Re: Are those cool vintage fender bridge plates available aftermarket?
oh man... i had a set of the new samarium cobalts on previously, as my axe is a new american deluxe 50th ann strat. They sounded sweet, but a bit too fat for my tastes, as i was out for a more 'single coilish tone'. I decided that i would just G.A.S. for a set of the surfers according to Lew's advice...dude they blew me away. Neck pickup isn't too thick, but it has the bluesy smooth grind, can't really describe it. The quack positions (2, and 4) are incredible, and I play mostly on those positions except for a more distorted kind of lead where i would use the neck for its tone. Bridge position is a bit weak as suspected on almost every strat, but it makes the perfect hardrock pickup if you set the height properly. For distorted chords, the bridge sounds incredible, for clean tones and soloing, the neck and middle can't be beat. I really wasn't expecting a huge tone difference in comparison to the samarium cobalts, as they are highly sought experimental pickups, but there was a big difference. These pickups do it all, and they've even affected my music tastes as now I'm more into clean blues and jazz than before. The quality of the pickups is amazing-handwound in a special spiral braid or something like that. I don't get that much hum considering that they are not wax potted, and that they are all out vintage pickups. You can't really go wrong with them except for the price. Perhaps I'll put some clips eventually when i get my recording crap together. My rig doesn't say much-really old peavey classic with a solid state preamp and 6l6 tubes (2x12 combo 50 watt). The tubes are breathing their last breaths, yet the surfers' tone is so incredible that my tone is still amazing. I use no effects except for my original vox wah-straight into the amp, and a digitech hotrod for distortion. Maybe one day ill plug it into a Hiwatt like yours or a nice vintage bassman-then it will really shine.
:fing25:
