To get the most out of my stratocaster, I prefer the heavy-duty humbucking pickups, and the Pearson "Knuckle-buster" heavy duty strings. My best advice on amplification is to use the Krate Red Voodoo Stacks. If you've got a crowd of 10,000 or under, one stack is plenty. The 1200 watts gives me plenty of attack, sustain, and controlled feed-back. For stadium gigs where a crowd of 30000 demands the maximum in sheer power, two stacks are really plenty. Any more and you can actually maim people sitting close to the stage.

As far as finding a pick-up that maintains the true sound of my guitar, well, I haven't been able to actually hear my guitar since the Van Halen 51/50 Tour in 1987.

Mas Tequila!

Sammy