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A 1960 Strat has no essential tone that its pickups alone are facilitating for the player. It can be clean, dirty, or anything in between. Same goes for a '92 MIM or anything before or since made anywhere. A Strat is a very blank canvas for your creativity.
Of course, there are a gazillion Strat pickup options. I'm a fan of Lindy Fralin Vintage Hots for clean Strat tones. But that's just 'cause I have a set and they sound great. I'm sure I'd like plenty of other pickups, too.
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10-22-2018 10:45 AM
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Another option I would recommend are Fender Eric Johnson pickups. I have them in both my EJ strat and a '86 MIJ strat. I can get some nice jazz tones or any other tone really. It was a nice upgrade over the stock '86 MIJ pickups which actually are not too bad themselves.
Amazon.com: Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster Pickups, Set of 3: Musical Instruments
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Lace Golds were the original equipment on the Strat Plus I bought new 30 years ago. Still my only guitar for performance and in all that time (over ten thousand hours on stage) I have never thought about swapping them.
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Fender 57/62 reissues for me.
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Like Roger (rpguitar), I favor the Lindy Fralin pickups. They come closer to the 60s pickups that were in both my '65 and my '68 Stratocasters. (Fender used to just grab pickups from a barrel. My '65 had three pickups dated '64. My '68 had one pickup dated '64, one '65 and one '66. Both guitars were 100% factory original.)
RP is correct that the Stratocaster is a canvas. If the guitar has a good neck and body, half-way decent pickups, and if the neck joint is decent (important), the guitar will work well. My impression to date is that the MIM Stratocasters are a great canvas indeed. My main beef is that folks tend to string them too lightly. With rounds or flats, I think the Stratocaster really comes to life with strung with .11-.50 gauge strings. (Oh, no...I won't be able to bend. BS! The strings will respond to your finger vibrato--from BB to Eric to whatever, just fine.) Overall, the muscularity of the tone will improve DRAMATICALLY if you grab a set of what used to be called "light gauge" strings (i.e., .11-.50).
A particularly fine set is the TI Jazz BeBop set in the gauge mentioned above.
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I use TI Jazz 11's on my Strat partscaster. It also has Lace Holy Grail pickups. I like them. They are supposed to be modeled on some vintage type of Strat pick up, but they are noiseless. I don't like hum and they sound decent to me. I am in the process of rewiring it for a master volume, a 12 position varitone, and a tone depth pot. I did that on my Tele partscaster and am really pleased with the tone adjustability. The standard strat wiring seems to be mostly ineffective for tone control.
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I've played a MIM standard strat with the stock ceramic pickups next to my 89 Am Std through the same amp/settings, and the MIM sounded significantly brighter and more piercing (the dreaded icepick in the eardrum Fender sound in spades) than the stock alnico V pickups in mine. So, yes, the guitar itself could be a blank slate, but those pickups have a strong character that I don't think will change much with different gauge strings. I think if you swap them for almost any alnico pickup (Fender, boutique, or bargain such as GFS), there will be a noticeable difference. Whether that makes it sound more "60s", I don't know, but definitely different. I've been happy with the stock Fender alnico V pickups and never tried anything else that made me want to switch. I've tried both 10s and 11's, wound up sticking with 10s. The high E probably does sound a little better, but I prefer the feel of 10s.
Originally Posted by Greentone
John
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I'm on a big Strat kick lately. My favorite is an alder/maple Warmoth hardtail that weighs only 6.75 lbs. With 11-49 rounds and action just high enough to not buzz under normal picking, it's really resonant, and great for any style of music. I have it lightly finished with Tru-Oil. This is the guitar with the Fralins.
I'm going to build a new partscaster soon. It will have a roasted swamp ash body, maple/rosewood neck, and Fender Custom Shop '69 pickups. This one will have a trem and I'm debating on 10s vs. 11s. It might get the rock treatment and have lighter strings, at least at first. No need to set them both up the same way.
Finally, like pauln, I also have a '91 Strat Plus (since new) with gold Lace Sensors. It's got a more modern sound, but the tone is a little squishy for me - not quite the right attack for my current preferences. Also it's nearly 8 lbs. which my body no longer appreciates.
Fender makes some well-liked pickups: Fat 50s, CS '54, CS '69, and Eric Johnson have all been sets I've looked at.
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Wow! Thanks for all the great responses.
I consulted with my luthier and he recommended to check out Bare Knuckles from the UK.
Their ‘63 does sound like it could work for my quest for a clean sound. PAT Pend '63 Veneer Board strat | Bare Knuckle Pickups
any comments?
I agree about string tension delivering clearer tone. I use 11-52 d’addario. I tried the 12’s. My fingers were fine with the tension but I actually found that they lacked the ringiness of the lighter strings. And I worried about the effect on the neck.
For reference, this is what I consider ideal tone on this 1960 strat played by amazing Julian Lage.
Happy playing!
