Your favorite strat bridge pup?

[tcsmusicman]

I'm custom ordering a P-Rails for my bridge, because I don't like the way the stock rail sounds, it's just too hot and muddy. The guy on the phone told me that's because it's wired somewhere between the Cool Rails and the Hot Rails. Ideally I would have them wind it like a Twangbanger but they told me that was impossible due to it using larger wire. Now I don't have a lot of experience with the other SD strat pups, so I was wondering what you guys would recommend for a more vintage strat tone?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Your favorite strat bridge pup?

For a true-to-vintage Stratocaster tone, you would be looking at Alnico five rod magnets and a DC resistance of (very roughly) 6.0kOhms. Unfortunately, with modern light gauge strings, a pickup such as this is going to come across as underpowered and excessively trebly.

To get a workable Rock sound from the bridge position pickup, you need to up the DC resistance to around 8.0k. (Higher, if you wish.) This gets you into the ballpark stats for the Twangbanger. By the most amazing coincidence, the Twangbanger manages to combine elements of Strat, Tele and P90 sounds in one pickup.

I have three of these in assorted Stratocasters and one of the old Custom Shop "Strat-Tele" units. It is possible that I am a tiny bit biased on this topic.

 

[LReese]

Re: Your favorite strat bridge pup?

I like my Strats to have the number of the beast... 666, give or take 1/2K.

 

[tcsmusicman]

Re: Your favorite strat bridge pup?

I might just tell them to get it to sound as close to the twangbanger as possible. And if that doesn't really work, they should be able to get it to sound like the SSL-1 hopefully.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Your favorite strat bridge pup?

Staying with Duncan, SSL-2 with a plain G; SSL-1 with a wound G. But I would also seriously consider a G&L CLF100 Alnico. $60 new straight from G&L, and less used. They are near identical to SSL-2's. (In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out they are made by Duncan.) They are slightly overwound "vintage" style pickups with no magnet stagger, ranging from 6.3 to 7.2 K IME. Better to buy used so you get them cheap, and you know what kind of wind you'll be getting.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Your favorite strat bridge pup?

I like vintage pickups, but a strat bridge of anything up to 7.5k is good in my books. I've also taken to doing mods to the electronics...the obvious one of having a tone pot for the bridge first, but also having separate caps for the two tone pots as well as the 50's wiring mod for the strat too. The extra flexibility gained allows me to roll down the tone in a very progressive manner.

 

[Bludave]

Your favorite strat bridge pup?

I really like the antiquity surfer bridge pickup. It's got a real nice vintage sound