Need some help choosing guitar

[Speed Demon]

There is no reason why a nice brilliant tone cannot be achieved using humbucking pickups.
I use them in all my electric guitars and my sound is right where I want it. Of course, I did rewire them all with tone circuits of my own design. Cleaned up the bassy sounds at a cost of less than three dollars for the capacitors and resistors.

Nearly all of the music I've posted here was done on a 1985 Charvel with two Dimarzio X2N pickups.
Extremely powerful pickups, and strong in the low end, as is expected with this much winding on the coils.
A high pass filter fixed that problem.  Low frequency tones are shunted to ground. Mids and highs are passed through to the amp. The frequency cut-off point is determined by the size of the capacitor being used. Experiment with them until you find that "sweet spot". That is the one you permanently install.

Another way to improve your tone is to solder a 150 ohm resistor across the input lug and the wiper lug on the volume pot. Stops the tone from going muddy when you roll the volume down.

[Speed Demon]

Yes, Jimi would not only need to restring the guitar, he would also need to install a new nut and slot it to match the strings. Simply turning the existing nut around will not work, I do not believe he actually took a right-handed guitar and made it playable for himself right off the rack. I've done this type of work before and it takes a good bit of time to shape, install and slot a nut.

He might also need to change out the bridge, as the tremolo arm would now be above the bridge instead of below it, where it is much easier to use.

My two cents.

[64Guitars]

He might also need to change out the bridge, as the tremolo arm would now be above the bridge instead of below it, where it is much easier to use.

Jimi kept the tremolo arm on top.

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In fact, Stevie Ray Vaughan believed that the tremolo arm placement affected the sound, and had his right-handed Strat fitted with the tremolo arm on the top so he could emulate Jimi's sound.

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[AndyR]

Yep, what he (64G) said about the trems, on both (Jimi/SRV) counts...

I'm not sure whether it affects tone, but I'm fairly certain it affects action of the trem itself. I've been messing with 3 strat trems recently, all vintage "six-screw" jobbies, and I've noticed on all 3 that the strings furthest from the arm get flattened/sharpened more.

I've never tried it, but I also suspect that I'd find the trem easier to use if I did an SRV on it and installed a left-hand bridge.

What's guaranteed to affect the tone is if the slant of the bridge pickup is changed (as it is when JH played an upside-down strat). And if you've got vintage-stagger pole-pieces, the pickups themselves are also "left-handed" or "right-handed".

I'm totally with Speed Demon on the nut thing though - the guitar would play like a complete dog if you just whipped the strings off and put a set on backwards

Having said that, when I was young I came across a couple of lefties just a year or so older than me (late-teens) who could play left-handed on my right-strung guitar better than I could! Is it conceivably that Mr Hendrix could do the same?

EDIT: Haven't read far enough back in the thread to know what he's answering, but I can vouch for what Speed Demon says about the tone circuit. Different capacitor values have HUGE effects on how the thing responds (as can the values and taper of the pots). Some people also swear that the type of capacitor makes a difference (ceramic disk, paper-in-oil (PIO), etc) - some poo-poo this argument a LOT , but I must admit I've found the type does seem to make a difference to my guitars. I use the (far) more expensive PIO in guitars that have harsh top-ends that need taming to make them sound more "vintage". In other guitars, the more expensive caps just seem to make the guitar sound muddy - I keep/stick the cheapo ceramic disks in those!