Is there any silhouette in the world of electric guitar more recognizable than the Stratocaster?
The sleek, space-age dual-cutaway body and the distinctive headstock are one thing. The bright, spanking sound of a Strat is another.
The world’s first truly revolutionary guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix, was best known for coaxing otherworldly sounds from his Stratocaster.
However, as early as the 1970s, players wanted more from their Strats. As rock and roll got heavier and harder, humbucker-powered Gibson-style guitars, as wielded by the likes of Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi, led the charge.
So what if you want that iconic look and feel, but a different sound?
You put a humbucker or two into a Stratocaster body, as Edward Van Halen did with his infamous “Frankenstein” guitar almost fifty years ago.
Top 3 - Strats with Humbuckers
Well, a Strat sporting one or more humbuckers has become increasingly popular over the last few years, transforming the blues legend into a modern rock and metal machine.
I've played more than a dozen Strats featuring humbuckers (either single H at the bridge, or HSS and even HH) over the last decade. The following are my favorite Humbucker-equipped Strats that are currently available and worth considering.
Best Stratocasters with Humbuckers - H, HH & HSS
1. Fender Tom DeLonge Stratocaster
Back when I was in school, you couldn’t turn on rock radio or walk into a house part without hearing Blink-182. A huge part of their tone was a barrage of dense, powerful punk-rock guitar.
The sound of Tom’s guitar, coupled with Travis Barker’s thunderous virtuoso drumming, gave Blink the edge and grit beneath their radio-ready pop melodies.
While Tom DeLonge has dabbled in various instruments over the years, including a signature Gibson 335, his uncompromising guitar tone is perhaps best presented by his new signature model Fender Strat.
Fender Tom DeLonge Stratocaster
Capitalizing on the huge interest in Blink’s reunion and new music, this is a serious guitar, but it’s not just for Blink-182 fans.
For a start, the sole Seymour Duncan Invader pickup packs some serious juice. Upon plugging in, I couldn’t resist playing some icy black metal-style tremolo picked parts.
The Invader is an awesome pickup perfect for dense, authoritative power chords. It’s articulate enough that you can extend the chords like you’re in a mid-2000s metalcore band and hear the sixth or extra octave note.
Likewise, the output is hot enough that it offers plenty of crunch and bite for the “ba-ba” power chord intro to “All The Small Things.”
It cleans up nicely, sounding much better than most metal-ready humbuckers when picked cleanly. It’s a great sound for the nifty arpeggiated parts on “Miss You” or for pairing with a nice 80s-voiced chorus for Metallica-style cleans.
The body is pleasantly lightweight, and the neck profile is comfortable enough to accommodate occasional bouts of shredding.
Rosewood is my favorite fretboard material, and this is no exception. It’s not dry like laurel or richlite can be, and not too slick the way finished maple and ebony can feel. The fretboard here is a Goldilocks-zone dream.
But for the lack of a tremolo system, I’d be tempted to label this a near-Superstrat.
I’m a huge fan of the ultra-basic build, with a comfortable neck, light body, sole pickup and just one control knob, for volume.
It’s definitely fast and hot enough to make shredders happy, but where it shines best is the full-bore power chords of classic pop-punk rhythm playing.
2. Squier Sonic Stratocaster HT H
Over the years, I’ve noticed that features from Fender’s main line of guitars tend to trickle down into Squier gear.
As such, the bare-bones pop-punk stylings of the Tom Delonge strat are echoed here in the Squier Sonic Stratocaster. It boasts a single humbucker in the bridge position, no tremolo, and a non-maple fretboard.
Squier Sonic Stratocaster HT H (this particular color variant comes with a maple fretboard).
It varies in the inclusion of a tone knob and, of course, a cheaper humbucker and fretboard material.
The laurel fretboard feels drier than I prefer. The body isn’t too heavy, but it’s almost too light for my preference. The C-shaped neck profile is reasonably comfortable.
The nickel frets are comfortably tall for high-speed shredding, although they will wear down over time.
Likewise, the stock Squier humbucker offers a reasonably fat, classic bridge humbucker tone. It’s workable, but nothing special, and it became fairly muddy and dense at higher gain levels.
I’d probably swap the humbucker out for a Seymour Duncan or something similar, but that pickup might cost as much as the guitar itself.
