I've played with my SRV strat for 16 or 17 years now and never touched a solder joint. Over that time I've moved away from Fender amps and all my guitars sound better than ever except for this one. I think the Texas Specials just aren't cutting it. This guitar is strung 56 to 10 (heavy bottom, light top) and has a good solid bass response acoustically. What pickups would you recommend? I've considered Fralin blues specials with a steel pole in the bridge, or the new Grosh pu's but I want other suggestions (specific models). They must fit in a standard strat body with no drilling. I don't want too thin of a sound. The pickups in my 60 fender relic sound fantastic, not sure if a similar set would go with this guitar. Don't need exceptionally high output, but want bell tone.
I'd go with something along the lines of a non-overwound 60's pickup - Duncan Antiquity Surfer, Suhr V60, Fralin Vintage hot, etc. would fill the bill. I've heard people lowering their Texas Specials really low and liking the results.
Man..I dunno. I must be one of the guys that likes those texas specials. I shoulda kept my SRV. How exactly are they not cutting it? Too hot? Too much bass? If I was going for something more traditional, I'd probably go with Fralins. I dig Lindy's pickups. Maybe the Vintage hots, or the Real 54's. Maybe a 5% underwind on the VHs. I'd also like to try his new split coil hum cancelling. If Lindy's behind it, it should be stratty. Also dying to try Don Mare's Josie winds. More 'beef' I might be inclined blues specials with an SP43 bridge. I used a set of those to warm up an ash body ebony board hardtail and it worked well. I also am a big fan of the Fender Fat 50's in a RW board strat. Not so much in maple. <shrug>
I dig on the Texas Specials as well but if they're not your thang then try to pick up some Fender custom shop 60's pickups. Ya have to keep a eye out to see if anybody is selling them from their CS strat they removed them from. Good luck!
Van Zandt Blues, makes it sound closer to Stevie..now if they only used real jumbo 6100 frets. my song, "pull the strings" has them on, myspace, take a listen and find out, it's free.
I swapped some Fralin Vintage Hots and a SP43 into my SRV Strat. I love them so much that I sold the Texas Specials. Here's a small clip that I did awhile back. I switch through all of the positions, starting with the neck. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HP1N0oSx2M
Well, obviously I like them since I kept them in all this time, but they sound a bit dull - just not that much life until you run them into effects. They don't seem to match with some amps, whereas all my other guitars sound great through any amp.:RoCkIn
I've been happy with the Suhr FL's.Nice output but clear and throaty sounding like a good 60's pickup should sound.
Couldn't get over a SRV strat one fellow I heard use ... which had the EMG-S (Vince Gill) set installed on 'em ... The sound was simply killer ... Hands down, one of the best tones I've ever heard ... Still to this day ... I may pick up an SRV strat just to drop some of those in ...
(hey Joe!) Love Lindy's blues specials w/base plate. If I played only clean, I'd go for the lesser wounds, i.e. vintage hots, 54's or probably Don's Josie. But my main tone is a smooth and slightly glassy overdrive, and for that I prefer the blues specials. I think they sound way better clean than texas specials, personally. But I mainly like how they overdrive.
I don't know if you know this or not, but your house is crooked. Someone with the Don Mare "Josies" needs to upload a few clips of it doing SRV.
sometimes I wonder if pickups alone had more then 20% of what made SRV sound like SRV.. he used about 10 Strats when I saw him - between the LOUD amps- tube Screamer - and GFS simi flat 58~38~28~19~17~13 Strings and Low Tunning ( Eb ) and the pickups looking very low into the pickgaurd and away from the strings - in his number one Strat - and the rumor that they were all 5.7ks - I'm not at all convinced the pickups played much of a part in his tone at all - he had over 10 Strats The time I saw him and he sounded the same on all of them - just some brighter or darker. years ago I once used those GFS simi flats and those string gauges and did the (Eb) tuning with 13.2k Blue- L-ace S-ensor's pickups = and got that tone on a Squire guitar - while using a TS 808 and Bassman and Super Reverb set of amps...
