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would like to get a new set for my bratomaster. ideally a vintage or slightly hot vintage set with a nice bit of bass would be great. alnico 5s too i guess. i'm leaning toward the fender cs 69s at the moment.

any recommendations from your travels?

The Custom Shop Fat '50s in my Strat have me fully satisfied with their classic strat sound.

George wrote:would like to get a new set for my bratomaster. ideally a vintage or slightly hot vintage set with a nice bit of bass would be great. alnico 5s too i guess. i'm leaning toward the fender cs 69s at the moment.

any recommendations from your travels?

I have a set of pickups from Mojo, they're really good and Marc will wind almost any spec that you want. He's usually cheaper than Fender and with a metal plate on the bridge pickup you can get loadsa bass.
Click for Mojo. I do hate the word mojo though.

I love Rose Pickups - have a set of Robustas in my strat. Prices are lovely and cheap too, even post-Brexit armageddon.

I have Texas Specials in a MIM anniversary model of mine and it's Ace!

Pretty much stick to AVRI pickups when I'm doing "vintage reissue" style Strat or Tele project, and have an AV 57 I never wanted to modify in any way (except a circular string tree because fuck yeah), love the pickups in that for classic Strat business. You can usually find single pickups on eBay for a decent price, never investigated buying a full Strat set though.

thanks all

paul, are those the 57/62 models? they sound great. off the back of this thread i've shortlisted to the following fender sets: custom shop fat 50s, 69s or avri 57/62s. fender just seems reliable and easy, and there are plenty of demos around to get a feel.

im struggling to picture what would be best for my guitar though. it's a TOM bridge with a jazzy tremolo, poplar body and an ebony board. i'm not usually one for tonewoods, but certainly the TOM might affect things. the tones i'm after are mike bloomfield on highway 61 revisited and richard lloyd on marquee moon, but any of those sets could do that so i'll keep checking ebay for them.

the majority of strats sold in america are Squier Bullet, Affinity or Standard strats

try those. thats what a strat sounds like to me.

Truth be told it's hard to fuck the essence of a Strat up and all the models rob mentioned sound sufficiently Stratty, but for those prepared to throw a bit of research and pocket money at classic/OG sound you can certainly do better than ceramic bar magnet pickups beefed up thru 500k pots... even an alnico set from GFS gives you a much more glassy/articulate Strat sound with most import Strats... and I believe George had a Classic Vibe which means his standard for pickups is probably already set higher than lower end Squier and MIM.

If you buy a Strat (or any guitar) and like it, doesn't matter what pickups are in it: the physical guitar itself is doing some heavy lifting. Put humbuckers in a tremolo Strat and you still hear that scoopy Strat sound coming through. If you're sourcing pickups for an existing guitar, there's no need to go with that import ceramic and mini pot stuff on purpose... but if you want, the whole assembly pots and all can probably be found wholesale for the price of a pizza on eBay or Amazon (which is why they're in the cheap guitars, they're cheap).

And let's face it rob, the guitars you DIDN'T change the pickups in were some of your Japanese Mustangs and your AV Jag rite? I don't see you rockin no stock Squier Strat.

I think the 57/62 are plain and boring. They do "Strat" sounds but they're kinda flat and lifeless, no dynamics to them at all. I had 'em in one of my partscasters and removed and sold them within a couple of days.

One of mine has a set of Bare Knuckle Apache and the other has Bare Knuckle Mothers Milk. In my opinion, these are amazing pickups that are dynamically responsive and capture the essence of what I think a Strat should sound like. On the negative side, they're quite expensive and not too easy to find used.

If you're gonna go for the 57/62 you might as well just buy some pups from a CV Strat and be done with it, for the price difference, they're not worth it.

new bare knuckle pricing would be okay and i had actually thought about them. if i want alnico 5, presumably it'd be the mother's milk set? seems to tick a lot of boxes - based on mid-60s tones, good bass response, dynamic etc. the front runners from fender seem to be the cs69s but people often find them a bit thin.

i also like that you can order direct and get base plates added, and choose non-staggered pole pieces. the guitar has a 10-16" compound radius and TOM bridge so non-staggered may be the way to go. i've pinged them an email.

by the by, i have a set of the cv 50 (tonerider surfaris) in it now. they're great but a little too soft when playing with my fingers so i want something a bit punchier for playing live. i also have a cv 60s strat as a backup and get lovely tones out of that for the price.

paul_ wrote:And let's face it rob, the guitars you DIDN'T change the pickups in were some of your Japanese Mustangs and your AV Jag rite? I don't see you rockin no stock Squier Strat.

do doubt. you right.

but i don't like what stock strats sound like. expensive or cheap. thats why i was always buying them cheap and turning them into duo casters. putting random pickups in them like Duckbuckers, Stock Bronco pickups, Jagstang Neck Pickups, SJAG-3's....that kind of rub.




all that aside. if i really really wanted to get the job done, i would buy a Mexican Standard Strat from the 90's that has had some guy beating on it for 15 years so its nice and softened up by a human being, not a machine.....and then put AVRI pickups in it. I only go with those because the AVRI pickups in my jaguar are so fucking amazing. the strat ones cant be that bad

just ordered some bkp mothers milks with flat profile and a bridge base plate. fuck it.

George wrote:just ordered some bkp mothers milks with flat profile and a bridge base plate. fuck it.

yesssss. Not tried the brass bridge plate but those pickups are awesome.

I think Texas Specials are still my favorite for the price. Nice fat bridge pickup and Hedrix-y neck. Fat 50s are OK too if you want more of that plinky 50s / early 60s sound.

BKPs FTW! Have them in all my guitars. I got my MIJ Jag pups rewound by Tim at BKP and requested a Mothers Milk wind on the neck, it sounds bloody awesome.

Excellent, quite excited now. Hope I get them before Christmas, and they vibe nicely in my guitar.

Some great pickups for strats? Mustang and nocaster pickups. I also have a soft spot for Duncan Quarter Pounders .

mothers milks are installed. very fat and woody. having to fiddle with height a lot, but definitely sounds stratty as hell.