Pups for Ash/Maple Stratocaster

[thesjkexperience]

I have a 54 Thin Skin with an ash body and maple neck. The pups in the guitar are pretty good, but not over the top, and the guitar is punchy and clear. The guitar has huge potential with the right touch on pups. My style is blooze/rock with a little surf thrown in. I have SSL-1 in my alder/rosewood and and stock pups in my 56 ri. Both are great sounding guitars. I use a tweed deluxe style amp with a celestion blue.

I am looking at the SD Surfers, Fralin blues, or possibly Fender Fat 50s. I am leaning toward the surfers as they should be a bit like the ssl-1 but more complex.

I havent sampled pups in a long time so I need your help.

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: Pups for Ash/Maple Stratocaster

All of those are great pickups. I don't remember fender's fat 50s. I remember hating real 54s (both fenders and fralins, because I thought they sounded steely, am not a big fan of a3's in strat pickups).

I personally prefer fralin vintage hots for chimier bell like strat tones. For SRV kinda tones with more defined bass and textured lowermids, I adore van zandt vintage plus'. And surfers have some of the nice qualities of these pickups. They have more defined bass and textured lowermids than fralins, and is chimier and more singing than van zandts.

B