57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

[JimmyO]

Hi there, I have a 57 reissue US strat, it's coming up on 10 years old and has an alder body and maple fretboard. Various bits in the trem and saddles have been wearing, and I'm going to order a Callahan bridge with the narrow spacing (taking care of the top e string that's a bit close to the edge of the fretboard.). At the same time I'm going to shield the control cavities and order the Callahan pick guard shield. It is very noisy with some amps, especially more modern Marshalls on the gain channels so the shielding should help.

Now the main question. After opening up the scratch plate and adding shielding it will be a good time to upgrade the stock 57/62 pickups. Overall the stock pickups have been pretty good. I wired the bridge to the lower tone pot and the neck/middle to the upper tine pot, so I can tame the bright bridge pickup. I like the pickups but they are best suited to clean and low gain, very 50s buddy holly, Hank Marvin and 70s Clapton and Dire Straits. Although I like the tone I mainly play 70s Classic Rock and British blues. I have Les Pauls for this tone but it would be great to get a little crunch from the strat without losing the vintage character or sweeter tones it currently has. In terms of brightness the strat is about a 4 out of 5 and before adding the tone pot the bridge was ice picky, it is tamed now but at times could use a bit more balls without going over the top.

I have two ideas:
1) add a baseplate to the current 57/62 bridge pickup - would this do much?
2) get a set of antiquity Texas hots with the custom bridge. I am thinking the alnico ii's would work well with the bright maple neck.

Let me know what you guys suggest. I have Amazon gift cards from xmas to get pickups if I go that route.

BTW I play through a Mesa lone star and a JTM 45 clone and use an 805 overdrive for boosting leads,

Thanks!

 

[AlexR]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

An ssl 5 in the bridge would give some crunch without losing too much singlecoil character.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Does the SSL 5 come in an aged white cover (no logo) to match the 57/62's? Also do I have to wire it differently to avoid out of phase/temporal anomaly of mixing fender and Seymour Duncan pickups?

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a black strat with maple neck so would be pretty Gilmourish

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

I whipped the Fender 57/62 pickups out of my AVRI '62 the minute that I got it home. Two Antiquity II Surfers, one modified Twangbanger and a seven sounds wiring harness later, I was a happy owner.

I see no reason not to install Surfers on an AVRI '57.

Fender Fat Fifties models are truer to the period.

SD Five-Twos would strike a nice balance between twangy wound strings and not too much "icepick" on the plain ones.

With an SSL-5, the worst case scenario would be having to reverse its black and white output conductors at the selector switch and grounding point. I would be inclined to get the SSL-5T to retain the option to coil tap it for a better match with the middle pickup in selector switch position 2. I would also be inclined to upgrade the selector switch to a four-pole Superswitch type.

Regarding the vibrato bridge width. Expect a bridge with narrow width (10mm rather than 11mm) saddles to also have its fastening/pivot screws at the same spacing. If either of your E strings is too close to the edge of the fingerboard and/or the end of the fret wire, you may have a neck alignment issue.

 

[AlexR]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

I think the covers for the ssl 5 are the same as for vintage strat pickups (although the baseplate isn't the same). So you can probably just use the cover you have already.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

I whipped the Fender 57/62 pickups out of my AVRI '62 the minute that I got it home. Two Antiquity II Surfers, one modified Twangbanger and a seven sounds wiring harness later, I was a happy owner.

I see no reason not to install Surfers on an AVRI '57.

Fender Fat Fifties models are truer to the period.

SD Five-Twos would strike a nice balance between twangy wound strings and not too much "icepick" on the plain ones.

With an SSL-5, the worst case scenario would be having to reverse its black and white output conductors at the selector switch and grounding point. I would be inclined to get the SSL-5T to retain the option to coil tap it for a better match with the middle pickup in selector switch position 2. I would also be inclined to upgrade the selector switch to a four-pole Superswitch type.

Regarding the vibrato bridge width. Expect a bridge with narrow width (10mm rather than 11mm) saddles to also have its fastening/pivot screws at the same spacing. If either of your E strings is too close to the edge of the fingerboard and/or the end of the fret wire, you may have a neck alignment issue.

Thanks for the ideas. Had heard great things about the Surfers too but was thinking of the Texas hots since I play a lot of blues and rock and not so much surf etc. Had read on previous posts that Texas hots were a little better with overdrive and the surfers were better for classic 60s clean strat tone. What do you like about the surfers and how do they sound overdriven?

Here's the Callahan bridge description
"V/N Model: This is a complete assembly that has vintage 2 7/32 (56mm) mounting spacing but with the narrow 2 1/16 string spacing. It will fit any body with vintage mounting. It is specifically for those who have the E strings too close to the edge of the fretboard or use humbucking pickups. Your strings will now be better positioned on the neck and line up over the poles of humbucking pickups"

I think this will fit the vintage spacing for the pivot screws and give a slightly narrower spacing for the saddles. My top e is not terrible, I had a tech look at it a few years ago and he said it was fine for a vintage style strat, but if I'm going to put on a new bridge I'd go for the one that gives me a bit more space on the high e.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

I think the covers for the ssl 5 are the same as for vintage strat pickups (although the baseplate isn't the same). So you can probably just use the cover you have already.

