Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

[Orange]

Hi everyone,
i've been experimenting a lot with my strats lately...

So i wanted to try noiseless but wasn't convinced by the single coil sized mini humbuckers.
I then tried the Lace Holy Grails and there was something missing.
I felt it wasn't really a strat anymore.
I own many other guitars so i have no interest to turn my strat into a humbucker machine.


So i am now thinking of reversing to a traditionnal strat sound.


This strat is a Squier Japan 62 type, i think veneer board.
Sweet and and deep basses, balanced and more sweetness than the 50's MIM i own.
I read a lot of product pages and it seems the Antiquity II (Surfers) are actually designed for exactly this guitar. I've heard a lot of good things about them but couldn't find accurate descriptions of the sound the give in every position.

I already have a vintage type strat, a MIM 50's Vshaped maple board, with Bare Knuckle Irish Tours.
A match made in heaven. Bright, punchy, fat vintage and rocking hard too tone.

So i would like this Squier 62 to sound quite different. Maybe more versatile,
and i want to focus on its natural sound (more balanced, more bass).


I also wanted versatility for this one, as i want to make it my workhorse (reharsals etc)...
Any advice and input is welcomed, on the surfers or anything else on the market.

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Five-Two for Strat (SSL-52): http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/electric/stratocaster/vintage-output/fivetwo_for_str/

From the SD Site:

Extremely balanced true single-coil pickup. Recommended for country, pop, blues, classic rock and heavy rock.

Alnico 2 magnets provide warmth and softer attack on the three high strings. Alnico 5 magnets provide punch and brightness on the low strings. It's like having two separate presence controls: one optimized for the high strings and one for the low strings. The result is a very balanced pickup with a bright and springy bottom end, and a smooth and rich top end. Includes white cover.

Calibrated set includes a higher-output custom bridge pickup, RW/RP middle and regular neck pickup.

For all well-balanced instruments. Works equally well with maple and rosewood fingerboards.

Hotter custom bridge version for better output balance. Reverse wound, reverse polarity (RW/RP) middle pickups for hum-canceling in positions "2" and "4" on the five-way switch.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[mojosman]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

By all means check out D. Allen pickups. I know this is a SD site, and I own Duncan products. I tend to prefer SD humbuckers.

That said, in terms of Strat pickups David Allen is making amazing stuff. I own a set of his Tru-62 pickups. They are phenomenal. His customer service is also excellent. You can contact David Allen directly via phone or email. I have had people literally play my guitar, try to buy it, and then call him and order these same pickups. Although they are traditional single coils they are very quiet, with fantastic vintage Strat tone.

My advice is call him and describe the tone you seek. He will set you up with the set for you. His pickups will be in my next build as well. I'm leaning towards his Austin Blues set. His site has sample videos of his stuff. What ever you end up doing; good luck.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

+1 for APS-1, SSL52-1, Antiquity II Surfer.

My own taste is for a Twangbanger in the bridge position. The "true" '62 Stratocaster is usually too edgy for my liking.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

D.Allen does amazing stuff. I've got his tru 62's as well. And his VooDoo 69's

Chevalier is another who does wonderful things with strat winds - and thats all he does. He's a strat pickup specialist

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I hate to say this, because I love SD Pickups but Duncan doesn't have a real deal, true vintage style Stratocaster single coil including the Antiquity line.

I'd suggest a small winder and simply tell them what you want and have them do it for you or if you don't want to wait go Fender!!!

I went through a dozen or so sets of Strat pickups including almost all the Duncan stuff and even a set of CS Duncans and nothing sounded right until I got a set of Fender CS 1960 pickups recently!

The 57/62's are a GREAT set of pickups with a warmer top end than a lot of really steely pickups...also the Fender Fat 50's are great...forget the 50's part of the name...they are vintage style pickups that have a little fatter midrange and slightly less top than some other pickups.

 

[Orange]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Funny how i imagined everyone would be raving about surfers and now people tell me to try vodoo's. Good enough, i own enough duncans pickups not to feel guilty about trying sthg else.

The guy who invented fire not even one week ago a friend was telling me about this "local pickup winder" who lives litterally two blocks from here.

Hepcat pickups. Yeah i live in Paris.

The D.Allens got my attention. I remember heatring good things about the Voodo before, although i don't really try to emulate the Hendrix tone, i'm more into the Beatles or Queen.

Is it me or is the strat pickup world completely different from the humbucking scene ?
It seems much harder to determine which pickup is the right one.

