modding a squier - pickup suggestions please

nickp

I have just bought myself a nice 1980s squier strat as the base guitar.  I'm looking to change the pickups first but without major surgery so sticking to single coil sized pickups.

I am looking at a humbucker in the bridge, single coil in the middle and something PAF flavoured in the neck maybe so i'm aiming for a jack of all trades - the humbucker is there for playing some slightly heavier numbers and to enable me to venture into some fret tapping widdling and pinched harmonics abuse, but without going to far in output terms as I'd also like to be able to reign in the volume and get some nice hot blues or classic rock tones as well (which coupled with indie stuff is what we mainly play as a band).  The other two pickups don't need to be quite so "hot" so that I can do some funky stuff as well

I'd like a coil tap on the bridge humbucker and maybe the single coils to be hum cancelling.

What suggestions for pickups do you guys have please.  For no sensible reason whatsoever I was thinking of a Seymour 'Duncan JB Jnr for the bridge to kick it all off.  On my other strat I have a bunch of oil city single coil pickups which are fantastic so I don't know if @theguitarweasel has a suggestion?

cheers

Nick

Megii

For PAF-ish neck p'up tones from a strat-size p'up, the best one I've come across is the Lace Blue. It's not exactly the same as a PAF type of course, and still has a slight hint (no more) of stratty-ness to the tone imo, but quite warm and smooth. I have tried a Seymour Duncan Lil 59 for the neck slot also - not bad, but I find it just a bit cold and slightly brittle (they use a ceramic magnet, which may not help) - to my ears not really very close to a true PAF type. Also a bit too much bass response. So am swapping back to the Lace Blue before long.

drwiddly

I like the Irongear Smoke Stack II's but not tried one in the bridge position. The Jailhouse Rail is also a good pup but some might find it a bit dark.
Not tried any singles or single sized HB's from Oil City but the full size HB's are the dog's cojones!

stratosonic

Second the IronGear vote, I put some Tex Locos in my mex strat and cant put it down!

Octahedron

A good alternative to the Lace Blue could be Seymour Duncan's "Cool Rails". They kinda have a similar vibe. A mate of mine put them in his old Squier Strat and it came out pretty good. I don't know what they'd be like if you were looking at coil tapping or splitting though. Good luck with your modding.  

littlethoughts

I had a seymour duncan hot rails on my old strat which was nice enough. Have you tried rails before? Slightly out of left field but the squier hot rails strat actually sounds rather great. Some people get them and switch out the duncan designed pups for the real deal, and when they crop up you can get them for dirt cheap - might be a good first pass!

grungebob

The two i would have suggested (lace blue or duncan cool rails) have already been mentioned so what about the dimarzio billy corgan set? They sound the business to me and is what im going for once i get another strat.