This is a usable guitar that I’d recommend to beginners looking to use a simple, good-sounding instrument. Intermediate or advanced players won’t find much use for this guitar.
3. Fender Jim Root Stratocaster
Fender guitars aren’t often considered as metal guitars. But Slipknot’s Jim Root is one of the most famous metal guitarists that has proven that Fenders can be just as heavy as a Jackson or Ibanez guitar.
His signature Fender Stratocaster is a very interesting instrument. While you could hardly call Slipknot’s approach to music and performance minimalist, this black-on-black Strat absolutely screams that it’s built for one thing and one thing only: pure, crushing heaviness.
Fender Jim Root Stratocaster
The Modern C neck found on Strats these days is always very comfortable, and the Jim Root Strat sits comfortably in my hand. I love the big 1970s-style headstock. The black non-tremolo bridge is a nice touch, too.
Feel wise, the Jim Root Strat does resemble a Strat-style Charvel or Jackson. But I think this might be due to the guitar’s sound being so different from a typical Strat, that it’s changing my entire perception of the guitar.
Rapidfire chugging riffs flow effortlessly off the guitar. Throwing out brutal low-end riffage just feels right when you’re playing it.
The different sound of this guitar is very much due to the two EMG humbucker pickups it uses. This guitar sounds nothing like a typical Strat single-coil tone.
It has a much more aggressive, edgy sound. Distortion also sounds fantastic, but that isn’t surprising with EMG pickups.
The (surprisingly light) mahogany body and EMG pickups do send this Strat’s sound well into the metal territory typically occupied by Gibson-style guitars. The distorted sound is classic EMG: powerful, harsh, uncompromising. It’s as well suited to '80s thrash or Zakk Wylde-era Ozzy as it is to Slipknot’s nu-metal deep groove stylings.
The clean tones are also very different. The guitar doesn’t have any of the signature Strat twang. Instead, it is much warmer and much more rounded. You wouldn’t get away with plugging it into a Fender tweed amp and trying your best Stevie Ray or Brent Mason licks at a local jam.
The clean sounds are better than I expect from an EMG-equipped guitar. It’s enough to play pleasantly arpeggiated metalcore-style patterns, but really this guitar is built for distortion.
Why anyone would buy a Jim Root Strat and use it for clean playing is beyond me.
If you want to absolutely annihilate your audience with crushing, powerful, modern metal tone, this is the Stratocaster for you.
The black finish of the body and ebony fingerboard also give the guitar a very nice modern, metal look.
4. Fender Dave Murray Stratocaster
Dave Murray of Iron Maiden might be the only metal guitarist more famous than Jim Root that also plays Fender guitars. Just like Root, Murray’s signature Fender Stratocaster is a very un-Strat-sounding Strat.
Fender Dave Murray Stratocaster - Pickup Configuration
Murray’s Strat does look a lot more like a traditional Strat. With its sunburst finish and rosewood fretboard, it looks more like Rory Gallgher’s guitar than Eddie Van Halen’s.
It even has pickups that look like single coils. That is because these are single coil sized humbuckers. Specifically, the Dave Murray Strat uses Seymour Duncan Hot Rails for the bridge and neck, and a JB Jr. in the middle.
If you look at old Maiden photos from the '70s and '80s, you’ll see Dave Murray wielding a Strat with two massive double-cream DiMarzio Super Distortion humbuckers. These were the go-to hard rock and heavy metal pickups of the time.
They were a huge part of the Iron Maiden sound.
Fortunately, the Seymour Duncan minis stack up (no pun intended) just fine. For a start, they lack the harsh treble that characterized the old Super Distortions, replacing it with a more usable mid-forward attack.
Plugged into my Marshall Plexi, it was satisfyingly easy to conjure the classic Maiden sound.
Maiden fans know the tone immediately. Searing, effervescent, high-powered riffage and sweet, upper-fret sustain. It’s the sound of the opening harmonized bends in “Run To the Hills” and the take-no-prisoners rapidfire riff of “The Trooper”.
The guitar’s body is night and light, and the neck profile is more than comfortable enough to play Dave Murray’s lightning-fast legato pentatonic solos. The compound radius of the rosewood fretboard certainly helps here, too.
I’m not a huge fan of Floyd Rose tremolo systems, but the Floyd here works as it should. Deep dives snap back in tune easily.