 

[mojosman]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I think Strat pickups and Humbuckers are different worlds in many ways. Even Tele pickups and Strat pickups are. I guess it's because our expectations in terms of tone change depending on what instrument we are dealing with.

It's free to check out D. Allen. If he makes you a believer buy from him. If not, there are many others out there. SD, Lindy Fralin, Rio Grande pickups, and many others. Lots of folks making high quality stuff.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Go buy a 62 Strat, pull the pickups and throw away what's left.


Sent from my armored space station using Tapatalk on iPad

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I have owned this '63 Strat since the early 1970's. Over forty years. The scars are playing wear and also from it taking a beating onstage. At one time it was my only guitar.

I also have owned many, many after market Strat pickups. My '63 is my benchmark for vintage Strat tone.

The Strat pickups I use in my other Strats are the Duncan Antiquity Surfer and the Lindy Fralin Vintage Hots. To me, those are the two best that I have tried.

I have the Fralins in one guitar. The Surfers in two guitars. I left the original pickups in my Fender Eric Johnson Strat.

I LOVE the Antiquity Surfers and they're probably my favorites.

 

[Orange]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I LOVE the Antiquity Surfers and they're probably my favorites.

Hi Lewguitar. Nice strat i love it. Appart from the color my MIJ Squier is completely similar.
Veneer board right ?
Could you be more specific about your surfers ?
People keep saying the pickups are great but i can't get any accurate description !!!
I was hoping to get a classic tone not as bright and crisp as my 50's strat, i'm after british invasion tones : beatles, queen, and later on Blur or Franz Ferdinand. I keep the bluesy and rock stuff for the 50's MIM with the irish tours.

I think Strat pickups and Humbuckers are different worlds in many ways. Even Tele pickups and Strat pickups are. I guess it's because our expectations in terms of tone change depending on what instrument we are dealing with.

Yeah it's weird because a few years back i used to write product pages and press releases for Dimarzio in Europe and i thought i knew a lot about pickups, but it was mostly Humbuckers.
When i try to pick strat pickups it seems all my knowledge is useless.

Although i need to say my first replacement (the bars knuckle irish tour) was pure gold, best pickups i've ever owned. Also i really pay attention to name the manufacturer gives to the product. When i see Rio Grande BBQ or Surfer, it's easier for me to rely than "Virtual Vintage" or "Zephyr".

Customer service is also important and ultuimatetely influences my final decision. When i email Bill & Becky, Reggie @ Lace Music or Tim @ BKP they are really nice, patient and helpful, whereas Larry DiMarzio prefers to talk about cocktails, cars and rock stars, making you wondering if the guy knows anything about pickups at all.
Seymour Duncan is a bigger company there's no one i can directly ask, which bothers me.

Which DAllen would you recommend and why ?

 

[wolf5150]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I've just put D.Allen RnB singles in my Anderson.
Awesome.
I also love Suhr V60LP singles.

Neither have the stupid high G and low B magnets.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Hi Lewguitar. Nice strat i love it. Apart from the color my MIJ Squier is completely similar.
Veneer board right ?
Could you be more specific about your surfers ?
People keep saying the pickups are great but i can't get any accurate description !!!
I was hoping to get a classic tone not as bright and crisp as my 50's strat, i'm after british invasion tones : beatles, queen, and later on Blur or Franz Ferdinand. I keep the bluesy and rock stuff for the 50's MIM with the irish tours.

The Surfers are in the vintage Fender camp.

In the same ball park and on the same team as the original pickups in my '63 Strat.

But my other Strats are "newer" and don't resonate the same as my old Strat.

Old wood probably just sounds different than new wood.

Also, IMO, a Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard makes a Strat sound different from one with another kind of Rosewood fingerboard. The old Strats, like mine and like SRV's, have Brazilian fingerboards.

Modern Strats don't and I think that also makes them sound different.

Even if you were to put a set of 50 year old pickups in a new Strat I doubt it would sound exactly like an old Strat because the wood in a modern Strat isn't old or even the exact same species.

One other thing: on my old '63 there is aluminum underneath the pick guard. That too probably affects the tone and is another possible reason old Strats from this era sound different and not quite as glassy bright.

As for what the Surfers sound like: you know what they sound like. They sound a lot like 50 year old Strat pickups and they do it as well as any I've tried and better than most.

What I use in my favorite modern Strat is a Surfer neck and middle and an Antiquity Texas Hot Custom bridge model.

