What are your current favorite strat pickups?

Mark Wein

Mark Wein

Grand Poobah
Staff member
I'm totally over the Kinman Woodstocks in my 440 and want to go back to something non-Suhr but late-60's Fender sounding.

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I'm going to paste what I wrote on Facebook. LOL


Late '60s Hendrix would be a plain-enamel wound pickup rather than a Heavy Formvar wound pickup. If you went Bare Knuckle like above you'd probably actually want to look at the Mother's Milk set.

I'm using a set of Fender's Pure Vintage '65s and they are DEVINE. They would give you the sound of Hendrix with his small headstock Strats up to the early transitional logo Strats. They're also super cheap on Amazon for a set of 3 (I paid $107 but I think the price bounced up a touch).

For later stuff I'd say the Custom Shop '69s or the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Hendrix set.

Whatever you pick, the output, midrange, and bass are heavily affected by the wire type. For instance, the Fender PV59 and PV65 sets are both wound to 5.9K but because the plain enamel insulation is thinner the coil ends up being narrower using the same amount of actual wire, and thus they sound different. That's why I have a set of each. LOL
 
I have a set of Van Zandt True Vintage singles that sound great. I also have a Nordstrom NVS set that sounds great. The Nordstroms are a very clean sound, almost a stereotypical Strat sound. The Van Zandts are a little more rough around the edges and kind of dirty sounding, but are capable of cleaning up well. I also have a set of Wilde Keystones in one of my Strats that I really like, but again, they are different than the other two sets.
 
My buddy in Haunted Hare has Fralins (I think) in his strat-format Musicman. I’ll ask which ones. He’s a big vintage tone whore and they sound pretty rad.
 
It's pretty hard to beat CS '54 or Buddy and CS '69 for Jimi. For vintage tones, they really are as good as any boutique. But I don't think there is a bad choice in this thread.

I put Duncan SSL-1 in my son's Warmoth, they are good, but I prefer the stock (weaker) PU's in my '79 Strat.
 
I've got stock Texas Specials in my Fender and dropped a set of Tonerider City Limits pups in the Purple Plastic Plank Strat clone and like them both. Suspect you're looking for less hot single coils and at a more boutique price point. Friend of mine in the trade strongly recommends Bare Knuckle as a brand to look at. YMMV.
 
GilmourD said:
Low-wind with super-thin polysol insulation on the magnet wire and flat poles. Super focused sounding, right?
Click to expand...

I don;'t think I would call the '79 PU's more focused — weaker, neutral and overall rounder. Pretty mild and forgiving attack on the note.
 
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