S-Style Hot 5

Hot-5 neck and middle, Super 8 bridge HSS

I just got my Hot-5 single coils and Super 8 humbucker installed in my HSS Strat (partscaster). The pickups sound great! A lot of good parts went into the initial build, but for some reason (perhaps still learning to build guitars) I originally used Guitar Fetish pickups, which are functional but not great. The Hot-5’s and S8 really make the guitar much more enjoyable to play. Nerdy stuff? I set the pickup heights to 3/32” on the Low E and 1/16” on the high E. The pickup volume sound is very balanced as I tried all 5 switch positions. I think the pickups may have been designed to balance, as I typically re-adjust the pickup height to my preference but didn’t have to in this case. The humbucker screws poles were positioned away from the bridge as they are south magnetic while the middle pickup is north. The pots are 500k ohm CTS, which measured 501k (used for volume) 490k (used for single coil tone) and 500k (used for humbucker tone). A single .022uF (223J) orange drop capacitor was shared by both tone controls.

Massive upgrade for my U.S. Strat

These pickups are crisp, punchy, super articulate, and they clean up admirably. I don't even need to switch back to the clean channel, I just roll back the volume knob. My U.S. Strat was sort of meh, it now feels like a new instrument. The tone is just superior in any and every way possible.