Vintage Staggered - Set - White - Electric Guitar Pickup

I bought a MIM Fender Stratocaster, and though I was happy with the tone I felt like it was missing a little punch, specially compared to the American counterpart, so I went for this pickups and I was definitely not disappointed. The bridge pickup sounds crystal clear with a gnarly bite once you crank up the gain and though it doesn't handle very well if you put too much distortion (and I wasn't expecting that for a "50's style" pickup) it still shines through all other instruments on a live gig. The middle pickup has fantastic definition on all possible frequencies, but the jewel of this crown is the neck pickup, creamy, shiny, fat, dazzling tone that in my opinion even tops that of the American strats, it sounds so good, the first time I tried it I had to double check my pedalboard to see if I accidentally switched on any EQ/COMP/FX. Installation is relatively easy if you know to handle yourself around a guitar's components. I tested this pickups against several amps, from cheap and small to big vintage tube ones and it delivers fantastic tone no matter the conditions. The only con I could think about them is that the poles on each pickup are staggered, which means their height is different to respond to each string, but this implies that the pickups are designed to fit a right handed guitar. Being a lefty, it would be nice if Seymour Duncan offered a left handed version, but to be honest, I don't think it made a difference in the tone at all. So, if you have a Mexican strat because you're on a budget (like me), or because you liked the neck profile better (like me again) and you want to upgrade it, this is definitely the way to go, you won't be disappointed.

First of all, I am a HUGE Fender fan. Guitars, amps and especially their pickups. Second, when it comes to tone, I am very picky. I love the Fender Custom Shop ‘69’s, 54’s, 57/62’s and Fat 50’s. I wanted to try something other than Fender this time, so I chose these SSL-1’s. So far I think they are absolutely the best single coil pickup I have ever had. Big, full tone with bell-like highs and a clear bottom end. On a lot of pickups in Strats the neck pickup can sound too quacky, too much twang and it over powers everything else. These strike a very nice balance with quack and all the other harmonics that are present. Some other vintage single coils I’ve tried have too much chimey-ness in the tone, too much high, drowns out the mids, again these SSL-1’s don’t do that, even though there is still tons of chimey, bell-like tones, like glass breaking, very brilliant, but it’s balanced out with the mid and low tones as well. Very nice and yes I would buy them again.

I bought these pickups for a guitar I built, and the sound is EXACTLY what I had hoped for. The tone is bright, clear, and has a glassy singing quality, especially out of the neck pickup, and especially out of the middle two pole pieces. The only reason I’m giving these pickups 4 stars and not 5 is that, the more I play through them, the less I’m a fan of how the magnet pole pieces are staggered. The natural volume out of the middle to pole pieces versus the top two or bottom two is really uneven. There is SO MUCH beautiful tone out of the middle two strings, but the top two and bottom two strings fade away, slightly. I’m not sure if Seymour Duncan is going to read this review or not, but, if so, I would recommend a version 2.0 of these pickups where the pole pieces for the E, B, A, and low E strings were a little taller. But, volume issues notwithstanding, the am still quite happy with these pickups, because the tone really is quite good, especially for the price. Value for the money? Yes. Warmth? Yes. Thickness? Only in the middle two strings.

