20 Best Neck Pickup For Strat (2023 Updated)

I replaced a Gretsch Filtertron Neck and humbucker sized P90 Bridge pickup setup in a semi-hollowbody guitar. I connected the P-rails through a mini switch which would make the neck and bridge both P90 in the “up” position and then the neck as a blade “Strat single coil” and the bridge a humbucker in the “down” position.

This is not a real hot pickup and it took awhile to get a feel for the tones. But,it’s grown on me and I’d never go back to my last setup. The tone selections you have are really the big plus. If I want more “edge” it’s easily done with a pedal.

These P-rails are really a one of a kind solution for versatility out of a single guitar!.

Duncan P-Rails are the VERY BEST pickups I have found for the Les Paul period. The variety of tones you get from these pickups are outstanding and cover tones for all genres of music. I had a feedback problem with the stock Gibson humbuckers on my 2013 studio.

These pickups solved the issue and allow me to achieve the warm tones and metal crunch I need to perform. I have them in my Jr. as well and may put them in my Standard. If you are on the fence on these pickups, try them, you won’t regret it.

Getting 6 sets of strings is a welcome bonus!.

Wow! A very versatile pickup. Do you need one guitar to fill many sounds? Tired of carrying multiple guitars to a gig. These pickups are a great solution! I installed these on a SG body type and have humbucker, P90, and single coil sounds with a toggle switch.

I highly recommend for the studio/hired gun musicians.

What a tone bucket this is! I upgraded my Jacksons Dunkin Design with real Dunkin Donuts! My Jackson had two hot rails in it and a humbucker. Well I loved the hot rails so I replaced one but wanted something with a bit more tonenal value rather than tonal volume and this pup did just that.

Placed in the neck cavity of my Jackson this pup sounds so warm and distant! