Strat Pickups

Evening everyone. What's the best pickups, in your opinion, for a Strat?

Currently loving Lollar Strat Specials and Monty's Full Monty set

You'll need to give some more info as it really depends on your playing preferences and the type of Strat you're intending to modify. 

50's/60's/modern tone?
Maple or rosewood neck?
High gain or clean?
Price range?

I've always loved Bare Knuckle pickups for example - but I'd recommend Apache's if you had a 50's maple neck Strat, whereas I'd go with Mother's Milk if you had a 60's rosewood. :)

I was just thinking all round pickups. No specific genre in mind really thanks 

Tonerider sets are true bargains..  I particularly like the modified stagger which helps address the weak B string on strats.

https://tonerider.com/category/pickups-for-strats/

Pure Vintage be good general set.

https://www.radioshoppickups.com/product-category/pickups/stratocaster-pickups/

The Chris Buck set and variances seem to be liked.

more expensive...  Bare Knuckle Slow hand/Irish Tours, Bulldog texas floods are the ones I have kept (still use)

https://www.kloppmann-electrics.com

Best I have heard in a long time

I have the mark foley el mocambo and black one… both amazing for the srv/mayer sound

I’m on the cleaner end of things and I keep coming back to fender 57/62s or fat 50s

I've got the Oil City Stone Tone (neck and middle) and they're great. Kicks the amp a bit harder with the input but still a single coil strat sound. Love getting those bluesy neck tones.

Ive been seriously impressed with Bare Knuckle Boot Camps in my Cray Strat

Foleys Big Iron Low Wind are superb

Fat 50s with a Bare Knuckle Sinner neck pickup at the bridge also superb

Everybody's preference will be different

The best thing you could do is try out a bunch of strats in store and find what era/style pickups speak to you.

Personally I like 54 styled pickups, Bare Knuckle Apaches are really good for me. If you want something vintage with a bit more modern hifi EQ and power Harmonic Design make killer pickups, the vintage 54 is a step in that direction the Vintage Plus is even more modern and powerful but still have that "vintage" sound to them.

I've just got a prewired guard, with Tex Mex pickups in which are pretty nice.  Excellent value considering they come with decent pots and switch etc.  Was about £140.

My other strat has Seymour Duncan ssl-6/Fender select.  Have also had BK Irish Tours / Mothers Milk.

Happy with the Tex Mex for now, they hold their own against my other strat and previous sets. 

If I was going to spend more I'd possibly try Mojo or Lollar, or more likely get another set of Bulldog sweet 62's which are excellent, and half the price of the former brands.

My two main Strats have a Stonetones set and SD Antiquity II Surfers + SD SSL1-C DG in the bridge (this is a CS aged SSL5, basically). I also had some GFS grey-bottoms which were nice too - quite cheap iirc. I've previously had BK Apaches and Mother's Milks which got sold. 

At various times my Stonetones Strat has had a Nightfighter A2 humbucker and also a prototype Oil City Liquidator big pole Strat single coil in the bridge.

I've tried a lot in the past looking for the right set. For me I found it with Alegree pickups, 100% my faves and I stopped looking at strat pickups since I installed them a couple of years ago. 

Shaw9 said:

Evening everyone. What's the best pickups, in your opinion, for a Strat?

I was just going to post the same question! 

ryanverbena said:

You'll need to give some more info as it really depends on your playing preferences and the type of Strat you're intending to modify. 

50's/60's/modern tone?
Maple or rosewood neck?
High gain or clean?
Price range?

I've always loved Bare Knuckle pickups for example - but I'd recommend Apache's if you had a 50's maple neck Strat, whereas I'd go with Mother's Milk if you had a 60's rosewood. :)

My 1993 Fender ST-62 Stratocaster Reissue MIJ is in need of some "oompf". Rosewood board and alder body. As I'm swapping between Les Pauls and a Strat something with a higher output is needed but still with a vintage feel. From my research so far 60s is what I'm after, more midrange and less glassy than the 50s. This is my gigging guitar through tube amp and pedals, no modellers.

thomasw88 said:

I seriously doubt anyone could ever identify a set of pickups through a sound test  (assuming  the tester can tweaking amp/pedals to suit). so it really is subjective to you.

