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Author Topic: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style  (Read 15455 times)

38thBeatle

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #45 on: October 03, 2008, 06:45:25 PM »
I'd tend towards Tim's advice-but than I am biased towards Apaches for no reason than I simply love mine.
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elavd

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #46 on: October 03, 2008, 06:46:47 PM »
38thBeatle do you have them on a 60s style strat?
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38thBeatle

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #47 on: October 03, 2008, 06:47:41 PM »
Almost, mine is a 1970's with r/w board.
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BKP's: Apache, Country Boy, Slowhands.

elavd

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #48 on: October 03, 2008, 06:52:42 PM »
I'd like to add one more specification for the sound that I am looking...

I want a USABLE bridge pickup!!!

All the bridge pickups that I've tried so far are too harsh and too treble to my ears...But still I want that transparent and acoustic sounding 2nd position (bridge+middle pickup).
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AndyR

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #49 on: October 03, 2008, 07:13:40 PM »
I'm not really that much further on than last time we were discussing it - Still got ITs in alder/rosewood 62 reissue, still wondering about Apaches/MMs in this or another strat one day. However, I have recently switched to pure nickel strings, and the ITs are getting me ALL the sounds I want at the moment. Pure nickel has tamed some of the top end and given it a more organic vintage sound, it's gorgeous.

Not having tried them myself, I have in the back of my mind (possibly from this thread) that Apaches are for the "spank" end of the strat sound spectrum, and MMs are for the "quack" end of it.

I think I'm with 38th, if Tim advised them I'd lean towards Apaches at the moment...

BUT! Then I thought I'd check the clips you just posted, so I stopped writing and watched them  - 1st clip, I thought yeah, I'd guess Apaches for that... and then the 2nd and 3rd clip - er, that's my ITs right now :lol: (they don't seem to make my fingers move quite that well though... :roll:)

EDIT: Bridge IT is the best I've used - in fact I use it on it's own quite a bit. I'm fairly certain all the BKP bridges will be pretty useful. I've got a RW/RP middle for the "quack" in 2 and 4, but I think next time I'd go for standard, RWRP gives you plenty quack, but it's more "closed" sounding than I remember my old pickups being in 2 and 4.
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elavd

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #50 on: October 03, 2008, 07:38:03 PM »
AndyR to tell you the truth, I have a feeling that the ITs will be too hot for my taste...

I want to have a clear sounding set of pickups, and I think that the ITs sound best when used with overdrive...
Am I wrong?
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AndyR

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #51 on: October 03, 2008, 08:24:52 PM »
I wish I was geared up to do clips at the moment.

Right now I'm sat at the keyboard, doodling on the strat between posts. I'm going through a vox tonelab set up as an AC30 (non-topboost), through powered studio monitors.

I tend to run a strat vol control at 8 or so (so I set up an amp accordingly) and then I've got 8-10 for "more", 4-5 for "clean".

Right at the moment, turning up to 10 on the middle pickup sounds like the 2nd clip you posted except clearer and less distortion/overdrive. Turning it down to 6-7 it sounds like Mark Knopfler but the amp model is set up a bit too bassy for it. Pushing it on to the bridge, up to 10 and digging in with the pick, it's stinging "old fender" chicago blues (not quite as stinging as tele bridge, but close).

I bought the ITs to do Rory Gallagher and SRV, and they do the job - from really clean SRV on Texas Flood to Rory's dirtiest early 80s Marshall sound. But for my own noodlings I've ended up getting progressively cleaner when I play my strat because it's so "stratty". My desire to get another strat with Apaches/MMs has died down since a few months back, because this one's started doing what I thought I'd want the new kit for.

I'm kind of in the same boat as 38th (except he's actually gigging) - I love my first choice of pickup, and they are proving so versatile, that I have to pipe up when I know "mine" will do it.

Funnily enough though, this IT'd strat is NOT the guitar that I pickup when I want overdriven fender - I've got a tele with Blackguards that does it far far better. I'd say the ITs are what they're classed as ,"vintage hot", not out-and-out rocking machines.

I think if someone gave you ITs, you'd love them. But my gut feeling is that you do want either Apaches or MMs - and I suspect it's Apaches. It's just that you keep posting clips with tones that my ITs are doing :lol:
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elavd

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #52 on: October 03, 2008, 08:30:40 PM »
I think if someone gave you ITs, you'd love them. But my gut feeling is that you do want either Apaches or MMs - and I suspect it's Apaches. It's just that you keep posting clips with tones that my ITs are doing :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

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Elliot

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #53 on: October 03, 2008, 10:38:04 PM »
Watched those clips and its either Apaches or Mother's Milks in an alder bodied rosewood guitar.  I'd say Mother's Milks myself for that tone.
BKPS: Milks, P90s, Apaches, Mississippi Queens, Mules, PG Blues, BG FP 50s, e.60s strat custom set

elavd

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Re: Help me choose the right Strat pickups for my style
« Reply #54 on: October 04, 2008, 02:39:16 PM »
Do you believe that the Apaches have a more "rounded" sound than the Mother's Milk?

Also, what do you think about th bridge pickups of either set? Do they sound too ...trebly? Or better, which one is more usable?
> How many guitars are enough?
> One MORE!!!