Official Luthiers Forum!

Not wanting to hijack Bob J's thread on Tele pickups, can anyone offer advice on Stratocaster pickups?

I need a replacement set for my stratocaster.

My concerns are:
I want to use either single coils or if i use a noiseless stack I want it to retain a strat sound.
Volume.
NOT over magnetising the strings.
Hum.
Price.

I guess that i should mention that i bought a set of vintage noisless pickups a few years ago that over magnetised the strings to such a degree that they put the intonation out and made the guitar unuseable.
Even if i set them very low in the guitar.
They were a noisless stack type thing.
They were very thin, weak sounding.
Although they sounded great in the shop!!!.
A very expenseive waste, at 300 dollars.

I actually heard Eric Clapton's guitar technician complain about the magnetism thing with that particular set/model.

Does anyone know of any well ballanced "all rounder" sets are out there? Brands and models. Pro's and cons.
Bearing in mind the above concerns.

Cheers,
Claire

Clair,

Have a look at Kinman Pickups I have heard very good things about his pickups, especially in regarding strats. Best of all, he's an Aussie, so be sure to check him out by having a good look see around his site. As for the stacked hum you bought and had problems with, unless you changed out your pots from 250k to 500k this may have been part of the problem depending on the brand. No need to do that with Kinman's product however as they are set for 250k pots right out of the box.

Cheers

Kim

Kinmans are very cool, the intonation problem can also be relieved by a full shim in the neck pocket. This in effect forces you to raise the action and gives you more distance from the pickups.
Best, Evan

_________________
http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

I use Jason Lollars pickups in all my electrics...ok so that's only a dozen or
so..whatever. They rock.

lollarguitars.com

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Hi-

Another vote for Lollar pickups - like John said, they rock. Wolfe MacLeod makes some of the best pickups too at Wolfetone pickups. I have electrics with pups from both of these guys. Also - there have been numerous reviews of Harmonic Designs' pickups at the Tonequest report and (I believe) Vintage guitar magazine where they, supposedly, blow away the competition.

If I had to pick only one maker - probably Jason Lollar. Kinman is local for you, so that may help you since shipping from the US is so expensive.

As far as how to solve a few of your problems - the Kinman site is a wealth of great info for "dialing in your tone". Another site that should be required to peruse if you are changing pickups or rewiring is Guitarnuts.com and especially the section on shielding and proper grounding. There is a lot to this website and will take a while to read it all. Start with the pages on safety and then go to the pages on shielding and "star-grounding". That is grounding to a common point to eliminate ground loops. I did this to my strat and an Epiphone with P-90s. Both guitars are now pretty quiet - it's a big difference. Good luck-

_________________
John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

I have found that if you want the strat sound its very hard to go past single coils......I have tried a few brands of stacked noiseless types but especially in position 2 & 4 they don't quite do the strat thing for me...
kinmans are probably better than most for a noiseless type but I have recently gone to Lindy fralins and couldn't be happier .....

Hi All.
Thanks for your post.


Grant:
I have wondered about exploring with Lindy Fralins.
I like the idea of some of their overwound sets.
Did you get a matched set?
Or did ou mix and match?

Cheers,
Claire

just their vintage hot set......i was considering a blues special in the bridge....

i'm thinking blues specials on my tele though.

For Strat, this is what I like

- Fender Custom Vintage 54

- Seymour Duncan Antiquity II "Surf"

For the price, Fender Custom 54 is very good. It has very good single pickup sound and has a lot of "strat" sound. (my style is mainly, blues, country and rock).

Antiquity has probaby the best "quak" tone. It sounds the best in position 2 and 4 (dual pickup positions), for position 1,3,5, I prefer the fender vintage 54.

Neither are noisy at all, but my guitars has shileds in the cavity to reduce humm and noise.

I really like the EMG Hi-Z pick-up from Stew Mac. I got the 6.5 ohm (?) ones, and I love them. They are clean, crisp and clear, and sound great distorted. It's the electric git I usually play. I play lap-steel though. Not too pricey, either. Alan.

If magnetism and hum are a problem you could try EMG active strat set. I use EMG humbuckers and love them. Very quiet hum wise, lovely clean and nasty distortion. I swapped a humbucker out of a single coil SA model in the neck position in my strat like ESP and put an 81 HB in the bridge and I love this guitars range now. The single in the neck is lovely and smooth and bassy and makes me want to make myself a nice stratish style single coil.
Dom