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Post by svetlana87 on Dec 13, 2005 21:20:23 GMT -7
I've got the Fender Custom Shop Fat '50's in mine, and I think they are my favorite Fender pickups!
Just wondering what else is out there, I heard Dean Parks really digs the Michael DeTemples.
How about you guys?
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dave
New Member
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Post by dave on Dec 15, 2005 4:43:10 GMT -7
Fralin vintage hots - the bridge pickup is particularly sweet with a Callaham baseplate attached which seems to reinforce midrange output ...there again I have not tried too many other strat pickups so my view may not be wholly representative! The best sounding single coils I ever heard were on my friend Louie's '60s Fender Jaguar.. I have been trying to get Louitone out of my Strats ever since. The Fralins come close.
Dave
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Post by jwr on Dec 15, 2005 8:58:01 GMT -7
I've got a warmoth strat. Alder body, birds eye maple neck and rosewood board. Got kinman AVN-blues set in it and I like them. VERY quiet pickups. Medium output and sound good through all my amps. I think they are a little warmer or fatter sounding than some single coils I've heard. I think that's the nature of that particular set though. The sound clips on his web site are fairly accurate representations of his product, just like Z's. Probably not as vintage sounding as the Fralins though.
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Post by Curt on Dec 15, 2005 11:52:22 GMT -7
For me, Hands down is the Fralins from Callaham..they come with the base plate and I "THINK" they are 3% underwound.....just wonderful pups, sweet and versatile.
BUT 100 pickers will pick 100 different pick ups as "The best".
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Post by hdahs143 on Dec 15, 2005 17:10:42 GMT -7
Seumour Duncan Alnico Pro Staggered (APS-1) with alnico 2 magnets. Very sweet and very responsive to pick attack. I love 'em.
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Post by gwayne on Dec 18, 2005 18:40:49 GMT -7
I've got the Fender Custom Shop Fat '50's in mine, and I think they are my favorite Fender pickups! I couldn't agree more. The Fat 50's are amazing.
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Post by jwr on Dec 18, 2005 21:15:14 GMT -7
By the way, has any body heard/tried a Lindy Fralin Twangmaster? I got a Tele with a humbucker in the bridge(Duncan JB) and I'd like to try something different. Something that will get me closer to "Fender-ville"
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arthur
Junior Member
Posts: 85
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Post by arthur on Dec 18, 2005 22:35:29 GMT -7
I have the Frailin vintage Hots in my Warmoth strat (very light ash body). I did a back-to-back against my friend's '64. His guitar sounded better, but the tone was very similar. I bet mine would do better now that I have the bridge pegged back against the body. These Frailin pickups are much closer to a vintage sound than whatever stock pickups are put in Strats nowadays, which to me lack character.
I also ordered the pickups on a prewired pickguard. I got the blender pot and the volume capacitor, both of which are great features.
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Post by garyh on Dec 19, 2005 21:14:49 GMT -7
I have the Kinman AVN Blues too in my strat. They are absolutely quiet and I could hear no discernable difference from a stock 1960 strat I played a while ago.
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Post by crazy4blues on Dec 19, 2005 21:48:38 GMT -7
Right now I'm enjoying the Z-coils in my comanche. They sound kinda like fat single coils and are very noisless. They really mate will with the Maz 18 Jr.
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Post by jwr on Dec 19, 2005 22:07:07 GMT -7
My Kinmans in my strat are less noisy than my SD Alnico II's in my Les Paul. I don't knowif I'm losing something as a result of the pickups being noiseless, but I really like them so far. I'm not afraid to plug my strat into a high gain amp and let it rip. I want to try Fralins in my Tele, but the bridge pickup is a humbucker, so I guess I gotta try a Twangmaster in that position.
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Post by svetlana87 on Dec 25, 2005 20:55:02 GMT -7
What are the difference between AlNiCo 2's and 5's?
Has anybody tried a noiseless pickup that has captured a classic strat sound?
My friend got some of the Vintage Noiseless P/U's by Fender, and they sound good, but the guitar has no character because of the pickups.
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Post by hdahs143 on Dec 26, 2005 0:29:01 GMT -7
What are the difference between AlNiCo 2's and 5's? Has anybody tried a noiseless pickup that has captured a classic strat sound? My friend got some of the Vintage Noiseless P/U's by Fender, and they sound good, but the guitar has no character because of the pickups. To my understanding, Alnico 5's have a stronger magnetic field than Alnico 2's, which equates to more string pull. Soundwise to me, Alnico 2's are warmer and sweeter sounding and not as pointed in the high end as Alnico 5's. AS far as noisless pickups go, I think Dimarzio does the best job with their Virtual pickups. But nothing sounds like the real thing . Theres just something about the way a true single coil breathes and responds to your playing!
