Strat Pup for Middle Position

[rockycreeker]

I'm in the process of putting a couple of humbuckers into a Strat type guitar. These pups are out of a Peavey T-60 that have coil tap circuitry built into the tone controls, so I'll be using the tapped feature a good bit.

I need a pickup that stays with the Peavey humbuckers as much as possible output wise. They are not hot humbuckers - just average output - but hotter than most stock single coils.

Do I go with a RW/RP pickup to give me hum cancelling in the in-between positions, or with a hum cancelling pup with more output?

Opinions please.

[JCollins]

If you want an RWRP middle pickup, it has to be RWRP with respect to something else. If it is to be used in conjunction with one or two humbuckers, it doesn't matter what its polarity is, because you won't get hum cancelling with an odd number of coils. If it is to be used in conjuction with one of the coils from one of the humbuckers, then to yield a hum cancelling tone, it must be RWRP with respect to the coil to which it will be paired.

[rockycreeker]

Well - I was pretty ignorant about the RW/RP thing - but other than that - what would be a good pup for the use I described?

[JCollins]

You might want to consider the woods in the guitar -- the body and the neck/fretboard. If, for instance, the body is mahogany and the neck/fretboard is mahogany/rosewood, you might want to consider a pickup that is on the bright side. If the body is alder or ash, and the neck/fretboard is maple/maple, you might want to consider a somewhat darker and slightly hotter pickup. Not exactly hot, but a bit more output than vintage, just to keep up with the humbuckers. Maybe a Fralin Blues or Van Zandt Blues. A similar pickup would probably work if the fretboard were rosewood, too.