One of my former bandmates had a strat he played through an old Fender amp that buzzed like the devil. He tried different set-ups and pickups which took care of the buzz, but didn't sound as "meaty" as the tone of the original amp and pickups. Eventually, he went back to the original pickups and either turned downn the volume when not playing or put up with the buzz.

Besides, the buzz made for funny between-song patter about his guitar "drinking again" or "geting buzzed".

By the way, we opened for Buddy Guy one time and while Scott Holt (he was Buddy's second guitarist at the time) was playing Buddy's strat during sound check it "buzzed" like crazy. Buddy's road manager was having a heart attack because nothing seemed to make the buzz problem any better and he was sure Buddy would be ticked off.

Buddy came on to do his set - the strat buzzed something awful when he wasn't playing (he simply turned the volume down or off) - Buddy played his @ss off and didn't give a d@mn. Sounded great, too!

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Buzz problems must be taken seriously. Like Pieter says, it usually relates to bad shielding or missing earth (ground), the later something that even can be fatal on a wet stage if the amp is un-grounded. There's been some bad accidents caused by that on wet outdoors stages over the years, so regard the buzz as a warning signal for something that could lead to real "death metal"..

yup! I was doing a show in cleveland Mississippi afew yrs back,and broke a string in the middle of a song,My lead was coming so another guitar player handed me his guitar and I handed him mine at the same time we both grabed each insturment and got the beans knocked outta us!!!

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Heard about wireless.

Wireless was invented by our bassist, who fell off the stage during a concert in the early 70's. Okay, so it didn't make any sound at the time (he did, though), but the concept was there.

BTW, speaking of pickups. I once saw a really cool Fender strat in a shop, where the middle pickup had been mounted on two steel bars and a lever could be used to move it freely between the two outer pickups, which were adjusted down a bit so the movable mid-pickup controlled the sound better.

The cool thing was that this could be done while playing, so one could shift the sound seamlessly for example in the middle of a chord or a long note. It was a professional job done to it and it was way too expensive for me to buy at the time, but I have been thinking of doing something similar myself, some day..