Musiclily 11-Hole SSS Prewired Loaded Pickguard with Dual Hot Rail High Output Pickups Set for Fender Squier Strat Electric Guitar, 4Ply Tortoise Shell

Bang for the Buck… 110%. I don’t do reviews but after giving bad ratings & writing how the pickups are noisy, potted/ not potted, the fit etc etc. This is for upgrading (or downgrading for modifications) an SSS style Strat Guitar. You should have some basic understanding of electronics (related to pickups and gtrs) and basics of soldering. I bought this for an old school New York Pro strat (black originally). (Btw I’m a studio owner, gear collector and player for 30years with over 60 guitars in inventory). I got the newYork Pro Gtr for $25 and I knew the wood was good and that enough was good for me (70s/ 80s/90s gtrs of any value were made w real maple/ rosewood/ bass/ ash/ mahogany etc etc). I was able to set it up to a great playability but, the stock configuration lacked power and single coils notoriously buzz so, With only $25 into the Gtr, I decided on this loaded pickguard was going to originally get the Wilkinson Vintage Alnicos and put a Seymour Duncan Hot Rail I have laying around but, went for this. I chose mother of Pearl white (cream was the original pickguard color), I decided to paint the guitar “Hunt Club” Green to offset the white, also changed the 5 way knob to a stub and painted it to match. Now, to the reason for my review… I didn’t even take the strings off to replace this - I cut the ground, and two Input Wires. Knowing that this was designed for Squire Strats I may run into size issues (I did). But first because of all the reviews of RF and noise I copper shielded the entire cavities, and Re-Aluminum Foiled the back of the guard, I also re-Potted the pickups (a whopping 20 mins total out of my day and $12’s in tape (I already had). Then when I started soldering the input Jack and grounding I decided to drop so extra “melted Lead” on some of the terminals to reinforce them because the wiring is a small gauge with weak connections upon looking… (another whopping 15mins total). Now installing I realized right away it was too big and I needed to make more insertable length for the neck…. 3mins of using a Dremel with a hard sand disk attachment ($19 for a 48pce dremel set at Walmart). When done… blew off the excess plastic (I did all of this with the plate sitting in its place on the guitar & strings on lol)…. & WHALLAH, fits perfectly. I knew I had to now drill holes for the piece (kept the Dremel out and used the mini drill bit to hit the holes with the pick guard in place, then screwed it in and put everything back on this newly greened out guitar. *The 5-way selector had a slight bend like other people here that complained about (Needle Nose Pliers and 3 seconds rectifies that) I wasn’t sure what to expect when I plugged it Into a Two Rock Bloomfield Ave Tube Amp, once the standby was kick off it was deathly quiet & I went to turn the volume knob up on the guitar and… IT WAS!!! No hum, no buzz, no static it was absolutely perfect! I tuned her up and put it thru the paces of all Five configurations on the pick gaurd. FLAWLESS! Then I changed up some volume on the Gtr and I had no Volt jumps in volume- swelled beautifully. The Tone knobs however did go from Zero treble to normal treble from the 0 to the 3/4 Position. I rectified this with an Orange Drop u.22f capacitor and the tones roll better than most high end gtrs. So, in all, it’s an amazing loaded p-Gaurd (especially for the money). That being said, if you aren’t experienced then pay to have it done or else you won’t get your $20-$30 worth you spent on the pick gaurd. When done right, including any modifications (if you’re not using a a Fender Squire strat you aren’t using the intended guitar that this item was designed & purposed for). So, from a SUHR custom strat, a Mario Martin s-style to 7 US Fender Strats including 2 Custom Shops this $25 beater can hang with any of the aforementioned gtrs to whooping on them! All due to the tones on this item! Note: I also put Fender Vintage Inline Tuners & a Fender USA Bolt-On plate ($67 for both).Just my review and my unsolicited two cents. Just wanted to share my experience as I’m sure many that know what their doing have had. This is for project gtrs and for those that have knowledge in that department.Thanks!

