I got my first HSS strat style guitar in the form of this FGN Boundary series back in 2019. In my mind, even though this is the first HSS in my arsenal, I knew it wouldn't feel too alien to me. I already had instruments with 25.5 inch scale lengths with humbuckers in the bridge (and neck) position. The Parker Fly has a 25.5 inch scale length and the PRS also comes close with 25 inches. So position 5 (or is it position 1??) in an HSS never really concerned me as I knew I could adapt and use it.
No, for me it was more the thrill of having that neck position single coil clarity, in between tones of the neck and middle, and the grunt (and hum-free operation) of the humbucker that attracted me to the HSS format. I knew I was rarely going to use the bridge humbucker for clean tones, I'm not saying it can't be done but I have my "habits" just like any other player and I don't find myself doing that too often.
I did however go ahead and rewire the guitar to have a push-push on the first tone pot which will activate the coil split. In practice I don't find myself using the middle/bridge in between position (coil tapped) much, but it is good to have.
The first tone pot (the one with a push-push switch) is wired to the 2 single coils. The second tone pot is just a regular one that is connected to the humbucker. I decided on this wiring scheme because it's somewhat familiar to me - all my strats have tone controls wired to the bridge, although the upper tone pot is wired to only the neck in the SSS strats.
You can't write about HSS without some thoughts on volume differences. That was certainly front and centre of my mind before purchase - "would it bother me that the humbucker is going to be louder than the single coils?". Well the answer to that turned out to be "No". I guess it kind of depends on the pickups in the guitar and how they are set up (i.e. distance to strings of each), but I can say that in this example the differences in volume are negligible. I have had guitars with bigger differences between pickups (either SSS or HH) that I've just neglected to correct because I was too lazy, and play around it (never underestimate the power of human laziness). Of course, there are limits - I wouldn't pair a couple of vintage single coils with a high output humbucker.
Now for some thoughts specific to this FGN HSS. I did already write about it in a previous blog post, however this is an update after I've done several modifications to it. I do apologise if I end up repeating or contradicting myself, but it has been a while since the last post and I'm not about to go back and read it!
It's a great guitar, I wouldn't have any qualms about picking up another one. This is the budget line of the FGN series so of course your brain will naturally start trying to figure out where the costs were cut. I think the electronics and materials would be the answer to that, but to no great consequence in my opinion. I'll explain:
Firstly the body was made out of basswood. I'm not privy to what raw materials cost but since basswood is used in a lot of budget instruments I'm assuming that they must be priced lower than Ash, Alder or Mahogany. The thing about basswood is...it doesn't have particularly eye catching wood grain and it doesn't impart any tonal/eq characteristics BUT that is not necessarily a bad thing. I tend to think of it as a clean slate for the pickups to shine.
Second point: Speaking of pickups - I think these ones (stock) were manufactured by Gotoh and...I don't hate them! The single coils are to my taste - balanced even though they are staggered, snappy and clear/bright. The humbucker is not TOO bad either - my only "complaint" is that the transients sound a bit harsh sometimes. I find those more expensive humbuckers usually have quite a pleasing compression effect, if that makes any sense. Of course too much compression is undesirable but with this one it can sometimes seem a bit spiky even through gained up amps/sims. Small thing, definitely not unplayable though.
And finally I think they would have cut costs in the electronics department as well. No complaints really - if I'm rewiring a guitar I would splurge for "high quality" pots and cloth wiring etc, but I don't really think that cheap electronics detract from the experience too much. As long as the pots are the close enough to reported/expected resistance, just continue using them until they become scratchy and then swap em out. One thing that did bother me - and I find a lot of Japanese guitars have this - is that they used linear pots for the volume. I changed that out with a logarithmic pot when I did the rewiring. While we are talking about the control cavity let me also add that they cut costs on shielding too...there was non provided on the body, only the pickguard.
Where FGN didn't skimp on (or at least it doesn't show) was the finish of the guitar, the fretwork, and surprisingly the hardware. Gotoh tuners and bridge - can't really complain about that.
As you can see in the pic above the body has been routed for a humbucker in the neck as well, for all you modders out there. But good luck finding a replacement pickguard if you plan to install a neck humbucker, they are definitely not as easy to obtain as the strat pickguards and NO, the regular strat pickguard will not fit (I've tried).
So to round it off - if you don't have a HSS and you want to try one - highly recommended! If you're thinking about the HSS Boundary series, highly recommended too - as long as you don't think you'll miss the tremolo/vibrato bridge. If you see one on sale for a good price, even second hand....pull that trigger.