why on earth anything less than 9.7K in Strat bridge??

[jerryjg]

I talked to a vintage Strat owner ( he owns several), and he reccomended at least 9.7K to 10.3K for the Strat bridge when used with a middle and bridge pickup at or about 6.3K. He said the vintage strats were great, but in reality, a little hotter bridge pickup is a better idea. Thats why so many pickup makers make a hot bridge pickup( duncan custom bridge antiquities for instance) ? .I agree I think. The bridge pickup on my clone is at 7.3 and both the neck and middle are at 6.3 and the bridge is totally inadequate.Thoughts?

[Kap'n]

They sound better when they're weaker.

My bridge pickup is 6.5kohms, and I use is a lot.

[Don]

My Fralin Vintage Hot bridge pickup was 6.8k. I unwound it to 6.2 and use it more.

9.7k to 10.3k is way to hot for most people.

Weaker pickups are chimier and sweeter in a Strat and sound great when you crank up the amp.

[Offshore Angler]

Yep, the lower the output the more you can push the amp and the sweeter the tone.

[itbepopples]

I can't wait to replace the stupid ScN pickups in my Strat and get nice real singles that are nice and weak. :)

[Don]

On the other hand, I like a good, strong bridge pickup in my Tele...

[refin]

I have had success with weak or strong pups.The current fav is my GFS set (hot alnico staggered) which has a bridge reading between 9 and 10k.It seems to automatically do what I would expect a boutique boost pedal to do---boost the natural flavor of the single coil with a nice "halo" around the notes,complete with sweetness.

[JAM]

The bridge p'up on my Strat is 6.5K and the Tele is 9.6k, both GFS. If you need to push the front end of an amp, it's better to use a boost pedal than having to use overwound p'ups IMO.

[jerryjg]

I mean... its more of a balance issue. I mean, youre neck and middle pickups are hotter than the bridge when theey are all wound at low resistance ...and the bridge sounds anemic?

[refin]

Yeah, but you could make a Mickey Mouse guitar sound good.

I'm not a fan of overwound pickups, but the CSTST's in ol' Piney sound pretty good.

Fezzer,you are being much too kind.......I've always thought that about you!

[pseudocat]

I just put GFS '60s Repros in my strat, and the set came to me a bit underwound (5.6K for the bridge, advertised at 5.8K), and it sounds great. Really great.

[Russ]

+ 1 with refin , I have the GFS 64 texas set and like the hot bridge pup. I also have a CS custom 54 bridge pup in the neck position on another strat It works great in the neck ,sounded useless to me in the bridge. Every one likes different things, its all good ! trying different things can be fun and surprising.

[JAM]

I mean... its more of a balance issue. I mean, youre neck and middle pickups are hotter than the bridge when theey are all wound at low resistance ...and the bridge sounds anemic?

I dont have a balance issue. I followed fezz's suggestion of starting with the p'ups low, (on the deck as fezz says) and start with the neck pickup. Then the others pickups height are set to balance. The GFS neck and middle are wound less than the bridge anyway. It doesn't sound anemic - it sounds like a Strat.

[frank thomson]

i like the CS54's...i think they're like 5.7 ea.

yummy...!

[tubaman5150]

I dunno...
I guess the idea would be that the higher the output, the less thin and screechy the bridge will sound. I don't think that's always true. The Fender SCN bridge pup is hot, but sounds dull and tinny to me.
Lately, I've been looking around for Alnico II magnet bridge pups that have been dialed in to have a smoother top end, but not necessarily high output.

[Russ]

i like the CS54's...i think they're like 5.7 ea.

yummy...!

Frank the 54s are 5.9 neck and middle, 6.5 bridge my CS54 bridge came in closer to 6.9

The 57/62 are 5.6 the 69s 5.8

[JAM]

That's pretty close to the GFS '64 Stagger (Vintage). 5.8K Neck, 6.3K Mid and 6.5K bridge.

[Russ]

That's pretty close to the GFS '64 Stagger (Vintage). 5.8K Neck, 6.3K Mid and 6.5K bridge.

Yes it is that is why I got the 64 texas I already had a set of CS54s and wanted more out of the bridge, I like it.

[Wilko]

6.5k is pretty average for vintage strats.

Why on earth? 'cause they sound freakin' awesome!

My 1960 has about 6.5k all around. No one has ever complained about the sound.

[refriedwhiskey]

When I installed Fender VNs in my Squier, I expected them to be scorching hot, compared to the stock pups. At first, I was a touch disappointed that they didn't just scream. Eventually, though, I noticed how good they sounded. Around the same time, I did some reading online that made it clear the "vintage" Strat sound isn't necessarily the sound of very hot pickups. I assume that's why Fender makes another set of pickups called Hot Noiseless -- for people who'd rather have hot than "vintage."

And I figure it's also why they use Vintage Noiseless in the Clapton signature model.

[matsb]

I have a mix of GFS sets in my strat - neck and middle are 60's repro (staggered) and for bridge pup I put the neck one from the 64 stagger overwound set. They read 5.35, 5.5 and 7.2 approximately. Which gives me a good balance.

Not having to raise the bridge pup a lot in order to get a good balance outputwise as you would have to with a standard set also means you don't produce so much ice-pick-in-the-forehead with it...

The 9.something in that 64 overwound set sounded a bit thick and untransparent in my ears, unable to produce those sweet jangly shimmering sounds you want as well.

Just my 15 oere

[jamisonst]

I like Fralin Vintage Hots or Blues Specials but with the SP43 in the bridge. It's like 10k, P90 output and it flat out rocks!

[yankeerob]

The thread's pretty long but - as an aside by now - the one thing that I've come to dislike is the hot bridge p/up in my Kinman 'blues' set - I'm in favor of a weaker p/up in the bridge to keep it lean, clean and mean... your hands adjust and it's a real p*sser when there's just too much juice coming out of a p/up when you don't want it... if you use the vol knob to control the potential and crank your amp - you'll have a lot of control - but the essential thing will be that your p/ups are good and potted to control the squeal that will result if they aren't and you get a bit too close to the amp - that's of course assuming that you want a classic Strat sound - when you go over that 6.5K or so mark - it loses that magic tone and starts sounding like something else - that's just the way it is...

[NDRU]

What are the current American Standard Strat PU ratings?

[ragtweed]

refin rocks! I'll vouch for that. Anyway, back in the day when Dimarzio and Duncan were about all you could find in the aftermarket p'up world I chose two Duncan SSL-1's and an SSL-5 for my Fernandes Strat (copy). I never put a meter on 'em and it was until later that I realized how overwound the bridge p'up was. Ridiculous!

[demioblue]

I dunno... I just checked my fav Kinman bridge pups, and they measure at: 6kOhms (Traditionals) and 8.8kOhms (Hank Marvins). One falls below 8.7k, and one is JUST above. But these are really nice sounding pups. I don't see the relevance in meeting an actual value???