Recommend some Strat pickups

[blackba]

How straty is stray enough? I have never heard a noisless, stacked, railed anything that sounded like great classic strat tones imho. They all seem to be missing some of the nice shimmering highs present in single-coils.

I really like Duncan QuarterPound and alnicoII's. Rio Grande make some nice single-coil's as well.

I have had the same experience, the stacked single coils just sound different.

I have a set of Suhr ML (used to be called FL's) and I found that changing the middle to a RWRP changed the tone on the 2 and 4 positions, so probably going back to having them all wound the same and dealing with the hum or breaking down and getting a Suhr backplate.

 

[rupe]

The best set that I've ever owned are Fralin Vintage Hots...simply awesome pickups but they may be too "stock" sounding since they're essentially vintage reproductions with a little extra juice.

One of the best live Strat tones that I've ever heard was a parts Strat loaded with Kinmans...they had all the spank of a stock Strat but morphed into overdrive in a much smoother, sweeter way.

 

[chunktone]

How straty is stray enough? I have never heard a noisless, stacked, railed anything that sounded like great classic strat tones imho. They all seem to be missing some of the nice shimmering highs present in single-coils.

I really like Duncan QuarterPound and alnicoII's. Rio Grande make some nice single-coil's as well.

I have had the same experience, the stacked single coils just sound different.

I have a set of Suhr ML (used to be called FL's) and I found that changing the middle to a RWRP changed the tone on the 2 and 4 positions, so probably going back to having them all wound the same and dealing with the hum or breaking down and getting a Suhr backplate.

Ya, the Suhr backplate is imho the way to go if you just want noise gone, and don't want to sacrifice true single-coil tone.

 

[Webb]

Wow, so many choices. Thanks to all for the input.

Quite honestly, I'm not even sure exactly what I'm looking for. I'm predominately a high-gain player and mainly stick to a Wolfgang and an ESP Eclipse for those tones. But I love the chimey, sparkly cleans to the slightly broken-up sounds of a Strat on occasion. Don't really care for the hum associated with many single coils so some of the "vintage" varieties might be out. I'm kinda surprised no one mentioned Fralin or Lollar's. Any experience with Lollar Blackface pickups?

After listening to many samples, I keep coming back to this Andy Timmons clip in which he uses a Dimarzio Cruiser in the neck position. Sounds incredible to my ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwNygVAP ... re=related

 

[chumbucket]

My Partsocaster project has a Heavy Blues in the bridge, an Area 67 in the middle and an Area 61 in the neck. I spoke with Steve Blucher over at Dimarzio at length and thats what he recommended for me and hes never steered me wrong. My goal was to have a set that would sound great through the gain spectrum and still retain stratiness..

Kage

I'm kind of in the same boat as the OP. I'm typically a humbucker /high gain guy but lately have been missing the 2 and 4 position sounds of a clean Strat, but I would still like to venture into Trower / Hendrix (and heavier) realms as well. I was eyeballing the Heavy Blues as well as the Injector models.
The Dimarzio Area pickguard has all 3 models with the 61 -bridge, 67-middle, and 58 -neck, but I worry that it won't have enough output for me.
Kage, do you notice a big volume drop switching from bridge to middle or neck on your setup?

 

[chunktone]

My Partsocaster project has a Heavy Blues in the bridge, an Area 67 in the middle and an Area 61 in the neck. I spoke with Steve Blucher over at Dimarzio at length and thats what he recommended for me and hes never steered me wrong. My goal was to have a set that would sound great through the gain spectrum and still retain stratiness..

Kage

I'm kind of in the same boat as the OP. I'm typically a humbucker /high gain guy but lately have been missing the 2 and 4 position sounds of a clean Strat, but I would still like to venture into Trower / Hendrix (and heavier) realms as well. I was eyeballing the Heavy Blues as well as the Injector models.
The Dimarzio Area pickguard has all 3 models with the 61 -bridge, 67-middle, and 58 -neck, but I worry that it won't have enough output for me.
Kage, do you notice a big volume drop switching from bridge to middle or neck on your setup?

If your looking for those types of tones, I would go with the gear that created those tones, which, in this case, is true single-coil's. I personally use other equipment to deal with noise issues.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

EMG DG20 setup

I'll say it again, from clean to mean, the DG20 setup does it in spades!!! It's the most versatile Strat pups out there.

 

[uglyfuzzface]

I really like bridge , duncan ssl5 ,, middle fender 69 ,, neck fender fat 50s , basicaly a gilmour set . also important for me is a fralin blender pot to smooth out the bridge when i want to . i also have some fralin blues specials , they are growing on me more these days .