Members Spitfire Mojo Posted December 3, 2010 Members Share Posted December 3, 2010 I have 2008 American standard strat and I was considering upgrading the pups. I always considered them to be fairly low output, because I didn't have any other strats/single coil guitars. Then I picked up a new strat with these pickups:Neck- Custom shop fat 50sMiddle- Custom shop '69Bridge- Seymour duncan sl-1 The guitar sounds amazing, and has a lot of great sounds available in all positions which led me to want some variety in my '08. However I have a little riff I play (in the style of ZZ top "just got paid") and it has a repeating artificial harmonic. I found with the new strat I couldn't get the harmonic to come out with the same amp/pedal combo settings and the guitar dimed. So before I go and switch things out, I need to understand where the american standard pickups fall in the spectrum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strtdv Posted December 3, 2010 Members Share Posted December 3, 2010 They're reasonably low output. I don't care for the stock pickups at all. Clean they're OK, overdriven they're ice-picky to my ears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members almightycrunch Posted December 3, 2010 Members Share Posted December 3, 2010 Would agree with the above poster, nothing to write home about, but a decent utility single coil tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bsman Posted December 3, 2010 Members Share Posted December 3, 2010 Funny (and a lot of folks will, I'm sure, disagree), but to my ears, the current MIM standards have pickups that bring the rawk much better than the US standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Spitfire Mojo Posted December 3, 2010 Author Members Share Posted December 3, 2010 Ok, looks like the consensus is that they are a low output pickup. I guess, pickup height or something could be the difference in being able to get the pinch harmonic? Or maybe they are still slightly hotter than the fat 50's custom shop in the neck of my other strat? Also, has someone tried to list some of the popular replacement pups in terms of output power? I know Fralin has a spectrum of choices, but how those, say, relate to fender custom shop or another popular maker? Wow, that now reads like a thread from TGP. Hahaha, sorry. I'm not a cork sniffer, I just don't have a framework of understanding on what is available and where it falls I actually don't mind the neck pickup sound, but the middle and bridge leave me underwhelmed on my Am Std. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.