There’s always Warmoth. Here’s a basic black starting at $320.
Note also the 250k v 500k Pot Value popup next to the pickup selection; that seems useful in light of the pot discussion above.
Once again: I did not know that. Ignorance fought.
And again: squeegee, thanks for the pics (and **E-Sabs **- for the even-more-correct photo). Somehow the distinction between the old Fender semi-hollow Starcaster and this quasi-Strat cheapie Squier model eluded me.
Okay - some thoughts:
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what **squeegee **said up thread: you should find a spec drawing on line to confirm the specific measurements, but it sure looks like you could drop in an off-the-shelf loaded Strat pickguard and it would, perhaps (as **squeegee **said) needed to drill new p-guard holes.
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what would you get - like I said up thread: it depends. If you just swapped out the same components of higher quality, then - IF THE GUITAR HAS GOOD BONES (i.e., decent body and neck wood, a stable, substantial neck joint, etc.) then better components typically “open up” a guitar’s tone. Cheaper pickups have a muddy, blanket-over-the-amp lack of clarity, are often higher output in the hopes that “oooo - cool crunch!” distracts you from the fact that they are muddy. Cheaper pots, caps and resistors result in a flat, unresponsive tone - upgrades can add clarity, a bit of sparkle or chime (because the harmonics on top of the main note are getting processed by the components more effectively), etc. If you go with a SSH (humbucker at the bridge with a middle and neck single coil) - well, you might go to your local Guitar Center and try out a Fat Strat which has that configuration. Can be versatile, but the volume levels between the higher-output 'bucker vs. the lower-output singles can be a pain - depending on the pickups loaded in, you can’t just flick the switch from neck to bridge without a distractingly large change in volume - not always great for gigging (I know, not an issue for you). Bottom line is that there are dozens of pickup and component configs you might try which can be best for very different types of playing and genres of music. I’d need more to go on before I could point you in a specific direction.
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Should you do this? I dunno - is your Starcaster a piece of crap? Sorry for the harsh - but the question is actually serious. You have described how awful the frets were, etc. - that, along with its initial price point, would suggest to me that it is not a great guitar (i.e., yes, maybe 1 out of 50 Chinese or Indonesian-made Squiers are actually decent - but it sounds like this may be one of the other 49). So, should you put more money in it? Well, if it is a piece of shit - NO! Or, if it is decent enough AND you enjoy puttering on guitars AND ~$49 or so is not a lot of $$ for you - well, sure, why not? Experiment and learn about how to work on guitars - it will be good for your playing.
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However, I will say this: if the guitar really is a piece of crap, and you are finding your ability to do hammer-ons and pull-offs is limited (despite the excellent advice provided here ;)) - maybe, just maybe, getting a better-quality guitar would be best for you. You often can’t point to any one thing that is dramatically different but a truly good guitar (does NOT have to be expensive, just a good example) really is a joy to play. I am not hearing that your SC qualifies - so, in my very limited opinion since I have not played it - unless you would enjoy tinkering, I would be inclined to say that you should consider a better guitar…but would totally understand if you disagree…
Gotta run.
The point to this Strat is that it is a piece of crap. I am slowly going to replace every part of it, and have a really awesome guitar. And I will know what happens when I do this, or do that, afterwards. It’s an educational tool. Part of why I bought something I knew would be in bad shape to start with, it helps me identify what each part of the guitar does.
And actually, the body and neck are pretty decent. Completely accidentally, but they’re pretty okay, actually. Just there was no dressing off the line. Amazing how the instruments marketed to beginners are the worst of the lot. Really, a bit of filing, once I stopped being afraid of hurting it, and it’s much better now. That and changing the tuners out were the biggest deals in how it plays , rather than how it sounds.
As far as SSH, you’re right, there are notable volume changes, I’ve noticed that on the LP I have. I’ll stick with SSS.
And I do have a better guitar, but… well, the neck is wider on this one, cause I kind of fat-finger the strings at speed. I’m having trouble with 16th notes and alt-picking as it is.
