Will replacing this guitar pickup work?

Question

i bought this guitar package:
http://images.music123.com/products/original/Baja/228731.jpg

the guitar won't give the rock sound that i want. when i pick a note, it doesn't ring for as long as i want, even on a good amp. it must be the pickups.

so if i want to buy and replace my bridge pickup with this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/MINT-IBANEZ-SA160-BRIDGE-PICKUP_W0QQitemZ280126586445QQihZ018QQcategoryZ22670QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

will it work? will it fit? will it give a good sound like humbucking pickups?
thanks for reading.

Answer 1

well friend, i guess u need an effect pedal.
besides that try tuning ur string to the most accurate pitch.
changing humbuckers is not an easy task.

ur guitar.. its for beginners. it doesn't even have the 24th fret.
Its ok buddy. practice on it. one day u'll be like jimi hendrix and good guitar companies will endorse on u. good luck buddy!!

Answer 2

You're actually looking for sustain. Good pickups can help a little with sustain, but its the quality of the guitar (type of wood, bridge, craftsmanship) that brings you a good sustain. No offense, but that package you bought will not give you that. Putting a humbucker in that will cost you more than the guitar is worth. If you're at the beginning of your experience, play and practice on what you have and save up for a better guitar. You can get something very good for under $500. Personally, i would save up more and buy a Gibson (SG or Les Paul). LOTS of sustain there.

Answer 3

You're looking for sustain. Good pickups can help a little with sustain, but its the quality of the guitar (type of wood, bridge, craftsmanship) that brings you a good sustain. No offense, but that package you bought will not give you that. Putting a humbucker in that will cost you more than the guitar is worth. If you're at the beginning of your experience, play and practice on what you have and save up for a better guitar. You can get something very good for under $500. Personally, i would save up more and buy a Gibson (SG or Les Paul). LOTS of sustain there.

Answer 4

Hello there, Do not waste your money with high end pickups in a Starcaster. Frankly the guitar is so low quality the high end pickups will be wasted. That guitar is not good enough to get the benefit of high end pickups. The neck and body impose a limitation to how much you can improve the sound. I would not buy anything more expensive than a set of stock MIM Strat pickups. You can get a set for $45 or so on ebay. You will need to swap out the 5 way switch and especially those pots. The pots are worse than the pickups. Get a set of CTS pots to put in it. You will need to enlarge the holes in the pickguard to accomodate the larger shafts of the CTS pots. CTS is what Fender uses on the American Strats. Playing an electric guitar unplugged is a great way to determine its tone. If it sounds like crap, don't buy it or in your case, don't waste money upgrading it. For the price of a set of high end pickups you can buy a used Fender MIM Strat. There simply is no comparison in the quality of the Fender Standard Stratocaster and the Starcaster. I don't think you can do anything to a Starcaster to get good harmonics. It simply is a lousy guitar. What you hear unplugged is the basic guitar. The pickups will amplify that tone. If you cannot get natural harmonics, no set of pickups is going to make that a decent sounding guitar. All the Starcaster necks I have seen and worked on needed a lot of fret work to make them truly playable. If only 2 pickups are working, do check the wiring. Check the hot wire from the pickup to the selector switch for the pickup that is not working. Could be loose. I have seen some with terrible solder joints right out of the box. I truly believe there is no quality control in place for the Starcaster. You can try re-soldering the hot lead to the selector switch if the joint looks bad. Otherwise unsolder the pickup. Then test it with a resistance tester to see if the pickup is dead. Not that it matters all that much because you are replacing them anyway. But I suppose you will try to sell the stock pickups. So test it to see if it is dead. A dead Starcaster pickup is not worth very much. If you cannot get a better guitar in the near future, you might consider some Tex Mex pickups. They ae overwound and hotter. That would give you a better chance at getting some harmonics out of your guitar. You can get a set of Fender Tex Mexs for $65 on ebay. I would not put a lot into upgrades of this guitar. Save the money that you would have used in upgrades and get a better guitar. Later, Hello again, There is an old saying that I think applies to this situaation. You cannot turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. I respectfully disagree with the assertion that you can modify a Starcaster for $100 and have a guitar that is better than a Fender Standard Stratocaster. That is simply not true. The tuning pegs are not as good. The nut is plastic and would have to be replaced. The frets need to be dressed, that is levled, crowned and the ends rounded and polished. The body is agathis or basswood (depending on the model). That will never sound like alder. All of the hardware in inferior. I tried to put 5 springs in a tremolo. The t ension of 5 springs pulled the claws screws out. The screws were cheap, smaller than a real Strat and some light weight soft alloy. They were not steel. The basswood body was such a low quality, tthe claws pulled right out. I had to put hardwood plugs in then drill them for the claw screws. Then I tossed all the scrrews (both the 2 claw screws and the 6 screws that hold the bridge plate) and put real Fender screws in it. All that work just to have 5 springs in the tremolo. Never had that problem with a real Fender Strat. I also tossed the strap button scrrews and replaced them with steel screws. Plugged that area with hardwood so the strap pegs would not fall off. They saved maybe 5 cents on each cheap low quality screw they put in there. If the screws are junk, you know what the rest of it is like. You will never get a Starcaster to sound as good as a Fender Stratocaster. To get it even close to the same quality and feel, you will spend more than the cost of a new Fender Standard Stratocaster. It costs more to buy a guitar part by part than it does to buy a complete guitar. I have used a couple Starcaster necks on project guitars. I spent a fair amount of time dressing the frets. The maple fretboard was unfinished. I had to lacquer that. The ends of the frets needed a lot of smoothing to make the neck comfortable to play. I hand rounded the edges of the freboard so it would feel as good as a Fender fretboard. I did all that work just because I wanted a neck with the large headstock and a maple fretboard for a couple of 70s style Strat projects. The Starcaster neck has a thicker profile, sort of a clunky C. That was closer to the 70s Fender necks than the modern C profile neck Fender uses now. Those are much thinner necks.

Answer 5

It is unfortunately not going to do you any good.

The new pickup will not make up for the rest of the guitar which is, shall we say, entry level.

You will need a new guitar, and a new amp to get what you want in sound.

Answer 6

That guitar looks crap.....sell it on ebay or somewhere and put out the money to get a decent one cause that guitar is NOT gonna give you a good sound because it's basiclly too cheap. Probably has high frets on it as well Im willing to bet...