Best single coil replacement pickup?

Short of a boutique hand wound, do any of you folks have any preferences for an aftermarket single coil, bridge or otherwise?

- DiMarzio
-SD
-EMG
-GFS (would really like to hear from anyone who's bought and used one of these)
etc etc

Thanks,
Ian

anaerobe wrote:Short of a boutique hand wound, do any of you folks have any preferences for an aftermarket single coil, bridge or otherwise?

- DiMarzio
-SD
-EMG
-GFS (would really like to hear from anyone who's bought and used one of these)
etc etc

Thanks,
Ian

I really like the SD classic '50s set which is a matched set of their vintage staggered SL-1. I have an alternate wiring scheme where the front tone is for the neck and middle, the back tone is for the bridge, and the back tone is a push-pull that turns on the bridge pickup. So you can roll the highs off the bridge pickup and also have all 3 or the neck and bridge on at the same time like a telecaster. It never made sense to me that you had no tone control on a strat's bridge pickup - that's the one that needs the tone control the most IMHO.

I've always wanted to try a twangbanger in the bridge.

A couple of friends have Lindy Fralins and they sound killer too - maybe a little better than the SDs but pricier too. You can get a base/bass plate on the Fralin bridge pickup which makes it like twangbanger.

A little off topic here, but if you need to play in a cover band and get good strat and classic rock/humbucker sounds without changing guitars, a SD lil '59 in the bridge works very well. You still have strat sounds in the neck and middle positions which is probably what you want the strat for in the first place and the lil '59 is convincing in the bridge as well. You can play AC/DC on your strat and it sounds right!

Good info!

Thanks very much.

I mentioned GFS - they can be found here:

http://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Guitar-Pickups_c_7.html

Their "professional" series with alnico II magnets have some supporters. For the price they may be OK.

Tonerider do some good stuff.
surfari singles, alnico II, are excellent for a classic strat sound.
iI've heard good reviews about the city limits as well.

http://www.tonerider.com/pickups/pickups_main.html

These from GFS, Brighton rock, sound BIG.

http://www.guitarfetish.com/Brighton-Rock-Vintage-Spec-Alnico-Pickups-Classic-Queen-sound_p_1514.html

I played a strat with some of these guys onboard;

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/

... don't know exactly which ones but they were very punchy indeed; I liked them a lot!!

corsair wrote:I played a strat with some of these guys onboard;

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/

... don't know exactly which ones but they were very punchy indeed; I liked them a lot!!

You should do at the price they cost!!

I remember the bloke whose guitar it was telling me what he'd paid for the set and I wondered if he'd bought the factory.... They were very, very nice though!!