I've always wanted a fatter tone with smoother treble and more midrange from the bridge pickup in my '63 Strat so when I built a Strat from parts I went with that set. Alnico 5 neck and middle Surfers and Alnico 2 over wound Antiquity Texas Hot Custom bridge pickup.

Works for me.

To make that set work together the Texas Hot needs to have the black and white wires reversed. And if you want humcancelling in the #2 and #4 switch settings, a RW/RP middle Surfer needs to be used in the neck position and the neck Surfer needs to go in the middle.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Funny how i imagined everyone would be raving about surfers and now people tell me to try vodoo's. Good enough, i own enough duncans pickups not to feel guilty about trying sthg else.

The guy who invented fire not even one week ago a friend was telling me about this "local pickup winder" who lives litterally two blocks from here.

Hepcat pickups. Yeah i live in Paris.

The D.Allens got my attention. I remember heatring good things about the Voodo before, although i don't really try to emulate the Hendrix tone, i'm more into the Beatles or Queen.

Is it me or is the strat pickup world completely different from the humbucking scene ?
It seems much harder to determine which pickup is the right one.

I dunno if I'd go to a small, unknown winder but thats only because there are dozens of well known small winders and in this world it's easy to get taken for a ride and get scammed...sad but true.

As for the Voodoo's, I don't suggest Voodoo pickups these days.

If Fender pickups are out then I'd suggest OC Duff or Curtis Novak myself.

The Surfers are nice pickups, I didn't want to imply they are not I just feel like they are hotter and mire midrange heavy plus have less clarity then any real vintage Strat I have ever played. The Texas Hots use the same (over)wind as the Surfers but use alnico II magnets moving them even farther from a vintage Strat pickup. The regular Production SSL-'1 from Duncan are also good pickups, I used them for a long time but just like the Surfers I find them hotter and thicker than any vintage Strat I've ever heard/played.

I feel like the Duncans are for guys that think they want a vintage output pickup but don't realize what they really means...it's like Seymour beefed them up just enough to please most players but if you know what a real vintage Strat sounds like the stock Duncan offerings are just a tad too much...

On the topic of Fralins they are nice too...I live the Vintage Hots, I like them best with a 5% underwind for more chime but the stock output version is really great as well.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

The Surfers are nice pickups, I didn't want to imply they are not I just feel like they are hotter and mire midrange heavy plus have less clarity then any real vintage Strat I have ever played. The Texas Hots use the same (over)wind as the Surfers but use alnico II magnets moving them even farther from a vintage Strat pickup. The regular Production SSL-'1 from Duncan are also good pickups, I used them for a long time but just like the Surfers I find them hotter and thicker than any vintage Strat I've ever heard/played.

I feel like the Duncans are for guys that think they want a vintage output pickup but don't realize what they really means...it's like Seymour beefed them up just enough to please most players but if you know what a real vintage Strat sounds like the stock Duncan offerings are just a tad too much...

On the topic of Fralins they are nice too...I live the Vintage Hots, I like them best with a 5% underwind for more chime but the stock output version is really great as well.

I agree for the most part. TGWIF and I semi-agree on most things.

I use the 5% under wound Fralins TGWIF mentions. Just like him, I like the stock Fralins a lot but prefer the 5% under wound version. They're smooth and chimey. I use one in the neck position of my Tele Custom that I have set up for slide, along with a Duncan Custom Shop Alnico 2 Jerry Donahue bridge pickup:



In my modern Strats, I do prefer the Surfers, and I like the more "forward" sound. I don't find it to be "too much" - even when I compare them to the sound of my old Strat.

 

[mojosman]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Hi Lewguitar. Nice strat i love it. Appart from the color my MIJ Squier is completely similar.
Veneer board right ?
Could you be more specific about your surfers ?
People keep saying the pickups are great but i can't get any accurate description !!!
I was hoping to get a classic tone not as bright and crisp as my 50's strat, i'm after british invasion tones : beatles, queen, and later on Blur or Franz Ferdinand. I keep the bluesy and rock stuff for the 50's MIM with the irish tours.



Yeah it's weird because a few years back i used to write product pages and press releases for Dimarzio in Europe and i thought i knew a lot about pickups, but it was mostly Humbuckers.
When i try to pick strat pickups it seems all my knowledge is useless.