What started this musing on replacing the pickguard now is that I can hammer-on and pull-off semi-okay on the LP, but not so well on the Star, and I was thinking it might be the lesser quality of the pickups.
The Starcaster has a name, by the way. It is the Pig. Because, the last time I was elbow deep in it, polishing the inside cavity, I was told that I was just putting lipstick on a pig. Which is true. But you know, it does sound pretty good, now. And I’m gonna make it sound better. Slowly.
I have tried a Fat Strat. The yellow 48th Street model. It was on sale at Sam Ash over the 4th.
http://www.samash.com/p/48th-Street-Custom-Strat-Electric-Guitar-Brilliant-Yellow_-49990136
It was nice, but… nah, gonna stick with SSS for now.
In other news, anyone got any good stretching exercises to do when not at a guitar? The neck is wider, so I don’t fat-finger the strings as much. On the other hand, the neck is wider, and a little longer, and the frets are just a skoosh farther apart.
Awesome - done. Of course you *have *to do it then. I have learned so much from assembling and working on my guitars.
Okay, you feel it has good bones AND you are explicitly looking to go through a Theseus’s Paradox (Wiki link) of an upgrade exercise - if you swap out all the parts over time for better ones, is it still the same guitar, only better? 
In that case, I don’t know that I would go for a $49 GuitarFetish drop-in. I am not saying you need to go for a $250 - $300 example loaded with (well-respected high-end boutique hand-winding pickup makers) Lollars, Fralins or Kinmans or anything. But in the mid-market arena - stuff by Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Bill Lawrence, and a whole bunch of others are really quite good and likely much better than the choice you list.
A bit of wisdom: okay, in an earlier post, I described how some lower-quality pickups have higher output - both because newbies tend to dig a warmer/crunchier tone and because it masks the muddy tone of lower-quality components. Unfortunately, it also means you may not have experience listening to what good pickups should sound like. Ideally - VERY MUCH IMHO (but really a school of thought that is commonly held - please just be aware that there are many other schools of thought) - you start with a very-high-quality, lower-output pickup and get your crunch by overdriving a tube amp, usually involving a dirtbox of some sort in your chain. Not only does that make for a great crunch (amps deliver crunch better than pickups) but the cleans can be far more subtle, chimey, and rich (speaking as a cork-sniffer). I know you understand this as a concept and also that I have this opinion from previous threads and posts. My point is this: you need to learn to judge what low-output clean tone you want, and how it translates to a crunchy tone. I would recommend that you hang out at local guitar stores for a while, trying a variety of Strats. Every time you develop a STRONG opinion - either way - about a guitar’s tone (try to play through the same amp everytime - one clean setting, one crunchy), then ASK what the pickups are. Figure out what you hate and what you like - and ask (actually, write down and then research on line - the clerks will spout nonsense if they don’t really know) what types of magnets and outputs are you drawn to? Do you prefer noiseless versions or standard single coils with their latent hum? Are your favorites typically labelled vintage or '57’s or more modern? If you get a clear sense, then find an example in a brand you favor - Seymour Duncan has never let me down - get them. I’d expect a price point more in the $75 - $150 range - and maybe just for pickups, not loaded in a p-guard - but think you would be better off for the additional bucks…
Hmm - doesn’t sound likely. If your pickups are not set at the correct distance from the strings or are otherwise not wired correctly, that might manifest as a lack of sustain, but a far more likely reason is that you simply are not fretting the string strongly enough to get the vibrations you need. Now - whether that is because you are a newbie who hasn’t mastered making solid contact or because the guitar has *something *that inhibits sustain - it’s never either/or, but typically a blend of both. If you hammer on better with your LP, you need to pay attention to that. Are you an LP guy - it’s ergonomics enable a better contact? Is it a more resonant? If you can isolate any items on your SC that appear to be factors, you should make them your next project. Tuners were a very smart early thing to upgrade.
My first electric and the victim of all my EVH-wannabee experiments is The Beast. My son has it now. Decent guitar.