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Post by m1911 on Dec 26, 2005 5:46:51 GMT -7
Standard Lindy Fralin Vintage Hots in Neck and Middle with a Steel Pole 43 in the Bridge.
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Post by jwr on Dec 26, 2005 12:53:40 GMT -7
hdahs143, that's been my experience with alnico 2's and 5's. My JB in the bridge of my Tele has a sharper high end than my alnico 2's in my LP. A friend of mine has a Brian Moore and he took out the JB and put in a alnico 2 in the bridge position because he wanted a warmer, fatter sound. SD Alnico II's are a really nice pickup, especially in the neck position. Really warm but with lots of detail, just enough gain and they let the guitars tonal characteristics come out. svetlana87 check out a set of Kinman AVn-Traditional Mk-II set. They are his classic sounding strat pickups. I almost got those instead of the Avn-Blues set, but I wanted a meatier sound for playing the blues and I love them. They are amazingly quiet, and the tone is pure strat. If your looking for noiseless single coils, you gotta check out Kinmans.
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Post by tele1962 on Dec 28, 2005 22:10:28 GMT -7
To me the old Fender guitars whether Teles or Strats always sounded like Teles and Strats. They had Fender PU's, and Fender sound. Now, maybe today's guitars need hotter PU's and need help sounding better, I don't know. But thousands of careers were launched on that classic Fender tone, and it came from Fender PU's!!
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Post by jwr on Dec 28, 2005 23:15:49 GMT -7
Well, if I had a vintage strat I suppose I would never change the pickup's. But have you heard a NEW Fender strat lately? It's to the point where I don't even look at them anymore, the quality is just too inconsistent. You can find a great instrument, don't get me wrong. But ya really gotta search for it. That's why I do Warmoth guitars for bolt on stlye instruments. I wish I had one of those old strats or teles with origional PU's. But quality control at a LOT of company's has gone down hill, I think that's why company's like Fralin and Kinman and other's do so well. They concentrate on one thing and one thing only:pickups. And they are fanatics about the quality of there products and there business is small enough that they can still monitor most everything themselves. Sounds just like an amp company that we are all so fond of. I hope I'm not offending anybody out there, it's just a theory of mine.
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Post by real oldster on Dec 29, 2005 5:44:55 GMT -7
I think the majors like Fender and Gibson know what we want in our pickups and they're perfectly able to build them. They probably offer something very close to the old SC's and PAF's we desire. But you have to find them. They market products based on price point. The majors see that many players are willing to pay for quality boutique pickups and they want some of that market for themselves. So you're likelier to find vintage tone in a high-end, custom shop instrument. FWIW
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Post by jwr on Dec 29, 2005 16:32:31 GMT -7
Yeah, I agree with you oldster. My PRS is the most expensive guitar I own, and I refuse to change a thing on it. It's totally stock and is one of the only company's that I'm willing to pay that much money for one there instruments. Fender and Gibson USED to build EVERY guitar to meet those same standards, but now you have to buy there Relic instruments or boutique models. But who wants to pay the prices that Gibson or Fender want for there high end instruments? I can't count how many different kinds of strats Fender makes now and Gibson is getting the same way with Les Paul's. It's cheaper to buy a used Les Paul standard, re-fret it, change the tuners and pickups and call it a day, or buy a Warmoth and build the guitar the way you want it done in the first place. You usually end up with a better instrument and will save your self a ton of money.
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Post by tele1962 on Jan 1, 2006 10:29:54 GMT -7
I'll agree with Oldster as well, in the fact that these quality parts and instruments are easily available. I was just working on a Fender Custom Shop stratocaster for a friend of mine yesterday ( action, PU adjustments, etc) and was surprised that the quality was first rate. So was the tone, and the PU's sounded stellar. Now mind you, these are CS Abigail Ybarra wound PU's, and for this you have to pay! But it sounds pure Fender, and this is the magic for many players. JWR has a point about money spent, but who cares what the dollar is if the sound is wrong? Why did we buy Z Amps for example, instead of Re-Issue Deluxes or those horrible new Vibroluxes? I would rather pay someone like Doc to get it right than purchase that Deluxe and add this and change that to make it sound only halfway to where it should sound! There are cheap guitars everywhere. Something for everyone. And I will confess to using Lindy Fralins myself! But the only reason for that is to fix a sound that wasn't there on a particular guitar. What I could have done is buy a Custom Shop version of that guitar and been more true to pure Fender tone, and spent maybe marginally more $$ on the whole deal, by the time I got that guitar to where I wanted it to be. To my mind these days there's two ways to get the job done with both guitars and amps. 1) Spend your coin and buy old vintage - the real deal. 2) Spend your coin and buy boutique or "Custom Shop" The reason so many of us here play Z Amps is that we laid out the $$ for tone, understanding that it doesn't come cheap or free, and in many cases it didn't pay to polish a turd!
