Mika,
I got one of them Hum/starts here with a 7,2 neck & 14.0k bridge antiquity 2 magnets. Very cool indeed,
but soon I'll be swaping them out for Antiquity P-90's.
ST
Mika,
I got one of them Hum/starts here with a 7,2 neck & 14.0k bridge antiquity 2 magnets. Very cool indeed,
but soon I'll be swaping them out for Antiquity P-90's.
ST
hi!
my first post here, so hello to you all!
i really like the tone of my american standard tele stock pickups. i had used joe barden for a couple of month but changed back to the original pickups. imho only a real singlecoil sounds like a singlecoil.
that delta tone system really sounds great. i've shielded all cavities with copper. so hum is reduced to a minimum.
christian
I have a 2001 MIM Standard that sounded great from day one with the stock pups. It's a keeper.
I also have a used '94 CIJ Strat in natural ash which came with Texas Specials. The TS's sounded good but didn't provide enough tonal variation for me like the MIM, so I swapped them for a set of SD Nashville Studio 5-2's. These sounded outstanding in the neck and middle, but the bridge was a little too ice-picky, so I swapped the bridge for a SD Lil '59. The 3rd mod was the charm, this pup config sounds awesome.
Gotta admit I have favorites. As a repairman I get to see/hear/smell a lot of stuff. I laughed about the PU of the month club! But hey, its bread and butter ya know?
My favorites:
Duncan 59
Duncan Pearly Gates in Fs or Gs !!!
Fralins: Neck 5% over, M stock, B 7% over & baseplate, can still get good notch sounds with the overwounds
Same configuration for VV Blues, DP 401, Heavy Blues
Checked outh the Kinmans at NAMM, and I was mightily impressed.
My favorite Tele neck PU: old Gibson miniHBs with the exposed adjustable pole pieces. They mate so well with the stock style bridge PU and I can get a great jazz tone and blues tone. I love it, best thing I ever did and search a long time to find the right combo.
However, the perfect Tele bridge seems elusive to me. I've had great luck with the Jerry Donahue, but I keep thinking there is something better. I've tried and rejected lots for this position.
The ultimate sound in my mind is a tight and bright punchy bottom, like the bottom of a grand piano with a bright high, that is also fat and smooth. Golden highs I like to think, fat round corpulent, but not in a HB compressed way. Maybe I think about it too much...still the JD sounds pretty damn good! Thoughts?
My ultimate dream PU is one that can sound like a great Tele bridge PU split (or cut, tapped etc however the technology has to work) and a Duncan Pearly Gates.
That with a Duncan 59/cut to miniHB in the neck would be a great dreamcaster. Ash thinline w/ roseboard, string thru, 3 brass saddle. I love day dreaming!
For Strats my favorites so far are Lindy Fralin vintage hots with the base plate and blender pot.
The stock ones weren't terrible , a little noisy though.
I had the same set up as Lightning boy for years in the strat.
Blue Lace neck, Gold middle and Red bridge , and had tried them flipped too Red neck , blue bridge which I ended up liking better.
I plan on building a strat to put them in some day.
Switching to the Fralins took some getting used to , but they have a beautiful clarity , the blender pot is killer . When driven they remain articulate.
The stock bridge pickup in a friends 57 Tele was pure heaven, I'm building a Tele now and have Texas Specials for it. Hopefully they will sound as good as all the reviews I've read .
I am not happy with my strat. Stock pups were marginal and noisy. Fender noisless were just 'off', not sure how to explain it. The current set up is a SD cool rail bridge and SD classic stacks mid and neck. I like the rail for dirty tones but the rest are not to my liking. Perhaps I am just a humbucker guy trying to squeeze into a SC world. I am considering the Kinmans as the next possibility. I think maybe 62's mid and neck and a 59 bridge if I recall the models correctly. If those don't work out it may be time to dump a set of SD'59's in it and cop Scott henderson's sound... LOL!!
hello all;
i was not happy with my stock pickups on my MIJ reissue 68 lefty strato but I like a lot the guitar (small neck, maple, nice big head) ; after reading that a lot of people having MIJ changed their pickups , i finally decided to go kinmans avn blues set.
you can listen to an audio sample here
the good thing is I don't bother anymore to turn around to minimise the hiss when i'm on position 1 or 5; position 3 is really interresting and is my default position now; i hear a lot more of everything : more precision, more dynamic, more guts: i'm happy !
bali
Well, the bridge pickup on my Tele (Duncan APTL-3JD - Jerry Donahue model) is very nice indeed. The middle pickup (Fender Texas Special Strat model) is also decent.