Cool Thanks!

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Would be great to hear if anyone has good experience adding a baseplate to a vintage style bridge pickup to get a fuller sound? Vs swapping in a different pickup

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

I'm going to go against my usual recommendations for strat tones and suggest a set of fender texas specials for you. (apologies to SD). I think they will be just the ticket for that more aggressive 70s tone. They have plenty of bite and attitude but still retain a kind of vintage "looseness" about them.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Regarding the vibrato bridge width. Expect a bridge with narrow width (10mm rather than 11mm) saddles to also have its fastening/pivot screws at the same spacing. If either of your E strings is too close to the edge of the fingerboard and/or the end of the fret wire, you may have a neck alignment issue.

Hey Funkfingers, you were spot on regarding the neck alignment. I took a closer look today and there was small gap at the top of the neck pocket. I loosened the neck screws, gave the neck a good tug in the right direction and re-tightened the screws. The top E string is now running parallel to the edge of the fingerboard in is not so close to the edge. The bottom E is a bit closer, but overall things are much better and I should be able to go with the vintage spaced bridge. Thanks for the help man!

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

You might get away with just purchasing the Callaham replacement saddles and sustain block.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Been looking at the re-issued Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. Now it has a unity gain setting I'm wondering about keeping the pickups vintage output and using the pickup booster resonance control for parts that need a bit more crunchy output. Anyone had any experience using the pickup booster to help a vintage style strat rock out?

 

[AZ Picker]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

If you have the gain in your amp or a pedal, the Fender fat 50s can handle any 70s Classic Rock you want, especially since you have that tone pot on the bridge pickup. They came stock in my 2012 AM STD, and they really sound good clean or w overdrive/distortion, very solid and punchy bass, and the high end isn't brittle.

 

[AZ Picker]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

I'm sorry, I neglected to answer your original question, I had the Texas hots in a different Older AM Strat which was by nature very smooth and open sounding on its own, and I took them out after a few months because they made an already warm sounding Strat even more so. That particular guitar just needed A5 pickups. But I think that set would be good in a really bright Strat which it seems like you might have. You might not need to ride the tone controls so much to tame the high end. I think there is a great video on Seymour Duncan's YouTube page with Nick Johnston demoing that set, now of course once you hear him play he can make anything sound good, but he really gets a lot of great tones out of the Texas Hot Set.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

If you have the gain in your amp or a pedal, the Fender fat 50s can handle any 70s Classic Rock you want, especially since you have that tone pot on the bridge pickup. They came stock in my 2012 AM STD, and they really sound good clean or w overdrive/distortion, very solid and punchy bass, and the high end isn't brittle.

Thanks man. I have one other strat, a 2012 standard with rosewood neck and Fat 50s. I has a really full, warm and punchy tone, while still being in the vintage ballpark. It gets more playing time than the 57 reissue and I want to address this as I really like the 50s V neck and the guitar has a lot of personality. After playing the Fat 50s and the Alnico ii Texas hots which would you recommend for a bright sounding 50s style strat? I was originally thinking alnico ii's would warm things up. I actually like the demos of the APS1 alnico ii pro's.

 

[AZ Picker]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

As luck would have it, I've got a set of APS-2 ( flat pole piece stagger) in an Alder/ maple Strat. I like them a lot, I think I was scared that they would be a little too dark and soft sounding ( thinking they would e similar to an A2 humbucker) but really they are chimey, have good "quack" in the 2 and 4 position, sound good with gain and are fun to play. I wouldn't hesitate to put them in a too bright Strat either. I think the A2 just takes off the very top of the high frequencies and still sounds very stratty for lack of a better term. The bass is still solid with them too.

 

[JimmyO]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Would it be a good idea to put an alnico ii pickup in the bridge (either an APS1 or a Texas Hot) while leaving the stock 57/62s in the middle and neck? That way I'd maybe get a smoother bridge sound.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Compared to '57/62, APS-1 would be "smoother". Texas Antiquity Hot would be increased output and fatter tone.

 

[Mincer]

Re: 57 Reissue Strat, pickup recommendations

Been looking at the re-issued Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. Now it has a unity gain setting I'm wondering about keeping the pickups vintage output and using the pickup booster resonance control for parts that need a bit more crunchy output. Anyone had any experience using the pickup booster to help a vintage style strat rock out?

I do this with my '82 Strat all the time. It does exactly as it says. It is like it provides a very different voice- sort of a very beefy Strat, not quite a humbucker, but close. A really cool pedal.