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Greetings everyone, new member here, this is my first post!

I've got this beautiful, mint Cyclone, but I'm not overly happy with the pups. I know it's really a matter of personal taste, but anyone have suggestions for common replacements for the cyclone?

Also, would anyone know where I might find a replacement tremolo arm for it? I was told that it was the same as the mim strat arm, but it's too small for the threads.

Thanks!

All depends on what you want it to sound like, what don’t you like about the stock pickups?

The vibrato arm should be the same as Squier and Fender strats from the Asian factories.

Nick wrote:All depends on what you want it to sound like, what don’t you like about the stock pickups?

The vibrato arm should be the same as Squier and Fender strats from the Asian factories.

Yes, that's why I said I know it's about personal taste, but I was looking for some general pointers. Like are there specific size/types of pickups I have to use? Can I use a strat pickup? A tele pickup? etc. Admittedly I don't know much about different pickups in general, so I really don't know what I'm looking for yet, specifically.

The sound of the stock pickup seems thin, and sort of tinny to me. At one point I told a friend "it sounds like I'm rolling marbles around in a tin can" lol.

Thanks for the tip, I'll see if I can track down the trem arm.

It's just a standard sized Humbucker and a Strat Single Coil combination in the Cyclone. Many options in these sizes, including humbucker sized single coils and single coil sized humbuckers. You're much less limited than if your guitar took P90's, filtertrons, mini hums, etc.

The Seymour Duncan JB has always been a popular aftermarket bridge humbucker....there's also a lot of different options on sites like guitarfetish.com . Unless you're looking for something different than stock in the neck position, I would probably just upgrade the neck single coil to a Fender Strat pickup.


Have you tried adjusting the height of the stock pickups closer to the strings?

Nick wrote:It's just a standard sized Humbucker and a Strat Single Coil combination in the Cyclone. Many options in these sizes, including humbucker sized single coils and single coil sized humbuckers. You're much less limited than if your guitar took P90's, filtertrons, mini hums, etc.

The Seymour Duncan JB has always been a popular aftermarket bridge humbucker....there's also a lot of different options on sites like guitarfetish.com . Unless you're looking for something different than stock in the neck position, I would probably just upgrade the neck single coil to a Fender Strat pickup.


Have you tried adjusting the height of the stock pickups closer to the strings?

Yeah, I've run the pickup height up and down a few times. It has improved it some, but I guess I'm just spoiled by my strats.

So this is just the kind of info I'm looking for, I really appreciate your time. Sounds like I have tons of options for it. Someone even suggested putting a tele neck pickup in it. That sounded really interesting to me.

I've been looking around on guitarfetish and discussing them in FB groups, and from what I can get from the conversations it's pretty hit and miss with them. I don't mind spending a little more on this guitar. It's an awesome player, and with the right upgrades it could quite possibly become my favorite. That's saying a lot considering how much I love my strats!

It's an old Squier and probably has cheap ceramic pickups in it which tend to sound shrill. One thing you can try to do is to swap the volume and tone pots for lower resistance ones. I'm pretty sure there are 500kOhms in yours. Try 250kOhms instead, it may help. Though it might make your humbucker sound too dark

sunshiner wrote:It's an old Squier and probably has cheap ceramic pickups in it which tend to sound shrill. One thing you can try to do is to swap the volume and tone pots for lower resistance ones. I'm pretty sure there are 500kOhms in yours. Try 250kOhms instead, it may help. Though it might make your humbucker sound too dark

Thanks for the tip, I'll do some research on the pots. It's not terribly old, it's a 2011.

JimmieD wrote:Sounds like I have tons of options for it. Someone even suggested putting a tele neck pickup in it. That sounded really interesting to me.

I've been looking around on guitarfetish and discussing them in FB groups, and from what I can get from the conversations it's pretty hit and miss with them. I don't mind spending a little more on this guitar. It's an awesome player, and with the right upgrades it could quite possibly become my favorite. That's saying a lot considering how much I love my strats!

What strats do you have? Are you trying to get similar sounds out of this guitar or going for something different?

A Tele neck pickup will fit the body cavity, but they are mounted to the body instead of the pickguard and also have a smaller footprint, so there would be a gap in the pickguard around the neck pickup as well as two extra holes. I'm not sure aftermarket pickguard availability, but the slight difference in sound between a good tele neck pickup and a good strat neck pickup might not be worth the hassle.

Nick wrote:

JimmieD wrote:Sounds like I have tons of options for it. Someone even suggested putting a tele neck pickup in it. That sounded really interesting to me.

I've been looking around on guitarfetish and discussing them in FB groups, and from what I can get from the conversations it's pretty hit and miss with them. I don't mind spending a little more on this guitar. It's an awesome player, and with the right upgrades it could quite possibly become my favorite. That's saying a lot considering how much I love my strats!

What strats do you have? Are you trying to get similar sounds out of this guitar or going for something different?

A Tele neck pickup will fit the body cavity, but they are mounted to the body instead of the pickguard and also have a smaller footprint, so there would be a gap in the pickguard around the neck pickup as well as two extra holes. I'm not sure aftermarket pickguard availability, but the slight difference in sound between a good tele neck pickup and a good strat neck pickup might not be worth the hassle.

Good point about the tele pickup, I just want a drop-in solution, I don't want to physically mod the guitar in anyway.

I've got 2 strats, both MIM. One is a modded standard and the other is a stock SSS player. At this point I'm not looking for a specific tone, just better than it is. Something nice and usable on a clean channel. Sounding like a strat would be nice.

Soundling like I should just grab a strat pickup and call it a day.

Strat neck pickup > Tele neck pickup. Also cheaper.