What are your current favorite strat pickups?

GilmourD said:
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
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To my ears the Mother's Milk is just a really perfect example of a good Strat tone without getting bogged down in the component and construction minutiae.
 
I like my Reilander Vintage set. He appears to have put his reverb shop into vacation mode, though.
That’s not me...

 
Kerouac said:
To my ears the Mother's Milk is just a really perfect example of a good Strat tone without getting bogged down in the component and construction minutiae.
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Well, probably because they're just a simple spec, although if you look at the history of Strat pickups prior to the reissues in '83 the spec is ALL OVER THE PLACE. Alnico 3 to Alnico 5 early on, slowly decreasing magnet diameter until '65, Formvar to plain enamel to polysol wire, '54 stagger to '56 stagger to no stagger, etc. Just going by the published spec from different eras you can have a whole bunch of different pickups without adding any special sauce. That's why Fender's got the '54, '56, '57/'62 (which are apparently cloned from a '63 set), '59, '65, and '69 sets.
Honkridge said:
Ya'll are gonna laff at me but

I REALLY like the Malmsteen YJMs. Chimy but can rock out. Oh and pretty silent.
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Yankmy Valvestem's pickups are basically noiseless pickups in the vintage realm and he only uses the top coil himself, making them not even noiseless but the lower coil is there for you to use.
 
Just curiuos, but what dont you like about the Kinmans?

Every time I play my Reverend w/ the P90s I'm always thinking of buying a set of Kinman noiseless P90s. I cant stand the noise coming out of the stock pickups, though they do sound good. Just too noisy for me.
 
Jbird said:
Just curiuos, but what dont you like about the Kinmans?

Every time I play my Reverend w/ the P90s I'm always thinking of buying a set of Kinman noiseless P90s. I cant stand the noise coming out of the stock pickups, though they do sound good. Just too noisy for me.
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They still have the dullness of most active pickups. Better than most, but I'd rather have a little noise and a more open high end.
 
My problem with the noise isnt helped that my house was built in 1947, and has old wiring. Not saying it's the original wiring, but its still 30-40+ old wiring.

The only other place I jam at, my friend Paul's garage, old wiring there too. I get a ton of hum coming from lights or other electronics at either place.
 
Jbird said:
My problem with the noise isnt helped that my house was built in 1947, and has old wiring. Not saying it's the original wiring, but its still 30-40+ old wiring.

The only other place I jam at, my friend Paul's garage, old wiring there too. I get a ton of hum coming from lights or other electronics at either place.
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I hear you on that. My house was built in 1956 and has the same issue for the most part.
 
Jbird said:
Just curiuos, but what dont you like about the Kinmans?

Every time I play my Reverend w/ the P90s I'm always thinking of buying a set of Kinman noiseless P90s. I cant stand the noise coming out of the stock pickups, though they do sound good. Just too noisy for me.
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Every so often I consider the Sensei Jr and figure I’ll replace it with either MojoTone, Fralin, or say fuck it and get a Dimarzio Super Distortion, which they make in P90 size. :grin:
 
Mark Wein said:
They still have the dullness of most active pickups. Better than most, but I'd rather have a little noise and a more open high end.
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That's one thing I like about the DiMarzio Area pickups. They don't lose that high end openness. There's a guy by the name of antigua on the Guitar Nuts forum that does scientific analysis of all different pickups (magnetic field, spectral, electrical, etc.) and he was impressed by how they actually sounded like real singles compared to most.

https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/board/30/pickup-testing-modelling
 
GilmourD said:
That's one thing I like about the DiMarzio Area pickups. They don't lose that high end openness. There's a guy by the name of antigua on the Guitar Nuts forum that does scientific analysis of all different pickups (magnetic field, spectral, electrical, etc.) and he was impressed by how they actually sounded like real singles compared to most.

https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/board/30/pickup-testing-modelling
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The Area T pickups are my favorite pickups.
 
So my Strat has the two Texas Specials in it. It also has a pre- Shawbucker humbucker in there. The difference on my guitar is that it has the S-1 switching on the pickups. Now... those Specials are wound to be hotter than older Strats. You will not really get any quack out of 'em. The bridge pickup can lay on some truly raunchy tone if I set the amp up to deliver it.

One other thing is the pickup height. I have the Erlewine book, and it has a few different easy adjustments in there. I tried the one he describes for Eric Johnson. I used it as a base setting and made a couple tweaks.... sweetness is mine. Try it for yourself.
 
Gorgon90 said:
dropped a set of Tonerider City Limits pups in the Purple Plastic Plank Strat clone and like them
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Thanks for the reminder! I have to remember to get the Tonerider City Limits set out of the fiesta red partscaster I'm giving to my stepson. He won't know the difference between them and the stock pups.

I have Toneriders (singles and a humbucker) in 3 guitars and really like them all.
 
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