The first time I saw single coil sized humbuckers, I didn’t think they would sound like full-sized humbuckers. But just like that first time, hearing the humbuckers on this Strat surprised me with just how good they are.
They are quite different from the EMGs on the Jim Root signature. Where those pickups have a very modern metal sound, these are much more of a classic hard rock tone.
The clean tone is quite thick and mellow. It leans more to the jazz side, and I would prefer a brighter, classic Stratocaster clean sound. However, adding some highs with the amp’s EQ helped to even out the clean tone a bit.
Besides, this is an Iron Maiden guitar. The only clean parts it should be doing are in the intro to “Hallowed Be Thy Name.”
The Dave Murray Stratocaster is a hard rock and metal specialist. It handles Maiden very well, of course, but it did a great job delivering other 80s metal-style tones when plugged into a JCM800.
It sounds much better distorted than clean, and plays like a dream. A great guitar for anyone playing hard rock.
5. Fender Standard Stratocaster HSS
Given the enormous appetite in the modern market for a more versatile Stratocaster than the classic model, Fender themselves finally caved and released the Standard HSS Stratocaster.
With the notable exception of the Fender humbucker in the bridge position, the rest of this guitar is standard Stratocaster fare.
Classic Strat body, master volume with two tone knobs, neck and middle pickup, check. Maple neck and fretboard, check. The headstock is a sleeker, pre-CBS variation, and the tremolo is non-locking. Check and check.
Fender is varying from the classic a little here with the poplar body, a newer material for a guitar that is typically built with alder or ash. The poplar body is pleasantly lightweight and about as resonant as you can expect from a painted block of wood.
Upon plugging in, the guitar simply sounds fantastic. The neck pickup in particular really stands out for me. It’s warm and glassy, perfect for Hendrixian double stops. I had particular joy turning on my compressor and playing near the bridge while on the neck single-coil and messing around with the opening arpeggio to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge.”
The humbucker isn’t too hot, which is a nice touch. It’ll handle hard rock, up to a point, but the output here is better suited to crunchy drive than face-melting high-gain tones.
It’s not quite a robust, aggressive enough sound for modern metal. However, with the right amp, this Stratocaster can get surprisingly heavy.
Plugged in to my Marshall Plexi, it delivers classic rock tone in spades. Driving the amp into Van Halen-style saturation demanded the inclusion of an overdrive pedal, however.
While this Strat doesn’t exactly chug and squeal like a metalhead’s dream, it’s still an excellent workhorse with plenty to offer.
I’d recommend this to any regularly gigging guitar player with a wide repertoire of popular songs, ranging from clean, glassy pop to classic hard rock.
Special Mention: Strat-Style Guitars With Humbuckers (Non-Fender)
Given the broad range of excellent Strat-style guitars with humbuckers out there, it would be remiss of me not to mention a few non-Fender options.
We’ve already covered Superstrat-style guitars on this site, so I’ll keep this section brief.
Some of these guitars are actually within the Fender family of brands, but do not bear the Fender logo or brand name.
Regardless, they’re all great instruments for different players.
First off, it would be remiss to write this article without including an EVH Stratocaster-style guitar. In this case, it’s the 5150, complete with killswitch, Floyd Rose and high-powered EVH Wolfgang humbuckers. It’s a shredder’s dream, perfect for 80s metal shred or modern brutality.
A similar guitar is the Charvel Pro Mod DK24, a decidedly more modern take on the Stratocaster. Unlike the 5150, which has a very 80s-looking hockey stick headstock, this includes the classic Strat headstock shape on its 24-fret neck.
Its twin Seymour Duncan humbuckers feature coil-tapping, so you can switch from fat, thick humbucker tone to single-coil twang mid-song. The recessed Gotoh tremolo, likewise, allows for flutters and textures.
Of course, the bleeding edge of Strat-style design belongs to Ibanez, with their Prestige AZ2204N. The single-coil Seymour Duncan pickups sparkle and chime, while the full-throttle humbucker in the bridge offers more than enough firepower for even the heaviest riffage. I appreciate the Gotoh tremolo, too, which can handle the most aggressive Dime squeals and dive bombs as well as Polyphia flutters without going out of tune or demanding one-string-at-a-time adjustments like a Floyd Rose.
The Prestige series is really only for serious, professional players. At the other end of the spectrum is an all-time classic from another great Japanese brand, the Yamaha Pacifica. The Pacifica might be my number one non-Fender recommendation for beginners who want a Strat-style guitar with a little extra firepower.
