Metropoulos Forum

I've had a few emails with Jeff (High Order) about replacing the bridge pickup in my '81 G&L Strat. This guitar has a mahogony body and ebony fingerboard.

I'm thinking some kind of A5 based humbucker would be best to offset the warmth and darkness of Mahogony. Just for expermentation, I put in a SD Custom Custom (which is A2 14.4K) and as expected, it's farty, dark and just plain bad sounding.

I'd like to go medium or slightly higher output, so I was considering the High Order "Maximums". The other consideration was a hybrid 59/custom with A5 magnets.

I think the hybrid will give me the output I want, I just want to be sure they still clean up OK.

I'll now open the floor for thoughts / advice...

I don't have any experience of that guitar, but I'm sure Jeff will know what to do if you give him all the details on your preferences. He makes great pickups!

you can get a little brighter and more detailed sound with mismatched coils. I'd suggest something like 4.8k screw coil and 4k slug coil

You could swap out the A2 magnet of your Custom Custom for an A5. This will make it sound like a JB, except it will have more bottom and high's as compared to a JB.