Tips and pup suggestions

[Space Cadet]

I'm working on building my own guitar from scratch and I'm trying to decide which exact pickups to use in it. A 22 fret maple neck/fretboard. Walnut body.

The design I had in mind was for it to be a light-weight rocking-out guitar for some real muddy, heavy blues/rock. Old school kind of stuff. So I want real power but nice and warm tone that isn't going to sound too overdriven. I want it to be able to turn nice and clear through an amp when I choose.

I'm thinking about a single coil in the neck pos. and a hum in the middle. No bridge pickup. There's only going to be a single volume knob - and no pickup selector. So I'm going to just run both pickups at once.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Hardtailed]

So you're gonna spend all that time building a nice guitar with nice wood, and in the end all you'll have is a guitar with both pickups always on?

Here, I have an idea if you don't want a pickup switch: use a push-pull knob, in full-down position, both pickups are on, when you pull on it it disengage the bridge pickup. Then you wire the volume pot to work only on the neck pickup. Why?

Simple, with volume full on and the knob down, you have both pickups fully on. You want just the bridge? Turn the volume off and all you've got left is the bridge pickup in all its glory! The volume becomes a blender pot basically.

And then, what if you want just the neck pickup? Leave the volume opened but pull on the knob! There you have just the neck pickup and you can turn it down for a cleaner sound, and then just push on the knob and you get your full bridge pickup sound back!

And then, what if you want to do the LP-toggle rhytmic effect (a la EVH), leave the volume off and quickly pull and push the knob, turning off and on your sound.

Man, I'm so clever, I'm gonna have to try it on one of my guitars

Oh yeah, pickup selection: only thing I can tell you is make sure you get one that isn't too bright, because it's gonna be even brighter without a tone pot. A "muddy" tone like you're saying, will be hard to obtain without a tone knob. You could always have a fixed high-frequency roll-off (replace the pot with a fixed resistance)

[GregP]

For the kind of music you suggest, I'd go with 2 P-90s (or virtual P-90 / P-100 / other hum-cancelling equivalent) in their standard neck and bridge positions.

But that's just me, and an opinion wrought from heavy bias.