea too-- I did that years ago and oddly enough, it didn't sound too overpowering, given its frequency curve, and there was no shortage of harmonics from the neck position!

[HarlowTheFish]

Yeah the FRED being based on the PAF Pro means it works really well in either or both spots.
If the singles are a little weak, try dropping the humbuckers to match as well as raising the singles. You get a little less power overall, but you can balance things better and compensate by raising the gain on the amp or using some kind of boost.

[appar111]

The HB's are already dropped pretty low, but I've gotta do a full setup on it tonight, so I'll drop them a little lower, and also get under the hood to see what the stock wiring looks like in person.

[HarlowTheFish]

I had some balancing issues with my Kiesel CL6 (HH) and my G&L Legacy (SSS) with a Hot Rails in the bridge and Cool Rails in the neck and middle, and the solution in both cases was literally to just drop everything as low as it would go (down to the pickguard on the G&L, down to the wood on the Kiesel). There's a tonal change, a little less beef and a bit more air, but since you seem kinda down on the tone already it might be worth a shot.

[marcwormjim]

Bluesbucker is a neck pup with snap I can recommend as an alternative to HFH.

[appar111]

I've wondered about the Bluesbucker-- never tried one before.  Would you say it's louder than the HFH in the neck position?

I thought about the volume pot swap to a 500K and probably don't want to do that with the stock singles, since it won't really make them louder enough to compete with the humbuckers, and may make them too bright.  I may end up replacing just the singles first and seeing how that matches up with the stock humbuckers before going whole hog on replacing all the pickups. Right now I'm leaning towards the Fast Track 1 in the slanted position and the SDS-1 in the position near the bridge humbucker.

[marcwormjim]

You can always add resistors to the pickup switch positions that utilize single/split pups to have the “proper” pot values in those positions.