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I find my Music Master plays hot - some grit comes out - in a good way - even when at not-great volume. Is this common for these pickups?

I assume you're talking about a vintage musicmaster? what year? what are you plugging it into?

It's a 76 - lately plugged into a 6aq5 Music Master Bass Amp.

sounds like a cool setup! afraid I can't shed any light on the pickup though. I would like to learn more about these pickups myself. specifically mid/late 70s - early 80s.

It is a fun set up - just wonder about that pickup myself - are earlier vintage Music Master/Duo pickups weak strong hot or what?

Mine is the same way. You would expect it to be thin, but it's snappy and no waiting.

Waiting is for Communists.

I think it's pretty common for older pickups to be a bit micro-phonic and gritty. All of my guitars made before the 80's range from really hot and slightly micro-phonic to kinda weak and really micro-phonic. I'm not an expert but I think being micro-phonic adds to the grit.

Sidney Vicious wrote:are earlier vintage Music Master/Duo pickups weak strong hot or what?

i posted in another thread about this, but my comparison of 3 similar guitars with original pickups yielded the following:

64 duo-sonic- loudest and fullest sounding.

72 mustang- slightly quieter than the duo and very bright.

76 mustang- noticeably the quietest, not particularly trebly (this was the ash-bodied one). tended to screech rather than feedback, unlike the other two.

but overall they're quite similar.

Is it the same with different amps?

I will do a side-by-side-by-side comparison in the coming days of my '76 Music Master, my partscaster Stratocaster with Custom '69's, and my stock 60's Classic Telecaster played (clumsily) through my '64 Epiphone Galaxie, '68 Champ-Amp, '70 Music Master Bass Amp, and '71 Princeton Reverb and will report back.