Some advice please...Fender AVRI 62 might need some new pickups

[Sinner1980]

Hi all,

After a long, long search for a guitar that fitted my every needs I finally found it. It's probably my 8th or 9th strat already but this one just feels and sounds right. It's a 2001 avri 62 strat in mint condition which I got by trading it for my hot rod 52 tele.
Swapping is always a dangerous business but I must say I'm very satisfied with this one.

The strat is still standard and since guitar players are always looking for a way to improve their sound (most of them that is)
I thought a pickup change might be a good option to tweak my overall sound a bit.
I want to keep this strat close to vintage specs so no high output pickups etc.

This might be cursing in the church but I must say that I'm very tempted to get a set of SD antiquity surfers since I've heard and read so many positive things about them. Frusciante is a major influence for me and he uses them so it seems like a logical choice. Then again I've had some nice experiences with BKP and Tim has after all named a set of pickups after the RHCP debut album Mother's Milk...and that doesn't make things easier.

I'm also very much into blues (The Hoax, SRV, Chris Duarte etc) so I was wondering if the Mother's Milk set would cover that as well; other suggestions are welcome to of course although I suspect it'll be the Irish Tours.

The standard 57/62 set which come with the strat are actually quite all right yet, and you may call me stupid, I think that pickups twice the price just have to make a difference and alter the sound in a positive way.

Would be cool if somebody has actually had both the SD surfer set and the Mother's Milk set and could give me an honest opinion on the differences,

Cheers!

[itamar101]

Mothers Milk isn't RHCP's debut album, it's their 4th album.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Freaky Styley
The Uplift Mofo Party Plan
Mothers Milk
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Californication
By The Way
Stadium Arcadium
I'm With You

Man, I like RHCP and John way too much. Now enough of the trolling.

My friend owns an Edwards strat (John Frusciante replica) with seymour duncan antiquities and I the Mother's Milks (I also faced a huge dilemma because of how much The Froosh influences me). They are both great sounding pickups but the Bare Knuckles are slightly clearer (Which is pretty much a standard for any BK Pickup, they are clearer than any other pickup you'll find and more "natural and woody" sounding. The Mother's Milk has nicer and more jangly cleans and it handles distortion just as well, if not better, than the Seymour Duncans.

The Mothers Milk is also lower output so it'll be more vintage correct but if you want more versatiliy for some grittier stuff then the way to go is definately a Mother Milk neck and middle and an Irish Tour bridge with a baseplate.

I've got that set up in my strat and it sounds stunning and is very versatile.

[Telerocker]

With a rosewood fretboard you could opt for a Apache-bridge (rounder en more mids then the MM) and two Mothers Milk. Tim (BKP) has this combo in one of his strat. It makes the bridge more usuable with drive/gain.
Besides that, I think that Irish Tours are quite versatile. They do SRV-stuff very good and have more bass and mids then MM's, but still quite vintagesounding. Roll down the toneknob a bit and you're in MM-terrority. They're a slight less woody though, but provide convincing Frusciante-tones this way.

[itamar101]

Nah. The Apaches are for maple fretboards + they're very low output. TS will probably want something higher output but if a similar sound in the bridge. That's where the Irish Tours come in.

[AndyR]

I'm not sure I'd call Apaches "very low output"... :lol:

I put off getting them for years because I was worried that they were wimpy in some way. But I have ITs/Sultans/Apaches - and they're all in the same sort of ballpark output-wise. In fact, the Apaches seem to be the most capable of "aggressive strat" of the three.

All depends how you're using them and your amp, but (if I broke a string, for example) I would happily swap to any of the three guitars using the same amp settings and keep going.

Also, although theoretically the Apaches are for maple necks - don't let that stop anyone. I put them in a maple-neck strat originally, but now they're in a rosewood-neck strat (a CIJ "62"). That guitar has had all three sets at one time or other, and the Apaches are what makes it go... (something to do with it being a fiesta red maybe? :lol: The original "first in the UK" Hank Marvin fiesta red strat has a rosewood board...).

