Cutlass HSS humbucker pickup replacement

[AdagioNH]

Hi I recently got this Cutlass HSS. I am considering replacing the bridge humbucker. It’s OK but a bit quacky in the high-mids and bright IMHO. Much less compelling than my Stingray and Stingray HT.

The single coils sound great and seem fairly powerful and I like the trem so I am thinking of getting a ballsy old school ceramic humbucker and using this guitar like a superstrat for classic metal. So, no pretty PAF subtleties, nuances, or edge-of- breakup Thornbucky sophistication on this one.

I’m thinking F-spaced Dimarzio Super Distortion. Suggestions welcome.

My question/worry is that I have never felt the need to change a stock EBMM pickup and I don’t know what to expect with the printed circuit board and the Harry Potter magic silent gadgetry in there. On other guitars I just soldered to the pots. I suck at soldering and am a bit sloppy and I am worried about melting something by accident.

What should I expect?

I have searched around here for pics and diagrams to no avail. Thanks in advance.

(PS: also thinking about a 3-way switch eventually because the middle positions sound terrible compared to a strat.)

 

[beej]

It's pretty easy to swap the humbucker. It has 2 wires- ground is wired to the PCB, hot to the switch. So just do the same thing with the new humbucker, and wire the shield (if the new HB has one) to any ground point in the guitar.

If you want to do something fancier like auto-splitting in position 2, then you'll need to replace the lever switch.

I've tried a few different ones in there as I didn't like the stock HB. Currently have a LIII bridge pickup. Pick the HB of your choice and rock out

 

[beej]

Btw-

 

[AdagioNH]

That is super helpful thank you