New Squier Strat coming....

[duhvoodooman***]

Yeah, the painted headstock seems to be a "love-it-or-hate-it" feature, and I'm in the former camp. The fret markers on the side don't seem to be difficult to see--I rely on them a lot, as well.

The last couple of days I've been looking into how I want to re-wire the guitar when the humbucker arrives. I intentionally selected the DiMarzio Air Norton model because it's got just about twice the DC resistance of the Squier CV single coils, so when it's coil-split, it should match up with the middle pickup well. That's important in order to get the best possible "quack" from the bridge-middle pickup combination at position 2 of the pickup selector switch. The Air Norton also uses alnico 5 magnets, as do the Squier CV '60s single coils, which should also help. I came across a very clever way to wire the 5-way switch so that the bridge humbucker will be automatically coil-split when the selector switch is at position 2, but nowhere else. Saves the hassle of installing a push-pull pot, which is how I've always done coil-splitting in the past.

The wiring is more complicated than you might think, though. First of all, I don't know if DiMarzio humbuckers and Squier single coils are phase compatible with the stock wiring, so it may be necessary to connect the 'bucker in reverse to keep it in phase with the two singles. Also, that will affect which of the two coils is active when they're split. And that's important because if the winding and polarity of the active coil isn't the opposite of the middle (RW/RP) single coil, then the 2 position won't be hum cancelling. In which case, I'll probably need to swap the positions of the neck and middle pickups. Also, I've read that you'll get the best "quack" between the split humbucker and the middle pickup if the active humbucker coil is the one closest to the middle pickup, so the physical orientation of the humbucker mounting in the guitar matters, too. So you can see what I mean about it being complicated, and that's not even getting into the possibility of changing pot values....