Benjy_26
25's Nemesis
Hello all.
My brother recently got the bug to get a strat to mess around with. He's primarily a bass player, so he didn't want to spend to much. After cruising the local pawn shops, he found a Squier SE strat in sunburst with a rosewood fingerboard. It's surprisingly well put together (aside from the tuners, switch, pots and garish red tort pickguard). The nut is kind of high, but he doesn't mind the action and it stays in tune. Overall, not bad for 55USD.
After a string change and set up, the first thing we did was to install a 3 ply white pickguard off of my MIM strat to make it look a bit better.
The guitar now looked tons better, but was still saddled with the stock Squier ceramic singles. They do the clean, glassy, strat sound fairly well, but they're very weak compared to other singles I have installed in my strats and sort of fall apart under any kind of gain. There's also not a lot of depth to the sound, if that makes sense.
We went on ebay and lucked out on winning a Rio Grande Stelly for less than 40 dollars. BIG improvement in the tone department.
The Stelly gave this guitar a big boost in output at the bridge while at the same time fattening up the tone and giving the guitar more bite and spank. Thia pickup doesn't have a metal baseplate, but it is based on Rio's Muy Grande for Tele, and there is a hint of telecaster in its sound.
Even though the Stelly greatly improved the bridge tone, it did highlight the deficiencies in the stock pickups. When combined with the middle, it definitely overpowered it and made the other positions sound weak by comparison.
With the goal of being cheap, we trolled ebay and other sites in search of cheap, used, quality singles. This proved unsuccessful, as the prices of used Fender and Duncan single coils hovers pretty close to new prices. Fortunately we came across Guitar Madness pickups.
We did some research and ended up pulling the trigger on a pair of their 62'z. These pickups are alnico V, staggered pole pickups wound in the mid 6k range. For 22 bucks, the gamble seemed worth it. It was. We installed these pickups with a new Oak Grigsby switch, 250k Alpha pots, and a .047mfd Orange Drop. I wired it to have master volume, neck tone, and bridge tone. The middle pickup having no tone control. These pickups balance VERY well with the Stelly in the bridge as far as output and tone. They have a lot of chime and sparkle along with tight lows and a bit of scoop to the mids. They sound VERY stratty in all positions.
Compared to the APS-2's in my MIJ 62RI, they have tighter, bigger lows and less mids, while having glassier highs. This can be attributed to the magnet differences, though. They also seem to have a touch more output. Compared to the 57/62's I have in another strat, these 62z seem to hold their own VERY well. They're a bit glassier, but are otherwise on par with the Fender pickups. Compared to the stock ceramics in the neck and middle of my MIM strat, the Guitar Madness pickups are much closer to a traditional strat sound, exhibiting much more pop, sparkle, and air than the MIM's. They're lower in output, but that's to be expected, considering that the MIM pickups are wound in the mid 7k range and are loaded with 2 large ceramic magnets.
Overall, I'm very impressed with these pickups. They're good. Not good for the price, actually good on their own. The construction isn't the same as vintage pickups, but the sound is very traditional.
My brother recently got the bug to get a strat to mess around with. He's primarily a bass player, so he didn't want to spend to much. After cruising the local pawn shops, he found a Squier SE strat in sunburst with a rosewood fingerboard. It's surprisingly well put together (aside from the tuners, switch, pots and garish red tort pickguard). The nut is kind of high, but he doesn't mind the action and it stays in tune. Overall, not bad for 55USD.
After a string change and set up, the first thing we did was to install a 3 ply white pickguard off of my MIM strat to make it look a bit better.
The guitar now looked tons better, but was still saddled with the stock Squier ceramic singles. They do the clean, glassy, strat sound fairly well, but they're very weak compared to other singles I have installed in my strats and sort of fall apart under any kind of gain. There's also not a lot of depth to the sound, if that makes sense.
We went on ebay and lucked out on winning a Rio Grande Stelly for less than 40 dollars. BIG improvement in the tone department.
The Stelly gave this guitar a big boost in output at the bridge while at the same time fattening up the tone and giving the guitar more bite and spank. Thia pickup doesn't have a metal baseplate, but it is based on Rio's Muy Grande for Tele, and there is a hint of telecaster in its sound.
Even though the Stelly greatly improved the bridge tone, it did highlight the deficiencies in the stock pickups. When combined with the middle, it definitely overpowered it and made the other positions sound weak by comparison.
With the goal of being cheap, we trolled ebay and other sites in search of cheap, used, quality singles. This proved unsuccessful, as the prices of used Fender and Duncan single coils hovers pretty close to new prices. Fortunately we came across Guitar Madness pickups.
We did some research and ended up pulling the trigger on a pair of their 62'z. These pickups are alnico V, staggered pole pickups wound in the mid 6k range. For 22 bucks, the gamble seemed worth it. It was. We installed these pickups with a new Oak Grigsby switch, 250k Alpha pots, and a .047mfd Orange Drop. I wired it to have master volume, neck tone, and bridge tone. The middle pickup having no tone control. These pickups balance VERY well with the Stelly in the bridge as far as output and tone. They have a lot of chime and sparkle along with tight lows and a bit of scoop to the mids. They sound VERY stratty in all positions.
Compared to the APS-2's in my MIJ 62RI, they have tighter, bigger lows and less mids, while having glassier highs. This can be attributed to the magnet differences, though. They also seem to have a touch more output. Compared to the 57/62's I have in another strat, these 62z seem to hold their own VERY well. They're a bit glassier, but are otherwise on par with the Fender pickups. Compared to the stock ceramics in the neck and middle of my MIM strat, the Guitar Madness pickups are much closer to a traditional strat sound, exhibiting much more pop, sparkle, and air than the MIM's. They're lower in output, but that's to be expected, considering that the MIM pickups are wound in the mid 7k range and are loaded with 2 large ceramic magnets.
Overall, I'm very impressed with these pickups. They're good. Not good for the price, actually good on their own. The construction isn't the same as vintage pickups, but the sound is very traditional.
Last edited:
