NZGuitars.com

As some of you might know, I put a Lollar Dirty Blonde set into my Strat, hoping that it would make a worthwhile change from the average stock pickups. It did indeed, but I still felt like they were too polite for me.

As fortune would have it, I was lucky enough to get some pickups from Seymour Duncan to demo (my first demo for them so please make sure you say lots of nice things to them ) - their "Hot for Strat" set.

I installed them and spent a few weeks with them and am really digging my Strat now. They're pretty much what I want from a Strat pickup - still a true single coil but much beefier. And no icepick from the bridge pickup.

Check it out! http://sixstringsamurai.co.nz/2014/11/3 ... for-strat/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83guuPTIxjI[/youtube]

Cool review (and sweet playing!) Ed. Have you tried any of the BKP single coils - I'd love to know how they compare because BKPs have always been my go-to but the tones you were getting there were sweet.

Kiwiaxe wrote:Cool review (and sweet playing!) Ed. Have you tried any of the BKP single coils - I'd love to know how they compare because BKPs have always been my go-to but the tones you were getting there were sweet.

Hey Stephen, unfortunately I haven't. Two reasons there - I'm fairly new to the world of single coils, so I haven't tried as many of the "standards" as I would have when it comes to humbuckers. And generally BKPs are a bit out of my price range, so when I do need replacement pickups I'll generally look at the standard Duncan/Dimarzio offerings first.

Now if Tim Mills would like to send me some, that would be lovely!

Great tone and playing Ed

Totally sweet demo man, you can really get a feel for the pickups, which is the point of it. So often I find demos of pickups get lost in the mix and they could be demoing anything, but this is really on point.

Thanks chaps. Yeah, seeing lots of overly wanky demos really spurred me to try and make mine a little bit more succinct and relevant. Good to see that it's working!

Did they change the name? I remember those as plain old "Hot Strat" pickups, not "Hot FOR Strat"

Hmmm, don't know. Just went with what was on the box, haha.

Got mentioned by Duncan on FB and Twitter. Reasonably good day I suppose.

If I could find my strat, I'd be inspired to pick it up after watching that demo.

And then wishing it had some dirty AF pickups in it.

I like the demo but don't think they'd be the Strat pickups for me. Too hot perhaps.

As it 'appens I've been listening anew to my CS '65 Strat and thinking the bridge pickup is a bit too ice-pick. I've got a couple of DiMarzio Areas to hand (a 61 and a 58). Guessing there's no reason why I couldn't mix one of them with the originals?

Awesome. I have a dimarzio area set - they are 90% perfect but kinda wish the guitar sounded a bit more obnoxious and less trebly.

Are the pole pieces on these flat, ed?

the SSL series are the best single coils for me

I nearly went for the SSL-5, tried the virtual solo but have ended up with the virtual blues for bridge on the Strat. Didn't try the SSL-3 but that clip sounds mean.