Of course, the Sire Larry Carlton S7 is another wonderful humbucker-equipped Strat-style guitar. Honestly, it’s a pro-quality guitar at an intermediate-guitar price point, with plenty of tonal diversity on offer. The Carlton S7 is pretty much purpose-built for a guitar player learning the ropes of various genres or someone in a wide-ranging cover band.
Single Coils vs Humbuckers
So, why choose humbuckers over single coils? Well, there are a few reasons why you would want humbuckers.
The biggest reason would simply be for their sound. Humbuckers are much more aggressive, with a fuller, punchier sound than single coils.
Humbuckers also have a much better time when it comes to high amounts of distortion. Single-coil pickups can handle distorted tones - just ask Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil - but they tend to be much noisier at higher gain levels. The humbucker - hence the name - was designed specifically to address this issue.
Which brings us to the second reason you would want humbuckers: noise reduction. There is a thing called 60-cycle hum. Without going into too much detail, this is basically what causes the slight buzzing you can hear on single coil pickups.
Humbuckers, however, cancel out this 60-cycle hum, reducing or even getting rid of noise entirely. This means that you don’t have to worry about unwanted noise, and don’t need any external hardware to deal with noise.
Less feedback, less unwanted hum, more firepower. A great deal for any guitarist.
Can You Replace a Strat's Single Coils with Humbuckers?
The short answer is yes, absolutely. The longer answer is it depends on a few things.
The only real limitation on what type of pickups you can put in a guitar is the size of the pickup cavity. A standard Strat will have cavities that are large enough for single coil pickups, but too small to fit humbuckers.
Luckily, if you have some wood working skills, it is just a simple matter of making the cavity big enough so that you can fit a humbucker inside. Hey, it worked for Edward Van Halen, right?
But most of us either don’t have the necessary skills or tools for such a job. And even if we do, the risk of something going wrong might seem too high.
But if you remember back to the Dave Murray signature Strat, I spoke about the humbuckers in that guitar being single coil sized. These are great because they offer an easy solution for Strat players who want to swap out their single coils for humbuckers.
They are pretty much pop in and play, only requiring some minor soldering. But you at least don’t need to cut holes into your precious instrument.
You can also buy them in almost any configuration. Singles, like the Seymour Duncan Hot Rails if you are only looking to replace one pickup. The DiMarzio The Chopper is also great.
Or you can buy entire sets if you want to replace all of your pickups, like the Seymour Duncan Red Devils. There are even prewired kits like the Seymour Duncan Fully Loaded Liberator that you pretty much just pop into your guitar and off you go.
If you’re not confident with a soldering iron, you can always find a local luthier to do it for you.
Active vs Passive
Another thing to consider when buying any guitar with humbuckers is whether they are active or passive.
To put it simply, active pickups aren’t as sensitive as passives. This makes their signal much weaker than passives. To counter this, active pickups use a battery powered preamp to boost their signal.
This results in active pickups having a much higher output level than passives. Active pickups are considerably louder than passive pickups.
The downside of active pickups is that they aren’t as dynamic and vibrant as passive pickups. Plenty of guitarists also argue that active pickups sound ‘soulless’.
The classic use case for active pickups is ultra-high-gain heavy metal. EMGs were the pickups for late-80s boundary-pushing metal bands.
Not to mention the fact that you have to replace the batteries every few shows to make sure your pickups don’t die in the middle of a performance. You might also need to find room in your guitar for a battery cavity!
Les Pauls have enough room in the potentiometer cavity, usually, but Strats are pretty low on real estate to begin with.
In addition to this, modern passive humbuckers can be incredibly hot, so you don’t always need active ‘buckers to get a high-powered tone.
Closing Thoughts
Where some might think that putting anything other than single coils in a Strat is just wrong, I think humbuckers can take the iconic guitar even further. Such a simple change turns the Strat into a brand new beast that packs a mean punch.
It’s arguable that using humbucker tones with a Stratocaster defeats the purpose of using a Strat in the first place. I’d argue that it simply augments the great features of this legendary guitar. At the end of the day, the only person you need to convince is yourself.
The sound of a Stratocaster unleashing pure firepower thanks to a nice humbucker is a staple of modern music, so why not enjoy yourself with one of the great guitars from this list?
