Variax JTV-69S & Seymour Duncan Hot rails

[Dshow]

Hi,

has anyone tried to change the bridge Pickup of the Variax JTV-69s with a Seymour Duncan Hot rails.

Is there a place where I can see the values of the stock single coils of the JTV-69s?

 

I'm thinking of changing the Bridge Pickup to a hotter one but I'm not sure if it will fit and how it is installed.

I have already some experience with changing Pickups on my real strat but on the variax it is more complex wiring.

 

 

Thanks

[agdtec]

I believe the real pickups are standard, and can be switched out with any after market pickups,

but there are other wires in the guitar and if you hit a ribbon cable with a hot soldering iron you will most likely have a problem.  

 

If you are not very comfortable, doing the soldering in close quarters I would not attempt it.  

On the other hand many pro guitar techs have the experience and confidence, and will probably do the install at under 100 bucks for just one pickup.  

[davidb7170]

I replaced all three of the stock pickups on my 69S with the DiMarzio Paul Gilbert noiseless pickup set about 2 years ago. I liked the sound of the stock single coils, but not the hum of the SC's compared to my hum bucker guitars, including my 59. I've played Strats for years -- love the sound -- hate the hum. I chose noiseless single coils over traditional hum buckers in the strat form factor like rails, etc. to keep closer to the SC sound. I had the 69S for a couple months by that point, and had re-experienced the SC hum with bar-gig neon lights -- ugh... Man have I been spoiled. These noiseless SC's are as or more quiet than my other hum bucker-equipped guitars.

 

Anyway, space is tight, but I was able to flip the faceplate over with only disconnecting the ground wire(s) from the faceplate to the body cavity ground point - 1 screw with about 4 wires attached... Once inside, I traced the white & black wires from the pickups to the switch, but decided against trying to solder to the switch itself, as it is a double row for the pickup position and the model switching. I decided to be safe and clip the wires from the pickups and solder the new pickup wires to the existing wires, the leads to the switch. Mind your polarities -- find the pickup wiring diagram here on the forum or the tech section, I forget -- someone else chime in with that, please. Strat form factor pickups work fine. Forget any coil spliting, unless you mount some sort of additional switch somewhere, I suppose, but I wasn't into re-introducing the hum in. Besides noiseless SC's don't have 4 wires out like split-coil HB's.

 

The set I chose was hotter than the stock 69S SC's, but not as hot as full-out HB's. Different sound, though. You'll put in your favorite for your sound. Since I have both the 59 & the 69S, they have very different output levels, so I needed to create a duplicate set list in my 500X -- one for each the 59 & 69S, then I adjusted the levels up on all the patches I had developed for my 59 to accomodate the 69S - usually by increasing the input drive or adding a tube preamp or tube compressor FX at the front of the chain...

 

Anyway, my 2 cents.

 

Dave

[Dshow]

Thanks for the replies.

I have already asembled a Stratocaster with vintage specs and did the whole wiring myself. So I have a little experience with soldering.

 

Actually I like the sound from the stock pickus of th 69s but just thought it would be nice to have a bit more "balls" on the bridge pickup. I don't play metal or anything like that mostly classic rock.I guess I will keep the stock pickups for a while and then decide if it is worth changing them.