Although i need to say my first replacement (the bars knuckle irish tour) was pure gold, best pickups i've ever owned. Also i really pay attention to name the manufacturer gives to the product. When i see Rio Grande BBQ or Surfer, it's easier for me to rely than "Virtual Vintage" or "Zephyr".

Customer service is also important and ultuimatetely influences my final decision. When i email Bill & Becky, Reggie @ Lace Music or Tim @ BKP they are really nice, patient and helpful, whereas Larry DiMarzio prefers to talk about cocktails, cars and rock stars, making you wondering if the guy knows anything about pickups at all.
Seymour Duncan is a bigger company there's no one i can directly ask, which bothers me.

Which DAllen would you recommend and why ?

Orange, here's the thing: I won't reccomend a model, because I'm not sure what tone you are hearing in your mind. You mentioned customer service as a factor in your final choice. That is David Allen's strong suit. If you call or email him you will deal with him directly. He knows his product line far better than I do. He will point you to the set that you need. I heard about his products over on Strat-talk.com. He is a member of the message board there and posts frequently. There are many many satisfied customers of his there as well.

I was building a partscaster that was going to be my take on a Clapton Strat, that is as close as possible to the orginal Blackie, not the Fender Signature model. What I had in mind was vintage pickups, no Lace Sensors or Noiseless pickups, and no on board pre-amp. I contacted David, and I told him what I wanted. He made me a pre-wired pickguard with his Tru-62 pickups, PIO tone caps, and the Jimmie Vaughan wiring mod where the middle pickup is wide open and the bridge is wired to the tone control. The middle pickup isn't reverse wound. They sound amazing and are as close to early 60's pickups as you will get.



I have three strats and I really don't need another but he has a few other sets I'm thinking about. I guess at some point I will build another, and it will have D. Allen pickups in it. Good luck! I hope that you find the tone that you seek.

 

[Orange]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I feel like the Duncans are for guys that think they want a vintage output pickup but don't realize what they really means...it's like Seymour beefed them up just enough to please most players but if you know what a real vintage Strat sounds like the stock Duncan offerings are just a tad too much...

On the topic of Fralins they are nice too...I live the Vintage Hots, I like them best with a 5% underwind for more chime but the stock output version is really great as well.

This topic is getting really interesting.
I actually have no idea what a real vintage 62 strat is supposed to sound like,
and as lewd guitar mentioned the squier japan isnt really going to sound the same.

But the reason i mentioned pure 62 is because i want this strat to have a very distinctive sound from the classic 50´s, because if the two strat sound too similar i'm just gonna play one and the other will collect dust, so i want pickups that really compliment this bassy sweet and balanced tone that make it different from the 50´s maple board bright strat.

So maybe a beefed up standard duncan is exactly what i need. I dont really care if its vintage correct, it just needs sound good, to sound like a strat !

The most important thing for me is the clean and rythm tones. I stopped playing lead the day i realised that guitar heroes don't get laid !

I want a neck that gives me rich dynamic clear and deep clean sounds to play arpeggios.
2nd position to play chords that sound almost like an acoustic,
middle pickup to play "clunky"rythhm as heard on surf music and also new wave,
the 4th to play funk like nile rogers
and a kickass bridge with a fat warm sound that can handle a serious amount of gain, like say brian may for example.

Correct me if i'm wrong but your surfer/texas combination seems to do exactly this. Then again the ssl1´s too.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

I think you're getting a little carried away with all the wishful thinking in terms of what the five positions of the switch are going to give you.

But my goal in combining the Alnico 5 Surfer neck and middle with an overwound Alnico 2 Texas Hot Custom bridge pickup was to give me classic vintage Strat neck and middle tones for chords and neck pickup solos, and a hotter and thicker tone for bridge pickup solos that was not so thin, bright and glassy as the bridge pickup on my '63 Strat.

Like most ideas, the actual manifestation of that conception didn't achieve 100% perfection but I'm very happy with it and it remains my favorite pickup set in a Strat.

I like it better than the also excellent results I got from a neck and middle SSL-1 and a bridge Twangbanger. I also liked the results I got from a neck and middle APS-2 and a bridge Twangbanger - maybe even more than the results I got with the SSL-1's.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Am I the only one who things that Seymour had the right idea in the first place and the Antiquity (1) are really nice?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Pure 62 Strat Tone ?

Am I the only one who things that Seymour had the right idea in the first place and the Antiquity (1) are really nice?

All three being alnico 2 Texas Hots with the Texas Hot Custom bridge pickup?

Sure!

Every set mentioned in this thread probably sounds great.