Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

[JohnnyGuitar]

Little wing (Jimi or SRV), Lenny, other quiet songs by both...
It's the tone I'm looking for also whem playing clean funk licks.

I'm trying them on any Strat style I play. I get better tone with light body woods, maple neck-and basswood fretboard, and lower output pickups... so my Blazer can't get me there (heavy ash and maple).

So if I'll get a Strat with the right features-
What pups would be best for that tone? SSL-1, APS, Surfers? other brands?

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

I would go for SSl-1 or SSL2 personaly among duncans.. dont know abouth a other brands

 

[Malicious Matt]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Here's a page with sound clips of various pickups. There dont seem to be any Seymour Duncan pickups, but they do have sound clips of Hendrix riffs like Little Wing, Castles Made Of Sand etc and some SRV licks. Hope it helps a bit.

http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/Strat_Pickup_Sound_Clips_W1.cfm

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Nice page...
Very nice...
I should listen to it a few times... from the sound samples I liked the Fender CS models... but it might be a little too hard to tell...

 

[Malicious Matt]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

True. It would be best to hear them "in the flesh" to really get the feel of them.

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Surfers, or SSL-1/2 should get you in the ball park.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Little wing (Jimi or SRV), Lenny, other quiet songs by both...
It's the tone I'm looking for also whem playing clean funk licks.

I'm trying them on any Strat style I play. I get better tone with light body woods, maple neck-and basswood fretboard, and lower output pickups... so my Blazer can't get me there (heavy ash and maple).

So if I'll get a Strat with the right features-
What pups would be best for that tone? SSL-1, APS, Surfers? other brands?

Clean funk? Hmm. I have a Lite Ash Strat (ash body, maple fretboard and neck) with Alnico II Pro Staggered pickups, and I think it does funk pretty well (but when I say funk I mean strumming while muting strings and playing with wah, ala Magnum P.I. theme song lol). Just my 2 cents, if this guitar you want to mod is ash body and maple fretboard....

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Clean funk? Hmm. I have a Lite Ash Strat (ash body, maple fretboard and neck) with Alnico II Pro Staggered pickups, and I think it does funk pretty well (but when I say funk I mean strumming while muting strings and playing with wah, ala Magnum P.I. theme song lol). Just my 2 cents, if this guitar you want to mod is ash body and maple fretboard....

It's heavy ash and it's as heavy as my Gibson and sounds nothing like swamp ash...
I've tried to play those double stops and slides on a hollow body Gretsch with their single coils and on a splitted humbucker with a cheap Nuno guitar - the cheap light weight body with the maple/rosewood neck and the unknown body wood (probably something from IKEA :laugh2: )... they both sounded way better then the Blazer for those licks...

A thought:
Maybe chambering also helps...

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Get yourself a nice alder bodied strat with a vintage trem and a rosewood fingerboard. The SSL-1's would be the cost-effective way to get that tone, Surfers if you don't mind the price premium.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Jimi and Stevie both used alnico 5 Strat pickups with raised and staggered polepieces...pickups very, very similar to the Duncan SSL-1. The Duncan SSL-1 is what you want...or for a few bucks more, the Antiquity Surfers. Lew

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Shameless plug for my Fender CS Fat 50's in the trader section. Vintage A5 tone galore.

 

[BigDaddy]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Surfers

 

[JohnnyGuitar]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Well the SSL-1 were pretty much my guess. Thanks. I suppose I'll start looking for a Strat-type axe in a few month... I'm using the trem more and more now but the Blazer just doesn't get the right tones for me.

I really want to go custom.

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Best pickups for Little Wing and Lenny tones?

Lew nails it if you want Duncans, but the Fender CS 69s are my favorite strat pups.