The problem is the neck pickup. It's a Fender American Standard Tele neck pickup that came stock in the guitar. It sounds okay but it's nothing special. I'd like a neck pickup that balances with the bridge and middle pickups and is full, bright, punchy, smooth and full of balls.
I have a Gibson 480t in the bridge of my Ibanez hollow body, R/S/B Lace Sensors in my Am. Std. Strat, Stock pickups in my 87 Squire/Fender (AMAZING) strat and am. std. in my 95 squire bullet beater guitar...
I can't honestly choose a favorite... the lace sensors are great for acheiving 5 completely different sounds, the 480t is my ideal humbucker, the pickups in this freak squire are great for blues...
I love all of my guitars
The SK Guitar Specialties vintage pups in one of my telecasters. Sweet. http://www.skguitar.com
2001 Am Dlx Fat Strat. All Stock. Love the tone on the vintage noiseless. The neck PUP is great. The Humbucker (don't know what brand it is) is also very good.
Now saying all that. I'm kind of new to all this swaping of pups, caps and pots.
Would my guitar sound better with other pups? Maybe.
brianf
Oh Man!!! I never knew Fender made amps too!!!
In one Strat,Kinman Traditional set in the other Strat Kinman Blues set.
Conclusion.....saved for a long time but now the search is over.
Watto
Reynolds Valve-art ,The best amps ever made.
I have replaced the Am. Std. Tele bridge pickup with a Fender Nocaster Clean model. So far, it's been fantastic! There aren't enough adjectives to describe it. Just try one for yourself.
I put a DiMarzio Twang King neck model in the neck position and am happy, to a degree, with it. I was thinking of putting a Texas Special Tele neck pickup in; but in the back of my mind one thing keeps haunting me - mini-humbucker...
I have listened to me Seymour Duncan humbucker sample CD over and over. The SM-1 Vintage model has a great sound to it. It's bright and jangly. It has got warmth and smoothness and I think it would be a great match for my Nocaster bridge pickup and Texas Special middle position Strat pickup.
I love my American Deluxe Strat with the Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups. Some people say that these aren't the best as far as stacked coils concerns, but I must disagree. I A/B'd this Strat against three real vintage Strats (a 62', a '63 and a '65), and they sounded incredibly similar clean and distorted. Additionally, they don't hum! By the way, I agree with the others in this Forum saying that it's difficult to make a bad choice in the upper Fender-line. Just my two cents.
got the fralin vintage hots with the baseplate, and am convinced that un-noizless was the right choice. there's just so much more depth of sound. went an a/b'd them against the voodoo st60-bl's this week (discovered 'em a week and a half AFTER i bought the fralins!), and i was extremely impressed. didn't like the guitar they were in, though. anyone got a set of the voodoo st60-bl's they'd like to trade for my fralin vintage hots? i'd even consider throwing in a set of lace holy grails. if anyone's innarested, they can reach me at 718-389-2235.
ml
Last edited by badmuddy; 01-10-2003 at 10:25 PM.
"no, no, your all confused. it's not the sun that's goin' down, it's the hori-zon that's movin' up!" - firesign theatre
90 american strat: bridge stelly, neck and middle van zandt vintage plus. I am very happy with that 3c sunburst alderbody, rosewood neck guitar, the tones I get out of it is thick, and very well defined (more than the stocks which were not bad after all. I like the stock 90's more than the texas specials for example. But I do not like the 02 stocks I have). It's a little more on the bass side.
01 texas special fat strat, on that sienna burst ash body maple neck guitar, I have pearly gates + on the bridge, lindy fralin vintage hots on the neck and middle. It is more defined than VZ's but has less bass. I osrt of like VZ more but in the mix this guitar I think cuts through much better!
02 american strat, mary kay white, ash body rosewood neck. I have a torres tele bridge on the bridge, a texas special middle in the middle and torres real vintage in the neck. The bridge gives excellent tele tones, I am completely satified with it. On the neck, it's somewhere in betwen VZ's and LF's, less bassy than VZ's but more defined, and less trebly and defined than LF's but more bassy. I'd say DT's are closer to LF's and my 90 stocks.
barlo the kuentikin (=holder of power)
regarding the HB's:
I love the antiquity HB's on the neck of my tele. It's awesome! very open and smooth tone.
rio grande BBQ and Texas are excellent. But I cannot use it for everything, they are more on the (rellatively) higher output side. And BBQ has a very characteristic upper mid scream that I like a lot. But sometimes it's too much in a smooth song!
