I thought some of you might be interested in a direct comparison to the Mo' Joe, which I had back to back in the bridge position of the same guitar (a partscaster tele, poplar body, roasted maple neck w/ rosewood board, two humbuckers, two 500k audio controls for volume and tone, 3-way toggle, very simple set up).
The Mo' Joe sounded fat and good in there but a bit too dark compared to the Fralin Twangmaster in the neck so I tried the FRED as I wanted to brighten things up and to have a better balance with the neck pickup.
With the original wiring intact, the FRED sounded way different from the Mo' Joe. This was a surprise for me as the Mo' Joe was supposedly developed on the basis of the FRED but the FRED was much brighter and thinner and did not sound anything like the Mo' Joe. It was only when I added a 680k resistor from hot to ground to drop the load to about 290k, then the sound got closer to the Mo' Joe with a load of 500k. The missing midrange came back, and I reached the goal of getting a tone that is a bit brighter and leaner compared to the Mo' Joe. So from my experimentations I like the FRED with a load of 250k to 300k max. I also like the middle position so far, which got more quack than it had before.
These are only my first impressions after having installed the FRED in that guitar.
Cheers Stephan
Replying to an old post, but still, your notions on the pots used, and what I've done with my guitar further reassured me I did the right thing with my HSS project done a few months ago. Your post was one of the most helpful out there.
So the guitar is an Am. Series Strat, that had the stock neck and middle pickups but the SD Hot Rails in the bridge. It was too compressed, dark and lacked dynamics, so after a long time of putting up with it I decided to go full humbucker.
I knew I wanted the true late '60s vintage single coil sound in the neck and middle though, so I went with Lollar'64s - it turned out fantastic, so I began researching for the right humbucker to match with those single coils AND my humbucker taste.
I wanted a hotter PAF design, nothing too powerful, with enough dynamics to cover wide range of playing styles. Not too bassy, but still powerful and clear. So I went with the FRED and it turned out being a fantastic pickup for me. I didn't want to use resistors and a 500K volume and tone. I left it all stock, and it worked perfectly. All stock 250K pots, the middle pickup lost it's tone 2, an the bridge has a dedicated no-load 250K tone. It turned out great, there's even not much noticeable volume difference between FRED and the single coils, has enough quack when split + middle in the position 4, sounds awesome clean or distorted. Just about what I had in mind at the beginning.
So looks like my idea that FRED was bright and low inductance enough to work fine with stock 250K pots was legit. After a while I started thinking about something a bit punchier than FRED, still AlNiCo V, but a bit higher in output, maybe fatter. Mo' Joe came to mind, so there I was reading about it, but after all, I think the FRED was an ideal choice. I'm still kind of on the fence with it, to be honest. I think it may require a 500K volume pot, the 250K might choke it.
