Blog: Review of California '50s SSL-1 Cal Set for Strat

[Evan Skopp]

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[Lewguitar]

Re: Blog: Review of California '50s SSL-1 Cal Set for Strat

Before switching to Ant Surfers, I used SSL-1's in my own favorite gigging Strat and I also put these pickups in my friend AJ's Jimmie Vaughn Strat. They're great.

I have Antiquity Surfers in my two gigging Strats. And in my '63 Strat I have the stock 50 year old pickups that the guitar came with.

IMO, the SSL-1's are right up there with the originals and with the boutique pickups I've owned over the years: Rio Grande, Lindy Fralin, Van Zandt, etc.

Every time I play AJ's Strat with the SSL-1's I'm impressed with how great it sounds, and how strong and ballsy the tone is. When I haven't played it in a long time, I get to thinking that my Duncan Antiquity and Lindy Fralin pickups must sound better.

But then, when I do play AJ's Strat again, I see again just how close to the tone of those boutique pickups and the 50 year old vintage Fender pickups the SSL-1's actually are...and for about half the coin!

[freefrog]

Re: Blog: Review of California '50s SSL-1 Cal Set for Strat

I see again just how close to the tone of those boutique pickups and the 50 year old vintage Fender pickups the SSL-1's actually are...

SSL1's were among my first aftermarket PU's 30 years ago and periodically, I buy a new set for a different guitar...

I've got the same feeling than you when I've compared some of these SSL1's to the original PU's of a true-dated 62 Strat. There was just a difference with the neck PU, which was weaker in the vintage axe, with a narrower resonant peak (and a lower inductance of 2.2H vs a constant 2.6H with the SSL1's). It was giving a different tone, slightly more nasal, alive and "fendery" than the SSL.

Dear Duncan team, as an old faithful customer, I'd appreciate to find a California set with "matched" PU's, including a lower power neck position... But maybe I'm too picky. :-)

[Lewguitar]

Re: Blog: Review of California '50s SSL-1 Cal Set for Strat

Some guys might scoff at this, but my old '63 has a Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard. I truly think this makes a small difference just as it does in Gibson guitars. Modern guitars do not use Brazilian. To my ears, Brazilian gives a guitar a certain plucky complexity to the mids. And no pickup can make up for that. It's small - but then, that's what we talk about here: very small differences that only real tone freaks with heightened sensitivity to tone and FEEL and the tiniest of details even notice.

All three pickups in my '63 Strat are virtually identical. If any pickup sounds weaker than the other two it would be the bridge pickup and that's only because of it's location next to the bridge where the string doesn't move as much. Even played unplugged, strumming the string next to the bridge results in a thinner, twangier tone. It's not the pickup.