This pickguard was installed on an Affinity Strat that I had acquired a while back. I took on the project primarily for fun. The guitar was practically new and there really wasn't anything wrong with it other than the stock pickups being terribly muddy. I'm not so mechanically inclined, so this venture allowed me to gain some experience working on guitars without jeopardizing something more valuable.When the pickguard arrived, it was in good condition other than the switch being bent at a 45-degree angle toward the middle tone knob. This was probably more Amazon's fault than Musiclily's since Amazon shipped it. I toyed with the idea of returning it but the switch seemed to function and the bent switch added a little character, so I kept it.Overall, the quality was as expected. The wires were pretty thin and the other parts on the cheap side, which is what you'd expect for a prewired pickguard you picked up for 35 bucks. They did a good job assembling it, with the wires contained in shrink tubing instead of just zip-tied together. This, however, turned into a bit of a problem since they simply looped a bunch of excess wire and zip-tied the loops together, and the result of this was a great deal of difficulty fitting the guard to the body. My Affinity is routed for an H-S-H pickup configuration even though it came with three single-coils. I had to move the loops of wire around to get the guard to settle down on the body and that ended up being a lot of work. If you had a body with a "swimming pool rout" it would probably be pretty easy. If you had one configured S-S-S, I'm convinced it might not be possible to seat the guard on the body without removing a bunch of excess wire and re-soldering the connections, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of buying a prewired pickguard in the first place. My guard has about the same amount of wire looped together as the one in the product description but on mine the loops were below the bridge pickup and not like the one displayed. That made it a little easier to install but it was still a major pain in the ass.If you get one of these, you'll want to prepare yourself for having to drill new holes for some of the pickguard screws. On mine, two of the screw holes were in the right place, four more were close enough to get the screws to bite, and five will need new holes drilled. This is going to happen pretty much regardless of what pickguard you buy and what guitar you want to put it on. They've been making Strats and copies for over 65 years now and you'd think they would have that pretty much standardized, but you'd be wrong. I was expecting this, so it really wasn't that much of a problem. You should expect the same.Once I got past these two issues, installation was a snap. There are only three wires that need to be soldered: two for the jack and a ground wire that attached to the tremolo mechanism. It took me all of 10 minutes and while my soldering skills won't win any awards, the wires are attached securely and everything works.So how does it sound? Well, it had been quite awhile since I had played that guitar with the original pickups but, based on my recollection, it's certainly an improvement. The three pickups don't really sound all the different from one another, with the bridge being slightly crisper than the other two. The output is moderate. The switch and potentiometers all work without any noise or problems. I played around with it for about a half-hour and managed to get some good tones with it. I look forward to spending some more time with it to see what it will do.Bottom line: if you have one of the millions of cheap Strat copies out there and you don't like the pickups, this is an inexpensive and easy way to improve it. It doesn't take a lot of skill to swap out pickguards, just about anyone with a little patience and a soldering iron can do it. For me, it was a good investment and an enjoyable way to use up a Saturday afternoon.

Sounds Great. Fits like it should.

It has some decent tones! Unique sounding. The pickups are darker than I thought they would be. There is some quack in and 4. I did not like how they had the wires bundled and had to cut them to get them in the body cavity. Also, while the pickups are good, the wiring job is good but cheap. I would of paid more if the pickguard had full sized pots, cloth wires and a good switch..

Really nice, works good

Works great sounds great good for the price

Like the title says!Is it my amp, is it my lack of knowledge of how this preforms or are the sound variation that slight I can't hear it? I live in a condo and as sound proof as the units are I still can go above 2 on the big amp and the practice amp has an 8 inch speaker that distorts above 5.Would I buy again?Yes if I'm upgrading an import guitar for resale I'd make this purchase again. If nothing else it looks really cool and in the hands of the right player should sound good.

Makes upgrading a Squire very easy. Just 3 total solders to complete. 1 chassis ground and a neg/pos input. ( I recommend that when you are installing this product that you also upgrade guitar input to a multi position input). The rail pickups are a nice and unique tone to my Fender. If changing the entire electronics of your are, this is the way you should do it.

Pour changer mes micro de Stratocaster de chez Harley Benton j'ai opté pour ce kit qui était plutôt bien noté alors je l'ai reçu assez rapidement mais avec du retard quand même un petit souci de paquet et tout ça mais en Isla le son est incroyablement rond mais le gros problème ça a été l'ajustement du perçage j'ai dû prendre mon ancienne plaque démonter les micros monter les micros sur mon ancienne plaque et remonter le tout ça m'a valu également un petit peu de soudure

正直期待してませんでしたが、意外とリアの歪ませた音、ハーフトーンでコード弾いた音共にストラトらしい美味しい音がします（自分の思うストラトに求める音）

フリマで4000円で買った謎のストラトを改造するために購入。ノイズもなく問題もなく機能している。私はフェンダーじゃなきゃダメ的な人間ではないのでこれで満足。音も納得できるものだし、気楽に扱える。無論他のパーツも購入して自分好みのギターに仕上げたのは言うまでもない。そんな使い方をしたい人にはコレはおすすめです。

Bought this loaded Strat scratchplate for a basic level Squire Affinity strat, to replace a HHS setup. The scratchplate fits perfectly and was very easy to install. The screw holes are in a different place than the stock one, but this is not a problem. The pickups are noise free, non-microphonic and sound very 'stratty' Very impressed and looking forward to gigging with them.

por lo que costó pensaba que no podia ser bueno pero por el precio tampoco me jugaba mucho. Pero una vez montado en mi strat con SingleCoils la cosa suena realmente bien, sin Hum; los 3 hotrails son Hums y con distorsión maxed ha sido una revelación! De modo que por 40 euros y antes que se acaban enseguida he comprado otro igual, en blanco, para otro de mis strats. Y tengo amigos que también se apuntan. High 5 para Musiclily! poner esto a disposición del músico con budgets minimos! Gracias.