If you're looking for lowish output I'm not your man, as I tend to go for slightly hotter pickups.

 I've had shit loads of strat pickups I reckon somewhere around 30 sets from various makers and went through a stage of swapping them out  just to try something new.
 However,  I got bored of that after a few years...   most aftermarket pickups are generally very good.   So I'd just decide on a budget, and a rough sound and then either choose a hand wound job, or machine wound.
 

At the  cheaper end of the scale, I had some good results with entwistle, and in particular Vanson, who make excellent pickups.

slightly more expensive,   Irongear pig iron's  were my favourite.  I do like the toneriders as well although  I prefer their tele pickups over their strat pickups.

more expensive...  Bare Knuckle Slow hand/Irish Tours, Bulldog texas floods are the ones I have kept (still use)

I've looked at Oil City, Klopman, Radioshop, Lollar, and Lindy Fralin so far but I'm starting to get overwhelmed with all the details of Alnico 5 and Formvar wire! I'd love to hear more about your experience Thomas!

Lollar (dirty blonde). 

theatreanchor said:

Lollar (dirty blonde). 

This absolutely.  Ive had LOADS of PUs in  more than one strat - including several Bare Knuckle, Dimazio, Custom fenders  - and some smaller company hand wound.   The Lollar Dirty Blonde's just nail everything Im looking for.

Stratavarious said:

Tonerider sets are true bargains..  I particularly like the modified stagger which helps address the weak B string on strats.

https://tonerider.com/category/pickups-for-strats/

Pure Vintage be good general set.

I've got Tonerider Pure Vintage in my Strat and they sound more `stratty' than any other pickup I've tried.  

Very bright!

BrizzleRocker said:

Shaw9 said:

Evening everyone. What's the best pickups, in your opinion, for a Strat?

I was just going to post the same question! 

ryanverbena said:

You'll need to give some more info as it really depends on your playing preferences and the type of Strat you're intending to modify. 

50's/60's/modern tone?
Maple or rosewood neck?
High gain or clean?
Price range?

I've always loved Bare Knuckle pickups for example - but I'd recommend Apache's if you had a 50's maple neck Strat, whereas I'd go with Mother's Milk if you had a 60's rosewood.

My 1993 Fender ST-62 Stratocaster Reissue MIJ is in need of some "oompf". Rosewood board and alder body. As I'm swapping between Les Pauls and a Strat something with a higher output is needed but still with a vintage feel. From my research so far 60s is what I'm after, more midrange and less glassy than the 50s. This is my gigging guitar through tube amp and pedals, no modellers.

thomasw88 said:

I seriously doubt anyone could ever identify a set of pickups through a sound test  (assuming  the tester can tweaking amp/pedals to suit). so it really is subjective to you.

If you're looking for lowish output I'm not your man, as I tend to go for slightly hotter pickups.

 I've had shit loads of strat pickups I reckon somewhere around 30 sets from various makers and went through a stage of swapping them out  just to try something new.
 However,  I got bored of that after a few years...   most aftermarket pickups are generally very good.   So I'd just decide on a budget, and a rough sound and then either choose a hand wound job, or machine wound.
 

At the  cheaper end of the scale, I had some good results with entwistle, and in particular Vanson, who make excellent pickups.

slightly more expensive,   Irongear pig iron's  were my favourite.  I do like the toneriders as well although  I prefer their tele pickups over their strat pickups.

more expensive...  Bare Knuckle Slow hand/Irish Tours, Bulldog texas floods are the ones I have kept (still use)

I've looked at Oil City, Klopman, Radioshop, Lollar, and Lindy Fralin so far but I'm starting to get overwhelmed with all the details of Alnico 5 and Formvar wire! I'd love to hear more about your experience Thomas!

On A strat I generally either use the neck pickup (position 5) or the inbetween on the bridge/middle (position 2)  Occasionally on the Bridge with the tone rolled down and overdrive up..  rarely use the  middle pickup only and hardly ever the mid between the neck/middle.