Pearly gates bridge : I love that pickup, it simply is super!
Pearly gates +: It's less in output and a little more trebly than pearly gates (AII versus AV), but it's not thin as 498T! It's an excellent pickup for strat bridges.
59: I have kinda mixed experience with them. The first two I've got, I did not like (and sold them). Last month I've bought a new one for the neck of my 24 fret mah/maple cap arch top tele. That one is very good, excellent in fact, and I am keeping it. It's somewhere between texas and antiquity. Very thick, and open! It is perfect for a pearly gates bridge.
The ones I do not like are: dimarzio x2N, megadrive, 02 fender strat stocks, gibson 498T (I like the 490R) and 500T/496R.
barlo the kuentikin (=holder of power)
I just installed a BG1400 in my Tokai tele. It's a SD custom shop model that's basically a hot stack with a bit of "Pearly Gates" thrown in. (The BG stands for Billy Gibbons). It's incredible. Clean, it has a bit of tele-ness, more "bonk" than twang. Dirty, the harmonics leap out at you. I had it wired Esquire style with a series/parallel push pull. Pretty cool; I'm going to lose the neck PU and just use it as a one-pickup wonder.
I have several combinations that I like...generally a pre-amp will be found if you look hard enough.
I have an EMG Lukather setup (w/ a Gilmore SPC added in) in a Floyd-equipped custom-made strat-style. Love the tones. Will pull Ronnie Earl clean jazz perfect, along with other various tones.
Another custom-built has 2 Barden 2-Tone HB's attached to an EMG Afterburner skeleton and an added EXG control, that guitar has umm, lots of gain, while being deadly-quiet at the same time thanks to the Bardens ultra-quietness even when boosted.
A Tele I have has Bardens mixed in with the factory (Levinson) on-board pre-amp, which gives tons of versatility. Gatton to Sabbath.
That's what I like in my pickups, lots and lots of versatility, clean-to-mean in the same guitar, I achieve that by several different scenarios.
I am now building a guitar specifically set aside for some Don Mare Hot Gold Lace Sensors, (thanks SMark!) can't wait to give them a whirl, I will probably hook them up with another EMG Afterburner for some extra hot sauce! The Afterburner is nice since you can turn it down and it's just the stock pickup sound, so the versatility is there...I was going to go with SMarks Dually setup, but I think I changed my mind and am going to go with the 3 SC approach, since I will have the Afterburner on-board, it can thicken things up considerably. From stock-no gain at all to Godzilla-gain. I can't decide if I want to put a Floyd in that one too, don't want too many Floyds, (too much maintenance) but those Hot Golds seem to want a whammy...not sure on that one yet...
I might even saddle them up with the full-out EMG DG-20 Gilmore compliment, an SPC and an EXG to boot! Scrum-diddle-de-umptious! More versatility!
Last edited by Alucard; 01-27-2003 at 10:57 PM.
"EMG Afterburner skeleton and an added EXG control"
Hey Alucard, could you tell me what this means - you lost me (not that that's real hard to do).
As to the original post, so far I'm having the most fun with some Fralin Vintage Hots - they are very articulate even with tons of distortion - love 'em.:bigal :bigal :bigal
Sure.
By using the A-burner pre-amp, it allows you to use any pickups you want, and graft the A-burner on to the tail end of the circuit, right before the output jack, but since you are changing the circuit to low impedance, it allows you to use any specialty pot that EMG offers too, like the SPC or EXG or any other EMG specialty pot, so you can make an ~incredibly~ versatile setup.
Only note, I would never use the A-burner with regular SC's or P-90's, as it boosts everything (noise included) so I stick with noiseless pickups when I'm going to use an A-burner, it is almost a necessity to keep the white-wash background noise to a minimum. Those Bardens are deathly-quiet.
Can't wait to try out the Hot Golds with the EMG add-on package!
WooHoo!
Hey remember me,
I be back,
this month I am crazy about a 2000 Squire affinity thats been heavy reliced and the finish was scraped off the finger board,
it sports the Duncan Broadcaster & 5~2 neck, KILLER TONE & I don't mind the 60cycle hum! these pups are staying in this ax forver!
I have been using it as my main #1 ...4-5 nights a week,
this guitar is the best darn Tele going around these parts ... all my friends borrow it at the gigs and Jams,
I personally can't play another guitar for more then a 1/2 of a song before I want it back!
