What I did at 3 AM

AlanRatcliffe · 2008-04-11T09:31:50+00:00

It's funny what I get up to in the wee hours of the morning. Last night I suddenly got an urge to swap pickups in one of my guitars. It's a Strat I built with a one piece, 3lb 10oz swamp ash body and a chunky birdseye maple neck. The body is a universal rout (A.K.A.: one big bloody hole) so can be used to fit any pickups from three single-coils to three humbuckers and everything in between. I've been using it as a test bed for all kinds of things for a while and it's probably going to end up as a fretless soon. It's had a set of Kinman traditional MKII pickups in the last few months, which are nice, bright, vintage style noiseless pickups. The only problem is I'm not a vintage pickup person - I like bright woods and don't fit tone controls, so a brighter pickup is a bit of overkill. I tried to compensate for this by actually fitting a tone control (GASP!), but still found I lived on the neck pickup too much. Anyway, I had a set of Fralin Blues Specials lying around with a steel baseplate fitted. I swapped them for a Set of Fender Custom Shop '69s a while ago and used them for pics of fitting the baseplate, but never installed them in anything. I truly hate hum, so have stuck with noiseless pickups for the last few years, but I decided that as the Fralins were warmer style pickups, I'd try them. I ripped out the tone pot while I was in there (they're just not for me) and moved the "neck on" switch down to the hole left by the tone. Nice! Some of the best real single-coils I've used (which is probably in the neighbourhood of 100 different models by now). Overall relatively fat and warm. Bridge pickup especially is great - fat and hot, but with enough edge to cut through and very punchy thanks to the baseplate. Middle pickup is quite good, very balanced. The neck is where this set falls down a little for me - it's a little too soft and warm. Great for those trying to get a smoother sound from a Strat, but doesn't have quite enough "bite" for me. I think if I were to keep this set, I would probably replace the neck pickup with a Fralin Vintage Hot, which has more "snap" to it. Position 2 on the switch (bridge and neck) is perfect, just the right amount of quack. Position four is blah - too smooth once again. Bridge and neck together are quite good, with an almost Tele position 2 character but warmer. All three pickups on is next to useless - way too smooth (to be fair, most pickups can't get a good sound in this setting). So - these Fralins are no longer for sale (for now anyway, these things are always subject to change without notice). On the other hand, anyone want a set of Kinman Traditional MKIIs? ?

Malkav

Now that's just awesome, that's why I love this site cause in amidst all the scary electronic jargon they had with the advertisement I would have never figured that it had these issues. I just figured Suhr where a good brand and that whatever that thing was it probably worked, now I know the truth ?

Thanks Alan!

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