Hello
I am about to replace the pickups in my 69 Thinline Tele. I have decided on a set of blackguards but cannot decide between the flat or stagger sets.
I would be most grateful if anyone could advise me on how the two sets differ tonally.
Hi
Can't tell about the 55 stagger, sorry. The F50s bridge is very raw, more powerful I thought it would be, typical TeleTwang(tm) but without the icepick, and "fattens" well when rolling of the tone. The neck is marvelous, not muddy at all, very woody and fluid - really has something of a strat, but still sounds like a Tele. Middle position has this nice quacks that's perfect for funky riffs. Overall, very very nice, raw yet still warm clean tones. They also love overdrive, from light bluesy breakup to full AC/DC crunch, and even - to my surprise - give pretty good results with heavier distortions.
Oh, and the first position (both pups, series) on the 4way switch is really great, gives kind of a humbucker's fatness and feel without loosing single-coils dynamic and definition.
To make a long story short, if you go for rockabilly, blues, garage, classic rock, early hard rock tones etc and you like a raw, twangy, punchy, breathing Tele, you'll love these pups.
FWIW, Roy Fullton's demo (cf Ratrod's answer) is well representative of what you can expect from them IMHO - too bad they don't make me as a good a guitar player :?