S~Tech
During my pointy guitar phase, I favored EMG pups. When I built my ultimate "swiss army" guitar, I loaded it with two EMG-89's with an SA in the middle. Nice even fundamental tone.
When I searched out a stock MIA Strat, I played a dozen or so and finally bought the one I dug the most, unfortunately, I spent a month and $$ trying to find the "right"pup. Turns out it was the stock Delta Tone pups. Go figure.
Look to that grito character, he rocks!
I didn't like the Red, Blue, Gold Lace combination in my strat so I went for Rio Grande tallboys. I then did the same mod to a Lone Star strat. I have been happy ever since....
I have one Strat that I have Lil'59ners in and that Strat is amazing, but I lost the "vintage sound" in that guitar. That's okay because I use it when playing appropriate music...
I'm IN LOVE with my pickups:
Teles:
'52 RI w/Kinman Broadcasters
'85 '62 RI w/Kinman 60's
'76 w/Harmonic Designs'54 N/Van Zandt B
'00 Nasville Deluxe w/HD V+'s
Strats:
'02 Callaham w/Fralins 3% Underwounds
'85 '62 RI with HD Vintage +'s
'94 w/Kinman AVN Blues
All of these sets are keepers, excellent pickups for what they are designed to do.
Soon to come: Lentz Tele and Strat. I expect that this will be another love affair.
'My art and profession is to live.' Michel de Montaigne
I've only changed on one guitar in many years, a MIJ '62
RI Tele. I installed Bill Lawrence L280TN/L290 ones.
These sound great. Everything and even more than
I hoped them to be.
Most of my others are stock. The Historic Les Pauls, 52 RI
and CS Strat sound fine as is from factory.
I have a couple of guitars from the '70s that someone
put DiMarzios in. Now these are old replacements!
Earl
I agree with GuildX700 (as usual :tw59 ) - most of my current guitars have they're original pickups, excepting two. You'll be interested in the first tanawana: my MiM Powerhouse Deluxe Strat - the AlNiCo singles were too noisey in it for my tastes with the 12db mid-boost, so I was originally going to pick up a set of Lace Golds and throw them in, but then I remembered that I had a couple of old Evans Strat pickups lying around, so I found a third and threw them in... Anybody remember Evans? They enjoyed some popularity in the '80s - they had a Ľ page add in the back of Guitar Player that read "Clean, clear distortion" (or something like that), and came stock on the Alex Lifeson-endorsed Signature guitars out of Canada. Anyway, the Evans were a bit of lucky inspiration, because this guitar and the mid-boost circuit absolutely love them, and it sounds fantastic... My MiJ Squier Tele has a set of Texas Special Tele pups in it, which sound great in that guitar - it's a really light little Basswood guitar that doesn't even tip 7 lbs. and it really needed some strong pups to give it a voice, and the Texas Specials did nicely - it's one of my favorite axes and cost me less than $200
Last edited by Jimi D; 02-23-2003 at 05:34 PM.
He's hot! He's hip! and he's hairy!
i'm really startin' to dig my fralin vintage hots. they've really come alive with the "jimi" pickup height adjustments. wonderful chime & that tubey neck pos. i might just save the alleva-coppolo's for the guitar i'm gonna have jimmy coppolo build me.
ml
"no, no, your all confused. it's not the sun that's goin' down, it's the hori-zon that's movin' up!" - firesign theatre
Hi everyone.
Shielding your guitar properly makes a big difference in noise reduction. May I suggest that if you're dissatisfied with your pickups you ought to perform a shielding operation before swapping out the pups.
I've got a "project" strat mongrel that I first assembled about 15 years ago and have been messing around with ever since. Originally it had a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in the bridge and some crappy EMG's in the other two positions.
Then, about six years ago I replaced those EMG's with a Gold Fender Lace Sensor in the middle and a Blue FLS in the neck.
About the same time I wired it with three switches to do series/parallel switching and some other groovy tricks.
In the last week, the strat was re-born again and this time I can't imagine changing it ever again. It's now got Seymour Duncan lipstick tube pickups in all three positions and it sounds like heaven.
My tele has Kinmans in it. I can't say enough good things about his pickups. They really are outstanding in all regards. If all they did was eliminate noise, they'd be good pickups. But they also sound so good. They are a spectacular feat of engineering.
But you know what? My strat is almost as quiet. I've got that thing shielded properly and it's nearly as good as the tele.
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