First Upgrades

I really like that the Mexican Strat maintains such modest prestige, yet it’s my favorite guitar to play at the moment. Over the weekend, I did my first modification(s) to it. Keeping the upgrades modest for the most part, this is what I installed:

1. Fender Noiseless pickups
   I don’t really think I have any major desires for how I want my pickups to sound at the moment. In fact, I thought the stock pickups sounded just fine. But I did wish the inherent noise of the single coils could be remedied. And yes, I could have shielded the pickup cavities a bit more, but from the Amazon reviews, this seemed to do the trick as well. So I got ’em and installed them. No. Noise.
2. Emerson Custom 5-way blender pre-wired kit
   Before I got this kit, I performed the re-wiring mod to the stock hardware and I liked the new tonal options it gave me. So really, I kinda didn’t need this that much. So I’d consider this a bit of a splurge – kinda stepping outside the lines of modest, I guess. And this probably doesn’t matter to anybody except me, but the wiring job was just really clean! And I like that.
3. Mint pickguard.
   Just because it looks nice.