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Post by sprinter on Jan 1, 2006 14:20:31 GMT -7
I like G&L's, MFD pickups.
Sprinter
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2006 19:46:41 GMT -7
hows about Lollars
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2006 19:47:15 GMT -7
or even DeTemples
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Post by janinedoubly on Jan 2, 2006 20:13:31 GMT -7
I choose Fralin pickups over anybody elses, with a very close second to Lollars. The Vintage Hots are great (with baseplate installed), the V. Hot/Steel Pole 43 set is cool if you don't want Fender bridge pickup twang, more P-90. Another little known set from Fralin is the Real 54's. Same winding as the V. Hots, but with the slightly weaker magnet, the top end is more "airy" AND you can bring the pickups CLOSER to the strings because of the lesser string pull. This actually allows the Real 54's to have a little more output, without getting into the warmer/darker range of overwound Strat pickups. Installed in an acoustically alive guitar, the real 54's are fantastic. If your guitar is more on the mediocre resonance side, the V. Hots are the best.
For humcancelling, I prefer the Dimarzio Virtual Vintages. They don't have the weird compression problem the Kinman pickups have. I had a Grosh Strat with Kinmans that would just suck the dynamics out of the guitar. When I switched to a basic Fender '57 re-issue with Fralins in the middle of a gig, the dynamic range issue was very apparant. The Dimarzios do not do this, although they are still no match for the Fralins from a tone stand point.
Fralin's Split Coil humbuckers (P-92's) are fantastic. But I haven't tried the Twangmasters. But if they are anything like Fralin's Alnico P-90's, they should be incredible. Very Gretsch/Dearmond like.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2006 8:56:28 GMT -7
Has anybody tried a noiseless pickup that has captured a classic strat sound? My friend got some of the Vintage Noiseless P/U's by Fender, and they sound good, but the guitar has no character because of the pickups. To my understanding the Noiseless is essentially a Lace. You're only going to get about 85% of the true single coil sound out of either.
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Post by foxx on Jan 7, 2006 17:42:31 GMT -7
I have a 93 American Strat with Lace pick-ups. I don't really understand what that means, fuctionally or tonally. It's a design of a single coil of course. I am not attached to the Lace's, and since nobody here seems to be using them maybe it's time to considered better sounding pick-ups. So, what's wrong with the Lace's? Am I losing tone? Can this guitar sound even better with my Mazerati?
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Post by StrangeC on Jan 7, 2006 19:09:48 GMT -7
So the Fender CS Noiseless pickups are basically Lase Sensors? I haven't done a lot of back-to-backs with single coils, but generally I like the Noiseless pickups.
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Post by billyguitar on Jan 8, 2006 10:08:39 GMT -7
The way a Strat hangs on me puts my right hand in an awful kink so I don't play them but I have had a little experience putting Kinman's in a Tele. I have a '52 Fender reissue Tele that i had a lot of customization done to. One item was to install Kinman AVn 48s. My recollection was that they sounded very, very close to the Fender original pickups (which I thought sounded good enough themselves). I like the Kinman's a lot and really like no hum. I'd rather adjust my ears and amp than deal with the hum. One less distraction.
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Post by jwr on Jan 9, 2006 8:55:02 GMT -7
foxx, I really like my kinman's. I did a ton of research before I bought them and if your looking for NOISELESS single coils, check out Kinman's. If you don't care about noise or hum there are ton's of other pickups out there that will breath life into your strat.
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Post by tele1962 on Jan 9, 2006 9:01:43 GMT -7
Hi Foxx,
The Lace Sensor PU was developed by Fender to avoid the fade that occurs when you bend a string over the magnetic posts. It was almost exclusively associated with "Active Electronics", and I know that meant changing 9V batteries. In addition to changing batteries being a pain the butt, there was another essential conflict, and that was tone. The Lace Sensors were TOO strong and too efficient with a new battery, especially. The result was a cold, high voltage output type of single coil sound that was roundly hated and rejected by enough players ( Clapton was one of them) to make Fender basically discontiue mfg. of the Sensor and go to the new Noiseless PU. In both the Sensor and Noiseless, some efficiencies are up or improved, BUT...tone , or at least traditional vintage Stratocaster tone is compromised. Please always remember that the tone of a Strat was made magical by the PU's of the 50's. This included many inefficiencies and even deficiencies in design. The magic was in the fact that the pole pieces DIDN'T hang on to the bend, for example!
Can we give an example of this with amps perhaps? A solid state rectifier is much more modern and efficient than a tube rectifier. Z goes back to the tube rectifiers and stays there. Why? When changing AC to usuable DC in a tube amp, the rectifier...if it's tube configured...presents a little "sag" in the translation. This is a piece of the tone picture, and something that no matter how old school or inefficient it would seem compared to solid state, cannot be replaced somehow.
Hope this helps a little!
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