Certain pickups for certain woods?

[Stratman44]

:dontknow:
NECK:                                                      BODY:
Maple                                                      Solid Swamp ash
Indian Rosewood fretboard                      SSS
warmoth pro                                            V6H
vintage tuners                                          traditional strat
tung oil finish

Now i just need to get Pups and rest of electronics.
What Pups to order so that i have a nice traditinal strat sound with my wood choice?

Ive been looking at fender custom shop pickups.
Suggestions?

 

[Tipperman]

BKP Mother's Milk. Fender CS69s. The Mothers Milk are better than the CS69s, but the CS69s cost less. No, they aren't hum cancelling. Yes, they sound like a real strat. At the risk of offending damn near everyone in the world, I think the Dimarzio Areas are boring as hell. If you can control the buzz etc it's not an issue having "real" single coils.

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/pickups.php?cat=strats&sub=vintage&pickup=mothers_milk

For the record, I'm a vintage type of guy. I don't get buzz from my CS69s or my Mothers Milk sets, but I've worked at it for a long time. A lot of people don't want to figure out how to control it. If you're looking for hum cancelling... Lindy Fralin Split Blades are great.

 

[Strat Avenger]

At the risk of offending damn near everyone in the world, I think the Dimarzio Areas are boring as hell.

Yeah? How so? The 67 sounds like a vintage single-coil. It's not sterile sounding like Lace Sensors. So how do you figure it's "boring"?

 

[Tipperman]

At the risk of offending damn near everyone in the world, I think the Dimarzio Areas are boring as hell.

Yeah? How so? The 67 sounds like a vintage single-coil. It's not sterile sounding like Lace Sensors. So how do you figure it's "boring"?

I don't really like hum cancelling single coils period, and the areas are no exception. Plus, they don't go "BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

 

[AutoBat]

As long as you know tung oil does not satisfy the neck finish warranty, then I say Rock On!

Lindy Fralin split blade pups sound pretty good to me.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzbqL_G3G9g

 

[Doughboy]

Xotic / Rawvintage makes a really nice set of single coils. They hum like crazy, but if 60 cycle hum is your thing, they're great.

I REALLY like the Dimarzio Area PUs as well as Joe Barden PUs.

 

[noname]

I agree with BKP MM's are great pups. Second only to Irish Tour in my opinion and you can also sound vintage with them. Very all round IMO.

However, SD SSL are quite nice and easy on the budget.

 

[Wyliee]

I really like Fralins for that vintage vibe.  I've been impressed with the ones I've tried.

 

[Stratman44]

ccasion14:
I just decided on the cs69's and ordered. they sound great. ya im not to big on the noise cancellation. If your have your guitar sheilded good it shouldnt matter anyway.
:rock-on:

 

[stubhead]

It's my understanding that the way to make stacked-coil single-size pickups both hum-canceling and "not boring" is to make the underneath coil much less powerful than the topside coil - if you match them, you get that humbucker-but-no-power sound. The underneath coil is like operating at about 30 to 40% power. Bill Lawrence does this in his "Noise-Free series":
http://wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_NF_Singles.html

I've put these into the neck position of two guitars and both will get that loverly "Little Wing" tone, the one that SRV, Eric Johson and many, many others take to the bank. Dual-rail pickups on the other hand, are just humbuckers that sample a narrower string width. Lawrence's pure singles get good press over at TGPRI, where vintageness is more than just a tiny cult obsession, it is a raison d'etre*:
http://wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_Keystones.html

*(yarr, look it up)

 

[jeffreywt]

Shielding will reduce hum caused by EMI but it will not eliminate 60-cycle hum.

I have a maple neck, ash body with CS69s. They are good pickups. They sound very much like what comes in the 62 Re-issue type guitars and the 60's classic series (MIM) strats. The CS69s are very "stratty". It's like a super concentrated version of strattyness. I'm not saying they are the best, but if you want raw strat tone, noise included, they are a great deal. They also have some story and mojo.

I bought two sets figuring they are essentially limited edition (with utmost respect, I will mention the old bird won't be with us forever!). I put the second set in my MIM strat.

See this thread for a sound sample.

Any of the pickups mentioned here are great I'm sure. I'm not pushing the CS69s, only speaking about what I know. I've heard some of the vintage noiseless pickups and they sound equally good.

:guitarplayer2:

 

[line6man]

ya im not to big on the noise cancellation. If your have your guitar sheilded good it shouldnt matter anyway.
:rock-on:

As jeffreywt said, 60Hz hum is magnetic field noise. Shielding, assuming that it works, prevents electric field noise.

 

[Cagey]

"Electric field noise" and "magnetic field noise" are not only the same thing, they're inseparable. One cannot exist without the other. Whenever you have a flow of current through a conductor, you create a magnetic field. Whenever you have a varying magnetic field, you induce current flow in nearby conductors. It's physics 101, and is what makes electric guitars with inductive pickups work.

 

[Strat Avenger]

There's nothing cool about 60 cycle hum. There's not a lot if you only play Clean, but if you use any kind of overdrive, it's just unacceptable in the 21st century.

 

[Doughboy]

There's nothing cool about 60 cycle hum. There's not a lot if you only play Clean, but if you use any kind of overdrive, it's just unacceptable in the 21st century.

+100  :icon_thumright:

 

[jackthehack]

What's your budget? On the lower end, Fender Custom Shop Fat 50's/69's will get you that sound depending on which era sound you're looking for. If you want to spend mo' money Fralins, Seymour Duncan Antiquities or one of the Rio Grande Strat sets work well.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Or Dimarzio Area-67s.  :laughing7:

Believe me, I hated "stacks" too until those came out.

 

[stubhead]

Everybody has their favorites, which they like because their guitar sounds good to them. And there are substantial differences in the number of windings, type of wire, and the size and type of the magnets. But any "secret" "magic" "mojo" stuff is bound to be silly - all the specs for making really, really good pickups have been available for close to 20 years now. And there are probably 30 to 40 people making great pickups, at least - anytime I look, there's another one. Whether the DiMarzio-Duncan-Lawrence-Fender-Fralin-Telenator-Bare Knuckle-etc-etc-etc set matches the noise in your head depends partly on how well you know that noise, partly on the wood, the rest of electronics, your own way of attacking the string, and overwhelmingly on your amplifier.

The two places people go "wrong" is in having overwound pickups when they wanted a woody sound, and having mismatched volume levels, usually when mixing humbuckers with singles and expecting the blend to be healthy without any adjustment. But you'll be O.K. with just about anything, at least until you want to refine the search for that last little 5% that comes from perfect matchmaking, and never from a single component.

 

[The Norwegian Guy]

+1 on the BKP Mother's Milk!
I've got two MM's inn my HSS Swamp ash strat, and they sound amazing!