I avoid stretching and strengthening exercises for my fingers like the plague - they are a recipe for tendon, muscle and joint problems. Find scale and chords that you like and that involve wide spacings. Do them one. million. times. Repeat.
Does this help?
WordMan
It does, quite a lot. The Strat suggestion especially. I just hate the Sam Ash people. God, such know it all asses who know less than I do and I know I know nothing.
I just tightened the Pig’s neck last night, got to retune now, that might help. I may have loosened it a skoosh too much when I got it. (it needed it badly: it was recurved.) Also, I’m going to try using something besides the middle pickup.
Yes, you should. Observation: when trying to ping a harmonic, say, to tune your guitar, you need to have your pickup selector on the bridge pickup - it can be hard, if not impossible to catch a 5th-fret harmonic off a clean neck pickup on a Strat. If you are just trying to make hammer-ons sound legit, using the bridge pickup may increase the sensitivity of your guitar and enable you to hear it better.
Now, granted, you should be able to make the hammer-on resonate when the guitar is unplugged when you get enough pop into your fingering…
Yeah, I noticed the middle pickup thing this morning before work. I went ‘ooooooooh. duh.’
To expand on this - depending on the type of music you want to play, and the specifics of your rig, pickup selection is a big deal. Think about Eddie Van Halen’s 1-pickup guitar - it’s the bridge pickup (note: the mid and neck pickups on the guitar are non-functional). Now think about a Jazz Cat’s one pickup guitar (if they have a 1-pickup guitar vs. a 2-pickup one) - it’s the neck pickup.
If you play rock - and wanting to get your hammer-ons and pull-offs down solid suggests that you are working on rock and/or blues riffs - then you probably want to start by favoring your bridge pickup. I call my bridge pickup my “fastball” - baseball pitchers typically anchor their repetoire of pitches around their fastball. Well, as a rock guitarist, getting my bridge pickup, classic rock/blues tone correct is my foundation. It is the setting I use the most and the other settings I use are in contrast to it - e.g., play rhythm with bridge then flip to neck for a warm, tubey-sounding lead. An overdriven bridge pickup with the Volume rolled down to 8 and the Tone on about 5 is thick, chunky rock nirvana…
…all of this is a way of saying - if you haven’t focused on your bridge pickup and finding a nice crunch tone using an overdriven amp and/or a fuzzbox, then that may be at the heart of your weak hammer-ons and pull-offs - or at least making the change will make them sound better.
Some of this is assuming that E-Sab’s bridge pickup is affected by one of his guitar’s tone control. Since this is a Squier “strat”, is that a given?
I hear you - if either the Tone control is a sub-par component or there is any wiring issues the effectiveness could be compromised. By the same token, it is easy to get all cork-sniffer about what is fundamentally a straightforward control…
It’s a MIM (Mexico), serial number MZ6xxxx, so it was made in or around 2006. Lake Plaid blue body, maple neck with a nice yet but subtle “figuring” on the neck. I believe the pickups are the cobalt (not alnico) Hot Tele pups. It has what feels like (to me) a chunky neck, but that could be because I’ve always been more used to Gibsons and Gretsches so who knows. I’m playing it through a Carvin St4000 amp (a monster from 1974, 250 Watter) and a Bandmaster 2x12 cabinet. As for music, damn near anything - jazz, rock, classical, it doesn’t matter to me. Flat picking, finger picking, again it doesn’t matter. I just started playing again a few months ago, so I’m still not where I used to be, but it is coming back - to the point I can once again do some of the old Laurindo Almeida arrangements. I play “clean” as in no pedals or effects.
Well, gotta run, food just got here 
Now that bit about what pickups are good for is effing useful. Thank you, Wordman!
What are the thoughts on some good guitar instruction books? Mel Bay and Hal Leonard, from a rough search of the thread, seem to be the big names; is one better? Are either good? I’m going solo for the moment, it seems; I was getting to be dissatisfied with my instructor–I was starting to feel that I was paying for 30 minutes of BSing, plus him tabbing something out. Add to that that he kinda took a few shots at my taste in music when I asked him to see if he could tab one particular thing out, and I figured it was time to move on.
