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Like I said in another post, I don't think the quality
in MIM Strats is all that great except for really liking the neck
and the fact that it has a bone nut.
So I have had lot's of experience tweaking, and most of it is on a
budget.
I think most of this would work on any stratoclone too.
I noticed that Callaham, who makes vintage steel blocks,
also offers sets of stainless steel screws.
It had also not escaped my notice that the adjustable saddles
on MIA Standard Strats are stainless steel...
I figured Fender and Callaham must be thinking
stainless is a good thing for bridge parts.
Anyway, smelling a cheap tweak, I removed
one of the three flathead phillips machine screws that attach the trem
block
to the bridge plate, took it in to my local Ace hardware, and got a match
in stainless
steel. I did this for both MIM Strats, and the Korean made Hamer Slammer
superstratoid (no pickguard, but strat-style trem).
The difference was astonishing! And the cost is only about 37 cents for
the three screws. The volume is better, the sustain is better, the
clarity is better,
and it seems to accentuate parts of the harmonic spectrum that give the
guitars
more bite in the attack.
Note: These three screws are <underneath> saddles, and are almost, but
not
entirely hidden by them. To change them, you will have to remove most
of the saddles. Do not change them unless you can re-intonate the guitar
yourself, or have the means to have someone else do it.
Also, if your guitar (MIM Strats included) has the vintage style thin
saddles,
be very careful threading the screws into the holes when you re-install
them,
as it is easy to cross thread them and strip them.
I have found that Mighty Mite <alnico> replacement pickups have some
pluses:
1. they are fairly cheap, $30 to $40.
2. they have a narrower polepiece spread than vintage pups,
and this is better for Asian stratoclones, especially at the neck
position.
3. This may be a plus or minus, depending on your amp and taste:
they have lots of treble.
I have also heard Van Zandt pickups give a lot of vintage sounding bang
for the buck.
I have gotten some useful pickups used, though;
people are always upgrading pickups, and rather than having the old ones
gather dust, want to get rid of them.
If you're willing to take a gamble, you can get them cheap.
Not everyone likes Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups; some replace them,
and since they are labelled on the pickup cover, you at least know what
you are getting.
Do they qualify as suitable surf pickups?
I recently experimented with a <slightly> higher value tone pot on the
Mighty Mite
neck pickup... I substituted a 300k ohm pot intended for a Gibson,
and it improved the sound. I suspect 500k would give me <too> much
treble.
Since a lot of stock 300k Gibson pots were upgraded to 500k, there may be
some guitar repairmen who have these lying around, if they are packrats!
;^)
One way of cheaping out on pickup upgrades is to only upgrade the pickup
in the postion you use most.
I have discovered that installing an inductance plate under the bar
magnets
on the ceramic stock MIM pups cuts the harsh edge, and gives a lot nicer
sound.
I took a piece of strap steel, a furniture repair bracket about the
length
of the magnets underneath the pickup,
covered it in copper foil from a stained glass supply shop,
then soldered a ground wire to it, and ran it to the volume pot to ground
it.
The magnet holds the steel plate in place.
It also seems to quiet them down; otherwise, they are extremely noisy!
Michael