Bulldog Texas Floods are very very nice, and at £150ish a set new much better value than Bare Knuckle which have gone silly price for what they are.  I've got a set of the bulldogs in a rosewood neck strat and they sound absolutely fantastic.  In another strat I've got a set of BK irish tours (which replaced some BK slow hands),   and they also are great but I bought them 2nd hand when the prices weren't bonkers.  I wouldn't bother with BK now for the price as they're not any better than the competition imho.   I prefer the Bulldogs and the BK Irish tours  to Oil City Stonetones, Lindy Fralins (think it was the bluesy set), Catswhisker, Wizard, and various other handwound pickups and the other  non handwound ones I've bought over the years.

Cheaper than that then I'd look at the Irongear pig irons or vintage ( if you want something less hot),  or a set of Kent Armstrong tweed's or vintages  if you can find them second hand.  They are seriously good pickups.   Even with these slightly hotter pickups you can get some absolutely sparkling sounds out of a clean amp.  They're all really good pickups though and should get you in a good place..

Cheaper than that.. Any of the Vansons will be ok to get you going.

Saying that at one time I did put the stock pickups back into an old Tokai Springy sound.. And they sounded absolutely fantastic..  I guess the difference was the pickup height must have just been spot on, so experiment with changing the height as you can get some very different tones out of the guitar with that.    if you get a slightly hotter set as above, you can make them sound less hot by lowering the height of the pickups, you just need to get the balance sounding right to your ears.

I’ve been circling this rabbit hole recently.  

AsterixTG said:

https://www.radioshoppickups.com/product-category/pickups/stratocaster-pickups/

The Chris Buck set and variances seem to be liked.

I’ve got radioshop 64 pickups in my partcaster and it’s probably the best sounding single coil guitar I’ve owned

I've recently ordered and installed a set of custom strat pickups and wiring loom with matched CTS pots from Bloodstone Guitarworks, and I can wholeheartedly recommend. I wanted to fatten up the in-between positions, and that's exactly what I got, plus many other combinations through custom wiring. I can also dial in vintage-style strat tones if I lower the volume. 

That strat is basically irreplaceable now. 

I have a few answers to this (like any decent politician).

Easy on the wallet all-rounder Strat pickup: Seymour Duncan SSL-1 set. No brainer. Can get them cheap used ( I picked up a set for £90 about 18 months ago). Sounds good in any strat, and just sounds like a strat. Simple spec, not super low vintage output, not a dark high output.

What I think are the "best" Strat pickups: Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Surfer (with overwound bridge pickup). These sound amazing, I've had them for a few years now. Bridge pickup does away with the shrillness, but balances well with the neck and middle. They are the Strat sound in my head, they do beautiful cleans and handle gain well. 

My favourite set: Mark Foley Lone Star "Number One". If you want the SRV sound, this is the set. He absolutely nailed it with these, as much as I love the Antiquity set - they can't touch these for SRV. Not the most versatile set, they aren't as good at the glassy cleans and don't handle anything beyond Tubescreamer levels of gain particularly well - but they do one thing perfectly.

Just my opinions!

It's probably sacrilege to say this on here, but my absolute favourite strst pickups are the Lace Sensor models that appeared on the Strat Plus Deluxe in the mid 90s, especially the red/blue/silver combiation. They're really warm but with plenty of clarity plus they are really quiet. No ice-pick, buzz, hums or farts.

I love my Radioshop CS 63's, did a vid review on them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpGi_GW1w18&t=15s&ab_channel=TimDaley

I really like Smitty Blues ‘64 pickups. They are very lively. Quite angry sounding when pushed a bit.

Alan Dingwall is worth looking at. I have recently had a Strat-type made and used his Spirit 62 pickups. They're very vintage sounding, if that is what you are going for, but lovely and clear and his stuff is liked by a couple of the well-reputed makers in the UK. https://www.spiritpickups.com/ From memory they cost about £200-£250 for a set. 

Lestratcaster said:

I've got the Oil City Stone Tone (neck and middle) and they're great. Kicks the amp a bit harder with the input but still a single coil strat sound. Love getting those bluesy neck tones.

I’ve got Stone Tones in all three positions. As @Lestratcaster says they give the amp a bit of a kick (but not too much) and still sound Stratty. I’m very happy with them.