strat PUPs replacement

  • Thread starter Thread starter daav
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daav

daav

Flailing up a storm.
So I am looking at picking up a wired pickguard upgrade for my late-80's MIJ strat. I definately want to stick with the classic single coil tone here, and was planning on vintage noiseless. Then i see the Fender SCN Samarium Cobalt Noiseless Stratocaster Pickup and the Fat 50's and customer shop 69, etc.

Just looking for general opinions on these sets, how different in tones will i be getting here? I'm trying to rebild the strat to fit with a 335 clone with pretty hot PUs that are hard to get to play with a clean tone, and with a LP studio. The latter two tend to be my choices for distortion, the strat will (ideally) be more righ in the highs and for playing more cleanly than the other guits.

THnaks,
Daav
 
daav said:
So I am looking at picking up a wired pickguard upgrade for my late-80's MIJ strat. I definately want to stick with the classic single coil tone here, and was planning on vintage noiseless. Then i see the Fender SCN Samarium Cobalt Noiseless Stratocaster Pickup and the Fat 50's and customer shop 69, etc.

Just looking for general opinions on these sets, how different in tones will i be getting here? I'm trying to rebild the strat to fit with a 335 clone with pretty hot PUs that are hard to get to play with a clean tone, and with a LP studio. The latter two tend to be my choices for distortion, the strat will (ideally) be more righ in the highs and for playing more cleanly than the other guits.

THnaks,
Daav
Click to expand...

These get consistently good marks:

http://www.kinman.com/

I am told that they are the closest to the vintage single coil sound in a noiseless pickup.
 
wow, that interested me in the kinmans...

so i went to look:


kinman Traditional Mk-II set : 305.00 (260 minus shipping?)

Lawrence L200, or 280, or 290 or 298 set: $120 plus shipping.


:confused:
 
Fender's noiseless pickups suck. If you want Noisless, get the Kinmans. Much better pickups. Or else try the new Seymour Duncan Classic Stack Plus, which are supposed to be very close to the Kinmans.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
What kind of music do you want em for? If you're looking for anything from rock to classic metal, do a hot rail in the bridge and cool rails in the middle and neck. But I assume your not by the pups you're looking at. So....

I have no suggestions.
 
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i put a set of Fender Custom Shop Fat 50's in my 83 strat and it sounds fantastic.

tonally, it's as if you take the classic chimey 50's sound and fatten it up a bit--give it a little balls. i guess they named these pickups right. :p if that's the sound you want, i'd certainly give them a go.

any of the noiseless pickups are going to be humbucking in design, and IMO, don't quite get that classic single coil strat sound. that said, a buddy has one of the newer american deluxe strats with the "vintage noiseless" pups and it sounds quite good. mine just sounds a little more "classic", whereas his is a little more "modern" if that makes any sense. his pups seem to load/drive a tube screamer a little better (heavier) too.

one of the things i put in my strat was a fralin blender (in the 2nd tone pot location), which allows me to dial in either a little more neck or bridge to the positions. for example, position 4 is neck and middle.....but using the blender i can pull out a little neck and dial in a little bridge. very useful.

i can't vouch for any of them personally (outside of hearing players who had them in their guitars) but fralins, lawrences, and kinmans are all highly regarded around here. just wanted to chime in since you had mentioned the Fat 50's.


cheers,
wade
 
Use single coils...it's a strat
go with the vintage type pickups
(fender fat 50's, custom shop 69's, 57/62 reissue)
fender is usually lower priced than the other venders for basically the same thing IMO.
I don't like hot rails pickups at all and would NEVER put one in my strat again...but that is my personal taste in tone.

The "old school" fender single coil pickups sound the best. My personal favorite is the 57/62 reissue. I have one in the middle position in my '66 strat because it sounds better than the original.

My favorite 3 pickup combination is: Custom shop 69 (neck position) 57/62 (middle position) texas special (bridge position)
I realize these are 3 different fender pickups, but, this combination really sounds good.


my 2 cents
 
daav said:
So I am looking at picking up a wired pickguard upgrade for my late-80's MIJ strat. I definately want to stick with the classic single coil tone here, and was planning on vintage noiseless. Then i see the Fender SCN Samarium Cobalt Noiseless Stratocaster Pickup and the Fat 50's and customer shop 69, etc.

Just looking for general opinions on these sets, how different in tones will i be getting here? I'm trying to rebild the strat to fit with a 335 clone with pretty hot PUs that are hard to get to play with a clean tone, and with a LP studio. The latter two tend to be my choices for distortion, the strat will (ideally) be more righ in the highs and for playing more cleanly than the other guits.

THnaks,
Daav
Click to expand...


Fender FAT 50s and Jason Lollar Vintage Tweed are the closest I've come to matching the sound of a vintage strat. I like the VNs for recording rhythm parts, since they are very clean and bright.
 
The attached pic is of a vintage 1960s refinished strat with a newer Tex Mex neck finished in nitro (original rosewood fretboard can't take another refret). I upgraded the bridge, p/g and knobs. I also had to replace the middle coil, and ended up going with a FAT 50s, since it sounds almost identical to the original, minus the lower output.
 
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i would like to update my previous opinion on this subject. :p

i love the Fat 50's in the neck and middle positions, but i've never been thrilled with the bridge pickup outside of the neck/bridge position 2. it was downright anemic when run through a distortion or overdrive pedal--the guitar was useless for any song that required crunch.

so i put in a Seymour Duncan JB Jr into that there bridge position. and this guitar positively SCREAMS now. THIS is the sound i've been looking for out of this guitar when it comes to driving gain.

one of the really cool features of the fralin blender pot i've got on there is that i can set it to neck/bridge and then using the blender, dial in a healthy amount of the neck pickup. this makes the clean have that wonderfully hollow, quacky strat sound and stomp the pedal and b/c the humbucker's there, you get loads of meaty crunch while maintaining a lot of the essence of the clean tone, thanks to the neck pup being dialed in. and you want it crunchier? dial out the neck pickup. *very* useful and *highly* recommended.

anyway, here's a big freaking +1 to the JB Jr being a rather useful pickup.


cheers,
wade
 
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