I asked Rich the same question some time ago and his answer made a lot of sense.  One thing you need to consider is the position and angle of the bridge pickup.  Due to its location and angle, you won't be able to get an authentic strat sound out of it.  Because the Variax comes with an authentic sounding Strat in the modelling side of the guitar, there isn't a need to try to get that sound from the magnetic side.

After thinking about what Rich said, I think it really makes a lot of sense.  If we want Strat sounds, use the modelling if we need some real beef at the bridge for soloing, then go for the humbucker.  I believe it's a great compromise that caters for a wider variety of tones rather than doubling up on an inferior attempt at a Strat sound.

Having said all this, there is always the opportunity to do after market modifications on the guitar.  I have heard some mentioning putting P90s into the JTV59.

Cheers,

Crusty

RogerZ wrote:

 

The great advance of the JTV is to have choice to play it with the pickups or the simulated guitars. What I hear the pups sound great and I certainly intent to use them. I now play a Blade RH-2 Classic, a great and versatile guitar. Great is that the humbucker really sounds good, but also when I split it in single coil it has that typical Strat bridge sound. I use a lot of different sounds, and don't like switching guitars on stage to much...rather not at all! So...back to the Variax again!

What I like to know, is it possible to split the humbucker on a JTV 69 (I ordered a 3tsb, but switched today to Lake placed blue...wow!)? And in this advance, can the volume knob be replaced by a push-pull like the one I have on my Blade RH-2? If not, are there other ways? If the humbucker on the JTV can't be split into single coil, I'm thinking about switching the pups from the Blade into the JTV69. But, that leaves the question about the pushpull knob. Anyone?

You cannot do either of these. We are constrained by the parts we can get. We need all of the 5 way to control the mags and models and the Volume is a stacked pot made for us.

But, I will tell you that the humbucker on the 69 is a specially wound, to Tyler's specs, humbucker that works really well with the middle single coil in the number 2 position.