DreX
New member
Antiquity II Surfers are my favorite Strat pickups, they sound full and powerful, especially at high volumes. They're slightly hotter, and slightly darker than typical Strat pickups, and are resistant to sounding harsh or brittle like most typical Strat pickups. Sometimes, but not often, they are a little too dark for what I want to do, so I'll turn to lower wound pickups, like Fender CS 69's or the "Fender 60th Anniversary Strat Pickup Set" for something brighter, but I wanted to see what would Ant II Surfers would sound like if they were simply underwound a bit, so I put in an order with the custom shop for 10% underwinds.
Where as the Ant II's have a heavy, dark, piano-like clang and sustain and moderate compression, the underwound Ant II's are very, very bright and light bodied, a sweet high end and a delicate attack. They're biased towards the low end of a wide dynamic range, which is to say that standard picking strength results in a rather quiet, light-picking sort of sound, but striking the strings with force gets very loud. If the stock Ant II's are leather, these under wounds are definitely lace.
The bridge vintage Strat pickup is often criticized for being thin and piercing, and unfortunately, that's doubly the case with the underwound bridge. A typical Ant II hot bridge is wound to 9.9k with 43 AWG, this one is wound to 8.6k. It is difficult to hit the strings on the bridge pickup and not get a rather shrill sound, reminiscent of a bridge humbucker wired out of phase with itself. If I pick over the 20th fret, it's not so bad, and if I dial down the tone knob knob with a .003uF cap, it sounds pretty decent, and a stock Strat isn't going to allow for that, but a treble roll off could be hardwired with a trim pot.
On the plus, the B+M position is very present, very quacky, and very alive with harmonic detail, the kind of thing that stacked noiseless don't know they're missing. The strong suit of these pickups is definately the 2 and 4 positions.
The middle pickup has a ton of quack all by itself, and is very present. The middle pickup often bores Strat players, but the responsiveness as well as the bright presence really makes the middle position a lot more interesting than would be expected.
The neck pickup on a Strat is usually pretty solid and full sounding, even with low wound vintage Strat pickups, if only because there's so much kinetic energy in that location. I've never heard a dainty neck pickup - until now. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's still very expressive and widely dynamic, but not as ballsy as any other neck pickup I've tried. As with the bridge, applying tone control with a .003 uF cap mellows it out and makes for a very pretty neck sound with lots of harmonic activity making it's way out of the amp.
Overall they are somewhat comparable to Fender CS 69's, but these feature weaker A5 magnets than the CS 69's, so the attack is bit softer, less bass and mids and more high end presence. The Fender 60th Anniversary set with A3's is somewhere between the underwound Ant II and the CS 69's. Both are overall more aggressive than the Ant II underwounds.
The DCR values for the underwinds ended up being: B 8.5k , M 6.0k, N 5.8k
If anyone else were interested in ordering such a set from the custom shop, I'd say maybe don't go quite so underwound, and/or put a push/pull tone knob that allows for a .003 uF cap alternative to the usual .022 / .047, because these pickups sound utterly beautiful rolled at 50% with the .003 uF, sounding rich and lush without being too bright.
Here are sound clips comparing the Ant II to the underwound Ant II:
Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Surfer Underwound (neck & middle DCR high 5's, gauss 40)
Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Surfers (neck & middle DCR low 6's, gauss 40)
Antiquity Neck Pickup Comparison
Pics
Where as the Ant II's have a heavy, dark, piano-like clang and sustain and moderate compression, the underwound Ant II's are very, very bright and light bodied, a sweet high end and a delicate attack. They're biased towards the low end of a wide dynamic range, which is to say that standard picking strength results in a rather quiet, light-picking sort of sound, but striking the strings with force gets very loud. If the stock Ant II's are leather, these under wounds are definitely lace.
The bridge vintage Strat pickup is often criticized for being thin and piercing, and unfortunately, that's doubly the case with the underwound bridge. A typical Ant II hot bridge is wound to 9.9k with 43 AWG, this one is wound to 8.6k. It is difficult to hit the strings on the bridge pickup and not get a rather shrill sound, reminiscent of a bridge humbucker wired out of phase with itself. If I pick over the 20th fret, it's not so bad, and if I dial down the tone knob knob with a .003uF cap, it sounds pretty decent, and a stock Strat isn't going to allow for that, but a treble roll off could be hardwired with a trim pot.
On the plus, the B+M position is very present, very quacky, and very alive with harmonic detail, the kind of thing that stacked noiseless don't know they're missing. The strong suit of these pickups is definately the 2 and 4 positions.
The middle pickup has a ton of quack all by itself, and is very present. The middle pickup often bores Strat players, but the responsiveness as well as the bright presence really makes the middle position a lot more interesting than would be expected.
The neck pickup on a Strat is usually pretty solid and full sounding, even with low wound vintage Strat pickups, if only because there's so much kinetic energy in that location. I've never heard a dainty neck pickup - until now. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's still very expressive and widely dynamic, but not as ballsy as any other neck pickup I've tried. As with the bridge, applying tone control with a .003 uF cap mellows it out and makes for a very pretty neck sound with lots of harmonic activity making it's way out of the amp.
Overall they are somewhat comparable to Fender CS 69's, but these feature weaker A5 magnets than the CS 69's, so the attack is bit softer, less bass and mids and more high end presence. The Fender 60th Anniversary set with A3's is somewhere between the underwound Ant II and the CS 69's. Both are overall more aggressive than the Ant II underwounds.
The DCR values for the underwinds ended up being: B 8.5k , M 6.0k, N 5.8k
If anyone else were interested in ordering such a set from the custom shop, I'd say maybe don't go quite so underwound, and/or put a push/pull tone knob that allows for a .003 uF cap alternative to the usual .022 / .047, because these pickups sound utterly beautiful rolled at 50% with the .003 uF, sounding rich and lush without being too bright.
Here are sound clips comparing the Ant II to the underwound Ant II:
Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Surfer Underwound (neck & middle DCR high 5's, gauss 40)
Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Surfers (neck & middle DCR low 6's, gauss 40)
Antiquity Neck Pickup Comparison
Pics
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