Hello Cleveland!
i just had a chance to gig test my new Strat classic stack plus P/Us, on three gigs over the weekend. I am based in the Monterey bay area and have been playing professionally since the early eighties. I am a strat guy and I have tried nearly every brand of noiseless pickups available starting with some of the original maroon covered Duncans, early Lawrence blade style designs, lace sensors, Dimarzios,Barden ,EMG Fender noiseless, etc.. most recently, (last five years) having settled on Kinmans as my favorite sounding noiseless designs. On thursday night at home I had a chance to plug strait in to a Princeton Reverb, trading off between my chambered swamp ash strat w/ the new Duncans, and an alder bodied strat with a set of Kinmans. Trying to be as subjective as possible, and allowing for the fact that the chambered body strat has a fuller low end, the body woods are different etc... I was completely floored by the Duncans, wonderfully snappy and responsive like a great single coil, and perfectly balanced from pickup to pickup with the bridge having enough extra output to smooth out the high end. But still, I wanted to give the Duncans the live test. My live rig for these three gigs was a Black faced 78 Vibrolux Reverb with Weber alnicos, and a 64 Vox Ac10 twin with weber blue pup alnicos. My pedal board ,starting at the guitar end, hits a Duncan pickup booster that is always on ,usually set low for a bit o' boost, a Fulltone clyde wah, fulldrive 2, Ernie ball volume pedal, keeley modified Line 6 DL4,and lastly a fulltone choralflange. The gigs were high energy funk, old school soul, blues and rock, that required tonal variations from clean to all out Hendrixian (is that a word yet?) rave up. Here the Duncans really shined, every bit as clean and dynamic as the Kinmans, and just as quiet, with perhaps better balance, pickup to pickup and smoother response at the bridge. Positions 2 and 4 on the 5 way switch produced excellent quack, the good kind. Yummy. They also responded great to feedback, allowing great control without getting microphonic. Tone, as we all know is so subjective, one man's pudding is another mans poison, but if you are like me, and you dig the classic strat sound, but not the 60 cycle hum, and have been frustrated by noiseless designs that kill the hum but just don't get the sound or output right, you owe it to yourself to check these out. I'm a believer. Congratulations Seymour Duncan, you nailed it.
Peace
Chillyb
i just had a chance to gig test my new Strat classic stack plus P/Us, on three gigs over the weekend. I am based in the Monterey bay area and have been playing professionally since the early eighties. I am a strat guy and I have tried nearly every brand of noiseless pickups available starting with some of the original maroon covered Duncans, early Lawrence blade style designs, lace sensors, Dimarzios,Barden ,EMG Fender noiseless, etc.. most recently, (last five years) having settled on Kinmans as my favorite sounding noiseless designs. On thursday night at home I had a chance to plug strait in to a Princeton Reverb, trading off between my chambered swamp ash strat w/ the new Duncans, and an alder bodied strat with a set of Kinmans. Trying to be as subjective as possible, and allowing for the fact that the chambered body strat has a fuller low end, the body woods are different etc... I was completely floored by the Duncans, wonderfully snappy and responsive like a great single coil, and perfectly balanced from pickup to pickup with the bridge having enough extra output to smooth out the high end. But still, I wanted to give the Duncans the live test. My live rig for these three gigs was a Black faced 78 Vibrolux Reverb with Weber alnicos, and a 64 Vox Ac10 twin with weber blue pup alnicos. My pedal board ,starting at the guitar end, hits a Duncan pickup booster that is always on ,usually set low for a bit o' boost, a Fulltone clyde wah, fulldrive 2, Ernie ball volume pedal, keeley modified Line 6 DL4,and lastly a fulltone choralflange. The gigs were high energy funk, old school soul, blues and rock, that required tonal variations from clean to all out Hendrixian (is that a word yet?) rave up. Here the Duncans really shined, every bit as clean and dynamic as the Kinmans, and just as quiet, with perhaps better balance, pickup to pickup and smoother response at the bridge. Positions 2 and 4 on the 5 way switch produced excellent quack, the good kind. Yummy. They also responded great to feedback, allowing great control without getting microphonic. Tone, as we all know is so subjective, one man's pudding is another mans poison, but if you are like me, and you dig the classic strat sound, but not the 60 cycle hum, and have been frustrated by noiseless designs that kill the hum but just don't get the sound or output right, you owe it to yourself to check these out. I'm a believer. Congratulations Seymour Duncan, you nailed it.
Peace
Chillyb