I’m finding it interesting that, as I learn more, I find myself more wanting to play things that aren’t really necessarily the first thing that I might like to listen to–old country stuff, bluegrass, rootsy things like Rev. Peyton, and so on. Not to say that I don’t want to rock out, but I’d be pretty happy to just sit on the porch picking or strumming something old 'n pretty. And then last week I discovered that I might even have a little bit of jazz in me when I was introduced to ‘gypsy jazz’ and Django Reinhardt…
What I meant was the original “Strat” circuit had the bridge pickup not connected to any tone control (I’m pretty sure), but IIRC more modern "Strat"s break that rule and the bridge and middle pickups each get a tone control (right?). Is it a given that any modern “Strat” will follow that pattern? I don’t know, I don’t own a Strat (Fender, Squier or otherwise), and I was speculating that a Squier Strat may follow different tone-control rules than others. Thanks for any clarification.
New topic: How do I find musicians to jam with?
I’ve played guitar for 30 years (off and on, I quit in my 30’s and took up piano, then rediscovered guitar in my 40’s). When I was 15-24ish, I lived in Chicago and jammed with different people all the time. Now I’m located in a California, I know nobody who jams, and I would like to. I live in a rural area close to, but not in, San Jose, CA. How do I find someone to jam with? I’ve poked around on Craigslist, but there’s little there. I like to think I’m pretty good, but I know that playing with other musicians and cueing off what they do in real time is a skill, one I haven’t exercised in many years. I’d guess there’s a lot of players in my area in my disconnected straits, looking for jams, how might I find them?
I’m quickly learning that they are indeed pretty indestructible. A joke about it goes:
We don’t put a Tele in a case to protect it, we do it to protect other guitars from it 
Oh, and in my previous post I made a mistake … mine has ceramic pups, not cobalt (dumb typo or something).
I have always come at it from the opposite direction, quite probably as a result of my own limited training, and my own experience. In my case, the neck pickup was often the primary, or sometimes even the only pickup. In fact, one of my favorite guitars (though it wasn’t mine) was an ES175 type Gibson (a Barney Kessel maybe?), and all it had was the one neck pickup. Different tones, different outlooks, but it’s all good.
Sounds cool - a couple of observations:
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If you are playing clean, you may be fine, but man, you have WAAAYYYYY too much amp for your needs. 250 watts?!? I gig with an 18 watter sometimes for small clubs. 250 is for an arena. I did a quick check - is that amp solid state? I think it was - I read where it offers “1 solid state tone and 3 tube type tones.” Do you play using crunchy tones at all - if so, how do you produce them? My only concern is that it is an early SS amp, and their attempts at bringing the crunch? Not so good. But for clean tones I bet it has a lot of uses.
