Musiclily Hot Rails Guitar Single Coil Sized Humbucker Strat Pickup for Fender Stratocaster Squier Electric Guitar Replacement, Black

Pros: Sound great. No hum. Handles lots of gain/distortion. Great sustain. Sounds pretty good clean. Price is super cheap. Seller is good.Cons: Very fragile in all respects. Be very careful with installation. Can be pretty microphonic with loud volumes. Yes, you will potentially get the loud shriek when close to your amp. 1 of the 3 that I installed in is more prone to this happening (in the neck). Not a huge deal, and you can pretty much expect that at this price point. Standing farther from the amp seems to remedy this.I upgraded my 92 Korean squier strat's internals, but didn't want to break the bank on a cheap (price-wise) guitar. With 500k pots, new switch, new pick guard, and full copper shielding; these pickups really did the trick to get the fatter sound I was looking for. If you want the ability to handle high gain with good tone, these are cheap and effective. While not as bright as single coils on the clean end, these still sound very good. I love having zero hum - even when cranking the volume and tons of gain. Love the tone and sustain I get out of these with my amp's rectifier emulation.One of the 3 that I ordered didn't have any sound (bad internal coil connection?), but the seller promptly accepted the return, and I ordered a replacement which works just fine.When installing, make sure you push from the plastic below the screw holes pressing against the springs. Do not push on the blades from the back of the pickup. The glue is not sturdy, and one of my pickups separated at one end from the plastic. I pushed it together and it works just fine, but there is definitely potential to break the pickup during installation. Be careful and you will be fine.

Great pickup . Not just for the price . It's a great overall pickup for hard rock/ heavy tones . It's very bright and has lots of output . I put one in the bridge of an old knock off squier I had laying around . I got this guitar when I was 14-15. I never really cared for it that much , especially after buying a few Ibanez', Schecters and an Epiphone .. It just laid in my closet until I decided I would make it workable again . Didn't want to spend a lot , I found this pup for $14 and I had to try it based on te positive reviews . Put this pickup in the bridge, and now it has much more output and crunch . I love that it's basically a mini humbucker , don't have to deal with so much noise from a single coil . It sounds pretty good clean too , just dial in your amp nicely, roll back the volume on your guitar a bit and it's really sparkly and nice . I definitely want to try one of these pickups in the neck . But man it really is much better now , it's awesome for hard rock , metal and lead sounds . Can't complain about the sound for $14! Awesome ... Buuuut...1 complaint I do have is : the pickup doesn't exactly fit into the slot as is . I mean it does, but it's best you sand the pickgaurd slot a little, just a tiny bit to make the pickup fit better ... The pickup alone does fit into the slot without any alterations , but once you try and put on the screws and springs , the pickup body won't go through , so sanding the pickgaurd a little will make is slide in . I didn't care to sand it . Since it's easily replacable and just plastic ...Very much worth the price ! Just keep these things in mind !Update : this pickup is a bit microphonic . Which basically means if you're standing too close to your amp on heavy high gain settings you will probably get squeeling feedback if you're too close ... So another thing to think about

EDITED Feb 2015 - revised to positive review because (read below):I originally gave this a 2 star review because a corner bit on the plastic cover that wraps around the rails broke when i was going to install it, so I never installed it at that time. I still contend, that the plastic bits should be sturdier so as not to break when I accidentally bump pickup into pick guard while installing (it was a solid 'bump', but not anything I would have expected to break a pickup cover!). That was the substance of my original review - 2 stars, based on having never installed it.I have since managed to super-glue the plastic bit back on and installed it in the neck position of a homebrew (ie: built from near-scratch by me) guitar. I must say, I am just ridiculously incredibly happy with how this sounds. It is AMAZING - better than any factory pickup I've played in any guitar ever. This is my new favorite budget pickup (by a mile), and I'd have to spend a whole ton more to get one I think I'd like better. I would describe the sounds (in the neck position anyway, haven't tried it anywhere else) with adjectives like thick, rich, sultry, hot, smoky, boozy, sexy, steamy, sweaty, bold, and from there I would just keep going until this wasn't a family friendly review. Playing it through my Vox stomp-lab into a vaguely decent stereo system with the volume set at medium-loud and gain/drive on the stomp-lab at about 2 or 3 on a 10 scale, the experience is just screaming hot sexy goodness. It's also incredibly responsive for a ceramic magnet pickup too - I can instantly access sounds from almost totally clean to in-your-face-right-now just by going easy (or hard) on my pick attack. Usually that kind of awesome stuff only happens on lower output Alnico based pickups, and ceramics tend to be 'one sound, all the time'.Anyway, it would get 5 stars from me now, but i still ding it 1 star for the broke plastic bit.Oh, one other thing to note (that I don't consider a negative at all), is that they say these are like 5kohm resistance. My volt/ohm meter says it's more like 10 or 11. kohm's is a lousy method of evaulating pickups, and these sound pure awesome, so why would you care? I don't know, but if you do, these are hotter than 5kohm by a lot.Enjoy.