The Seymour Duncan Stormbringer Set
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Inflames626
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The idea of something "vintage" as being a single kind of tone can be misleading.
It took me a long time to realize that a lot of pickup issues are "X tone according to Y guru using Z method," mainly because there were so many variations in pickups in the old days.
Until recently, I pretty much thought a pickup was a pickup and they were all wound and made to a strict standard with little deviation, even back in the 1950s. I thought more or less all that had changed with the times was output and voicing, with the emphasis being on increased clarity and balance, or even flatness if it comes to active pickups.
That said I don't mean to bash SD too much. I appreciate their effort in working on new designs when they could keep selling the same things. I always like having more choice on the market and the ability to return anything one doesn't want. But it does make for a laborious trial and error process.
Plus I like to listen to all my pickups back to back, so having them all with me during installation helps. This can make for a costly short term haul if you have 3 or more sets you want to try and return 2 sets you don't want.
I don't think there are too many pickups on the market as much as there are a lot of small boutique builders now muddying the waters, which makes the gear industry like craft brewing. When you had SD, DiMarzio, and EMG, it was like Budweiser, Coors, and Miller. Or Ford, GM, and Chrysler. But now the market is more fragmented.
Still I wish it were easier to pinpoint what one might like. People basically know what a Corolla does vs. a Civic or an Escalade without having to drive them. If only it were so with pickups.
I also grew up thinking that aftermarket pups were automatically superior to anything made by Gibson and Fender from the 1970s on. Not necessarily. Where I fault Gibson is their forcing you to go aftermarket if you want four conductor pickups (unless they've released a line that deliberately comes with diverse wiring options from the factory). What keeps me away from Fender is their relative lack of experience building high output humbuckers tailored toward my genre to match their excellent single coils. I know there are Diamondbacks and Atomics and Twinheads but these designs change often and without notice, making it difficult to figure out what year models to buy.
EMG, SD, and DiMarzio have decades of marketing behind them now, though, that gives them prestige, while Gibson and Fender have the edge of being an OEM part, itself a prestige thing, especially after Fender emerged from CBS and improved and Gibson became a lifestyle brand post bankruptcy.
In short, thanks SD for a new set to try, but there are already so many new sets to try...
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Inflames626
New member
And this makes me want to get six guitars to put those six pickup types in so the poor pickups aren't homeless.
Inflames626
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Wasn't the Psychedelic Strat set a Custom Shop only order at one point?
RanchManSandy
New member
haha right on! i think Elric would be more of an invader guy. I get doom metal vibes or Sunny O)) from him. So maybe an invader for his Gibson Explorer?
Now moonglum on the other hand, def more of a psychodelic Strat set kinda guy.
Corum is 100% a pearly gates dude, and Hawkmoon would rock a Pegasus every day in a Dinky
It is regular production now. I'd describe the Stormbringer as a few years later than the Psychedelic set in Fender chronology.
beaubrummels
Well-known member
The DCRs are different, hinting these may be slightly hotter. But my understanding is Duncans are wound to a turn count and coil geometry, not a DCR target, so presumably the DCR difference moreover hints the coils are different here as well. Not saying they are night and day different, could be very near neighbors. But I doubt it's a straight repackaging, if that's what you might be hinting at. Even the Custom Shop Psychedelic set were different coil winds from the production version. But based on what I know of other past variants of Duncans, the difference would be enough that a discerning player would want a particular model (that last 5-10% of the tone chase is in 80-90% of the cost usually), whereas the average player might be fine with a MOR substitute and tweaking amps/patches/pedals to get back in the ball park.
Aceman
I am your doctor of love!
None on any occasion.
However - I say the same thing about Gibson $150 T-Tops. It was the world's most replaced pickup. Great idea - let's redo it and charge 5x what it was worth!
JohnnyGuitarCA
New member
Man, I did a lot of pickup replacements when I worked at a music store in the 80's. Removed a lot of T-Tops.
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ToneFiddler
New member
No i don't think they are repackaged. I have some handwound pickups and they have the best note seperation i know of.
i speculate the psychedlics are now machine wound and these are hand guided. That alone is worth something to me.
But if you have an old set of custom shop psychedelics, i am sure i will fail in a blind test, unless it would be my main guitar and i would play it for over a year without any changes to my setup -> not gonna happen...
Also the difference between 2 sets of psychedelics and 2 strombringers might be just the same range of differnce.
Fender CBS produced those low wind gray bottom enamel wire PUs from 1966 into the 70s. i am sure they where inconsistent, but i want a description what those pickups represent and how that affects my tone -> what are those different nuances, EQ changes, dynamics, etc...???
ToneFiddler
New member
That might very well be, but what are those changes and how do they affect my tone?
Edit: i have a fender 69 PU and a set of the same thing handguided from a local winder. He also offers a set with the same incredients but with a more uniform wind to represent the machine wound era.
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Can you get the sound of Blackmore's 74-75 tone cheaper? Maybe. The Psychedelics were made for the late 60s, the Stormbringers for the early-mid 70s. You might be able to find actual 70s Fender pickups cheaper, too. There are lots of custom PAF replicas, too, and there is a 59 that is perfect for many people.
beaubrummels
Well-known member
This would not be true if the coil geometry were different; e.g. if Psychedelics pack more winds toward the top of the bobbin and Stormbringers pack more winds at the center, they will still sound different from each other even if the DCRs were the same (I'm not saying that is true for these pickups, I'm just giving a hypothetical example that DCR is not the only difference).
I don't know for fact the specific technical differences between these two sets as one is new to production and one was just released by the Custom Shop, so I don't have them in hand to test. But I can say about Duncan pickups in general is that when they call two sets of pickups by a different model name, I can trust they do sound different enough to justify having a different model name. In this case, I would posit the model name hints at what they may have tweaked in the sound that makes them different.
right, so these arent for you. seymour started making fender style single coils before he ever made a humbucker so its very on brand. also, i dont hate a t-top in the neck, and plenty of people got good tones with em. $150 is a bit high but not crazy. the prices people are getting for a real t-top are ridiculous these days
ToneFiddler
New member
schizophrenically he raves about his T-top in the neck of his one les Paul a lot.
I searched this forum up and down for t-tops, that why i know.
Manlius T-tops clones wheren't that ridiculous priced a few years back.
ToneFiddler
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donaldr
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I have a "regular vintage output 3-pickups" Strat, but this is the one I used the most: STK-S4 neck, dummy middle flush to pickguard, STK-S7 bridge, 3-way switch. Neck, neck + bridge, bridge: 3 sounds I'm using which was not the case with regular 3-pickups + 5-way switch.btw, I'm tempted to convert at least one of my strats in two pickups configuration, with an empty cover for the middle, only to experiment if the reduce magnetic pull could be audible, since in 40 years I've never like middle pickup and position 2 and 4 in a strat
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donaldr
New member
Fender pickguards are not direct replacement, so I would have to get a custom pickguard. Cheaper to get a $5 no-name Amazon pickups (not even connected).
Only the wood, the frets and the pickguard are orignal
.I don't know why, but this guitar sounds so big and articulate. I had the same pickups/switch/pots in a Fender MIM Strat, sounded nice but not to the same degree.
ToneFiddler
New member
looks good with all 3 pickups. SS start looks like somethings missing, we are that accustomed to that look
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