To the OP - as long as the strat has a reasonably "open" tone acoustically, I'd tend to go for ITs - that gives me what I feel is more versatility, grit/woody/bell-like, everything I need... all controllable from the guitar itself. I found in the CIJ 62, which is very warm sounding and not that bright, that the ITs didn't really give me the clarity I wanted when rolled off. They do it perfectly in the brighter and more resonant strat they sit in now.

Having said that, the Tim combo of MM in neck/middle with an Apache bridge does sound very tempting.


I also find myself wondering about the newer BKP strat sets - don't know much about them - how do they fit into this?

[Telerocker]

I'm not sure I'd call Apaches "very low output"... :lol:

I put off getting them for years because I was worried that they were wimpy in some way. But I have ITs/Sultans/Apaches - and they're all in the same sort of ballpark output-wise. In fact, the Apaches seem to be the most capable of "aggressive strat" of the three.

All depends how you're using them and your amp, but (if I broke a string, for example) I would happily swap to any of the three guitars using the same amp settings and keep going.

Also, although theoretically the Apaches are for maple necks - don't let that stop anyone. I put them in a maple-neck strat originally, but now they're in a rosewood-neck strat (a CIJ "62"). That guitar has had all three sets at one time or other, and the Apaches are what makes it go... (something to do with it being a fiesta red maybe? :lol: The original "first in the UK" Hank Marvin fiesta red strat has a rosewood board...).

To the OP - as long as the strat has a reasonably "open" tone acoustically, I'd tend to go for ITs - that gives me what I feel is more versatility, grit/woody/bell-like, everything I need... all controllable from the guitar itself. I found in the CIJ 62, which is very warm sounding and not that bright, that the ITs didn't really give me the clarity I wanted when rolled off. They do it perfectly in the brighter and more resonant strat they sit in now.

Having said that, the Tim combo of MM in neck/middle with an Apache bridge does sound very tempting.


I also find myself wondering about the newer BKP strat sets - don't know much about them - how do they fit into this?

With strats a lot depends on the tonal character of guitar, but I would not have doubts to put an Apache-bridge in my strat, which is ash with rosewood fretboard. And dc-resistance doesn't mean they're weak. My VHII doesn't sound much weaker then the Crawler in my customstrat.

[Philly Q]

(something to do with it being a fiesta red maybe? :lol: The original "first in the UK" Hank Marvin fiesta red strat has a rosewood board)

Sorry for being pedantic, but I'm 99% sure it was maple!

I also find myself wondering about the newer BKP strat sets - don't know much about them - how do they fit into this?

The Pat Pend models?  My impression is that they're both fairly similar to the Mother's Milk, the main difference being that they're very precise recreations of real Strat pickups from particular periods, whereas the MM is a sort of "idealised" but generic early-'60s Strat pickup rather than a nitpickingly exact reproduction.

Of course, as usual I'm going by what I've read.  Listening, I'd probably struggle to tell the difference.

[shobet]

Yeah, I think it's a maple boarded Strat. I think it was restored and Bruce Welsh owns it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTjtRswXxfw

[djl]

Hiya - I've actually got a 62 Vintage hot rod reissue with the 59 slab boards in, and they're awesome. Prob my faves. I have tried all the vintage series p/us and the two pat pending sets are my faves. If you're near Brum you're welcome to try em out in my guitar sometime

[AndyR]

(something to do with it being a fiesta red maybe? :lol: The original "first in the UK" Hank Marvin fiesta red strat has a rosewood board)

Sorry for being pedantic, but I'm 99% sure it was maple!

Yeah, I think it's a maple boarded Strat. I think it was restored and Bruce Welsh owns it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTjtRswXxfw

Ah! Just did some digging. The "first" one was indeed gold hardware with one piece maple neck. Hank played it between 1959 and 1961. But it was always Cliff's property and Hank returned it to him when Cliff kitted out the whole band with Fiesta Red  Fenders with rosewood boards. The RW board one is what I remembered seeing in The Young Ones - I'd always assume it was "the" strat... Apparently Hank continued to borrow the first strat on recordings.