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For jazz, Stratocaster pickups don't do it. Boutique Strat pickups don't do it either. For a jazz sound you need to make more drastic changes... Little '59 in all three positions works best for me. They are Seymour Duncan mini-humbuckers that drop fit right in and sound sort of like P90 pickups. I have them in all three positions and they hum cancel. I love the look, body shape, and feel of a Stratocaster, but I hate the sound of its classic "chimey" "quacky" thin pickups for jazz . I also lock down that wiggly bridge. Lage plays great but that's a chimey thin sound he gets even with that great amp.
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Lollar.
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I have used a Lil 59 in the neck position. It sounds good, but it doesn't sound like a classic warm, jazz, humbucker tone - although it sounds a lot more like that than the single coil.
And, then you can't get the traditional Strat single coil neck pickup tone. I did not try wiring in the coil-split, although that might be worth the effort if you need both sounds. I reinstalled the stock Am. Std. single coil.
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Pickups are such a personal thing that I usually try to avoid giving advice in these threads. I only add this because you referenced a ‘60 Strat as your “ideal” tone:
Both my Strat and Tele pickup searches ended with Don Mare. Of everything I tried, including many other top rate winders, I found his to be the most “vintage” in both the way they sound and in how they respond to pick dynamics.
Best of luck in your search!
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I recently changed the pups on my strat, looking for the same kind of sound, and settled for the Mojotone 59 clone.
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I would say that while you naturally want to go for the "right" thing and spend wisely, the bottom line is that any vintage voiced Alnico Strat pickups will be more authentic than the ceramic stock set in your MIM Strat. So rest easy and don't let the options overwhelm you too much.
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My first guitar was a '92 (made in Mexico) Strat. Those early-mid 90's made in Mexico models were amazing values. $300 back in '92. It's still my main guitar for rock / blues. The stock electronics in it were junk...pots needed cleaned on a regular basis. I ended up putting the Fender vintage noiseless pickups in mine around 2004. They really are silent. Granted this was way back before I ever planned to play jazz. I leave it in the neck position for blues, and while it could get by doing jazz in that position I don't think it'd be my go-to pickup...after owning an archtop with humbuckers I realize how "sparkly" single coils really are. I'm going to follow this thread as well.
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The mojotone 59 was one of my options too. My luthier suggested the Lollars or the Bare Knuckles, and I think I will go the Bare Knuckle 63 route. I have learned a lot about Strats in this thread!
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After MANY years struggling to get a decent jazz tone from Strats, I simply gave up. They were simply too thick or thin sounding, depending on the string, no matter what pickup I used.
Recently I made a giant leap of faith (after considerable research) and purchased a used G&L S-500 with their powerful, proprietary Magenetic Field Design (MFD) pickups. WOW! What took me so long?! These are the real deal for thick, punchy, quacky pickups. And they are 'relatively' low noise. Plus the S-500's come with a mini toggle switch for even more tonal options. Bottom line, they get a great jazz tone in addition to other typical Strat tones.
Here's a bit of background from Vintate Guitar:
Out-Stratting the Strat | Vintage Guitar(R) magazine
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leo's mfd's come directy from his earlier jazzmaster pup tech...single coil wide bobbin ala p90...in fact the mfd is even more p90-ish! with ceramic bar magnets beneath the bobbin...great pup
back to clean strat-
look at carvin/now keisel ap-11's... super wide toned low output clean...4.3K!!!
AP11 SINGLE COIL PICKUP - ALL POSITIONS | KieselGuitars.com
cheers
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Don't give up until you have played your Strat with its tones starting full up into an amp with 12 inch speakers with its mid tone full up and its bass and treble tones full down. You may be surprised how close this approaches the character of the L5 tone. For smaller amps/speakers, you may have to roll up just a little on the bass control.
Try it!
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pauln, i tried your suggestion wondering if it was a joke, and it was surprisingly good!
it will be a few weeks before my luthier can install the bareknuckles '63 that i just ordered. i will report back on the result.
i am not necessarily wanting a jazz tone out of the strat, just the best clean tone.
thanks for all the precious information!
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FWIW, it's not really about the guitar/pickups. It's about the amplifier. If you play a Stratocaster through a black- or silverface type of Fender or Fenderish amplifier, the guitar is going to sound quite scooped, even on the neck pickup.
OTOH, if you play through a more mid-emphasized tweed amp, e.g., the Fender Deluxe, or if you play through just about any Ampeg or Polytone amp, the Stratocaster on the neck pickup will sound much, much more jazzy.
Try it.
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It does depend a bit on which SF/BF amp. If you compensate for the scoop via tone controls and crank the amp a bit, the lower powered BF and S amps can get pretty mid-rangey. Strat through a PR or DR on 4 (with bass and Treble on 1) is a very different thing from one through a 130 watt Twin. Originally Posted by Greentone
John
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To be sure. You can set Bass=0-1, Treble=0-1 on the amps lacking Mid and Bass=0-1, Mid=9, Treble=0-1 on the amps with a Mid knob, and you will approximate an Ampeg or Polytone on 5/5.
_Still_, a Stratocaster (neck pickup) into an Ampeg Gemini I or II, or into a Polytone Mini Brute II or IV is a _very_ jazzy beast.
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