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There are such things as cobalt pickups, so no worries - but find out what kind of pickups you have in that Tele. Ceramic magnets can be fine - many are excellent. However, certain Tele models use a bridge pickup that DOES NOT have the traditional metal plate at the base of the pickup. Little secret: a key to the tone of original Tele’s is that they were adapted from Leo Fender’s pedal steel guitar pickups. The Tele pickup features a metal plate - see photos here. As I have mentioned, I know nothing about electronics, but apparently that copper plate is a main reason that Tele pickups sound so good even with the highs super-emphasized in their tonal profile. That plate apparently both reinforces the highs and brings out the right harmonic overtones. And, apparently, some Tele models’ bridge pickups don’t have the metal plate, in an attempt to shift their tonal sweet spot more towards rock and metal. But don’t you believe it - you’d rather have a real Tele pickup and roll off the highs using your V and T controls or your amp. And if you are playing clean tones, like it sounds, you would prefer this type of pickup anyway. It may make sense to do a little research…
Gibson made a Barney Kessel model wich is different from an ES-175 but both are hollow jazz boxes. And yeah, the single pickup version of a jazz box guitar has the pickup up at the neck. VERY DIFFERENT vs. a rock guitar - might as well be the difference between a classical nylon string vs. a solidbody electric - they are that different. If you play jazz on your Tele - and because they are the most versatile guitar, well, ever - there are a bunch of Tele jazz players out there - you can figure out what settings they use, but most likely the neck pickup with controls set in a way to emphasize clean responsiveness. But for rock? Bridge pickup all the way, my friend. Ultimately - you know my POV is “do what works for you to keep playing” but as you move between playing styles trying shifting between neck/both for jazz or other warm clean tones vs. bridge for biting/country clean tones and crunchy rock (if you get a pedal or crank your amp enough to harm fish in the tank nearby…)
**LawMonkey **- I have a bunch of theory and instruction books and you know what? I have never used them except as a reference for chords or scales. These days, if I am wanting to learn something new I go straight to youtube. I start with songs I want to learn, find vids, then listen to what technique buzzwords they use - in my case (and yours wrt to Reverend Peyton, a key phrase is “hybrid picking”) and then do youtube searches on “guitar lesson hybrid picking” and get a TON of responses. Then I figure out which self-proclaimed youtube instructors I like and seek out their other vids…before I know it, I’ve learned stuff. Does that help?
**squeegee **- you know, I am not sure. I would assume that stock, standard Strat models retain their weird circuit, but I haven’t checked lately since I am on a protracted break from Strats after playing one primarily for 15 years. I can tell you that if you hang on message boards, Strat tone circuit mods are a huge topic with lots of variations…
Great question, but in my experience it is similar to WordMan’s rule as stated above (“do whatever keeps you playing”). In this case, I guess the rule is “talk about guitars with everybody” - kinda serious…
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Check the bulletin boards at your local guitar shops - there are bulletin boards and there will be a variety of options listed - jams, bands, open-mic nights, etc…
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Check the local weekly - where you used to find the Straight Dope column! - for all local music gigs - look for open mic nights.
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Go to a bunch of these open mic, jams, what-have-you’s. Do you have to play? Nah, not if you don’t want and if the event doesn’t say “no onlookers, just players.”
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When you are at places where there are other players - at the guitar store or one of these jams - approach folks and ASK. “Any place to play around here?” “Any informal jams where guys try different guitars and amps?”
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Find workshops put on by local shops - group jazz, rock, picking lessons, etc. - you typically find folks of various skill levels who are demonstrating some committment to their instrument.
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Ask your son’s instructor - from what you’ve said in the past, he is a bit of a local instituion and should know everyone around there…
I know enough about the San Jose / Monterey area in CA to state that there is a lot of music going on, so you simply have to put in the effort and network - when was the last time you want to Guitar Showcase and checked out their bulletin board?
Buy a few guitar t-shirts and where them regularly and mention guitar when talking with friends - not so much to be a big pain, but just so that people know. Unsurprisingly, IRL most folks who know me on a passing basis know I play guitar - as a result I get word when someone else plays. New guy just started at work? While being introduced, he noticed a guitar trinket on my desk (a mouse pad with a Les Paul on it) - “oh you play? Yeah - what’cha got?” all down hill from there…
…am I fully caught up? Lots of good posts!
Way too much is an understatement, but it was cheaper at the pawn shop than any of the “sensible” amps were. I can get the crunch; there is a rotary switch that acts sort of like a “varitone” that can approximate different sounds, plus the “regular” tone controls knobs are set up like a parametric equalizer. I can and do usually play “clean” though, and with that much headroom it stays clean when I want it to. Added on edit: Yes, it’s solid state.
I didn’t look inside, so I don’t know. I’m not worried, I’m handy with a soldering iron if I ever decide to make any changes.
I usually work the neck pick up (obvious by now I guess). When I did play rock (with other people that is), I used the neck for chording and the bridge for the lead solos (the extra “bite”). With one guitar or another, using both pickups was the thing I sometimes did. When I had a Strat, I did this to get the “Fender quack” (neck and middle together). Now I get it on the Tele, doing basically the same thing.