I purchased these for my first custom build Stratocaster. I own a Chinese Fender and an American Fender, the difference is night and day. I considered purchasing Fender pickups for this build but after reading reviews decided to go with this Seymour Duncan trio of pickups. I must say I am very happy I did. After taking my time and building an unbelievable (I think so anyway) custom Stratocaster with the best of everything, I soldered in these pickups. After filing, sanding and buffing the frets all level and adjusting everything right by the book I tentatively plugged it in. To my surprise, silence.... no humming feedback as with some guitars. I touched a string and had sound. After going through all the switch selections and tone adjustments to make sure everything was working properly, I started playing. The very first thing I noticed was that it sounded smooth and toned down a bit from my other Fenders. Going through the pickups I noticed they had great range, reminded me of my Gibson Les Paul a bit. I could make it twang and bark, but could also bring the blues and rock mellow tone in easily. I prefer this OVER my Fender American HSS. It looks better (maybe that's a stretch) and sounds superior to either of my other Stats or my American Telecaster, although the Telecaster is still one of my favorites. I like these so much that I am going to purchase another set for my Chinese Fender and make a few other upgrades to it as I love the fit and finish of the guitar, it just doesn't sound and react like the American Stat. For 130 bucks, that's a lot of bang for the buck. I plan on upgrading a few other parts as well with it. I am working on a Les Paul build and already have a set of Seymour Duncan Humbuckers ready to install in it, hoping for the same results. I have another cheap off-brand Strat done up in red, white and blue (I'm a flag loving disabled veteran) and I hope I can do a few upgrades to it to make it sound as good as it looks. I am excited about this product and won't hesitate to install these in any of my future projects. Personally, I don't know how anyone could say anything bad about Seymour Duncan's except "you can't please all of the people all of the time". I think 9 out of 10 people would probably agree with me. I'd like to mention a few more things about the product. I got the Seymour Duncan covers and installed them over the pickups, made them look awesome. The also came packaged VERY well in a nice plastic container with the pickups set in foam molds, making it impossible to damage them in shipping. I'm going to use them to store old pickups in. These came with plenty of wire to make connections and great installation directions for soldering too, for use in any application. I am very happy with the product. I wish I could post a photo of my guitar, I'm so proud of it. 5 stars all day long and I will and already have bought more of these for a future project. I wish they were a bit cheaper, but you get what you pay for. It's a small price to pay to make a $400 guitar sound like a $2000 guitar.

Nothing I have to say about these pickups! Seymour Duncan are a great company and make the best pickups in my opinion. In an interview John Frusciante said that he replaced original 50s pickups with these and nobody could tell the difference!

Colocadas en una Starforce coreana de los años 80, no tiene nada que envidiar a Fender de gama media-alta. Sonido Fender de 'toda la vida'. En el puente nitidez asombrosa con el 'campaneo' típico de una buena strato, que permite solos brutales y definidos por mucha distorsión que le metas.

Montés sur une squier deluxe améliorée, c'est déjà énoooorme ! La définition est les possibilités sont cool. Sur un circuit 50', c'est Byzance pour moi. On retrouve toutes la palette de la strat. Du son 50, au fameux son à la dire straits. C'est très défini et velouté. je recommande +++ Pas la peine de taper plus cher.

Really good set of pickups. Clean, crisp and great tone. Not too hot - perfect for clean strat style tones with some real punch. These were what Fruscianti used on the Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication album. They have staggered pole pieces which gives a more authentic vintage balance between the strings. Also if you get the heights set right (or just slightly wrong strictly speaking) you can induce a quasi-chorus effect on the middle two strings while the others stay clean which I've been enjoying. I'll correct that soon, but for now a nice side effect. The pickups are vintage cloth wired and wax potted (both the coils and the wire). All works well. They do come with bright WHITE pickup covers which are SD branded. You'll need to buy aged cream or black covers separately. Also supplied are the installation guide (with more options available for download from the SD website) and mounting screws and rubber tube section spacer pieces. No mounting springs are included. I swapped these across from my old pickups as I prefer the springs over the rubber tube. Coil resistances (OCR) are typically 6.5k ( I measured 6.47-6.78k) and bizarrely the middle pickup in my set had the highest resistance. Usually it is the bridge. I didn't measure impedance - that also contributes so the OCR is only one indicator of the coil output. NB The box lies. They are all 52mm pole spacing NOT 49.5mm as the packaging suggests. This is for all 3 pickups. That is the better way round for Fender stratocaster and similar guitars with a vintage trem (Yamaha Pacifica, Squire, etc). Strictly speaking they should be 49.5mm neck, 52mm bridge, and in-between for the the middle pickup. Using 52mm throughout is as the Fender default spec and is better than having the outer strings outside of the end pole pieces like you'd get at the bridge with a 49.5mm spaced pickup. Why the packaging suggests the bridge is 49.5mm spaced baffles me. I've measured it by ruler and by vernier callipers and it is definitely 52mm. A bit of an impulse buy but glad I bought them and a big step-up from the default pickups on my cheap Pacifica 112V. Note these are not shielded and not hum-cancelling. (Nor were the original pickups I swapped out) To improve resistance to hum shield your pickup cavity with copper foil. I tried it and the amount of hum I get from electrical interference is much reduced making these much more viable and the cost saving over Stk4s well worth it. Edit 2021: Pic added of the back of the packaging confirming these are SSL1s (and the spurious comment about pole spacing!)

il nome dice tutto c'è poco da aggiungere oltre a che sono straordinari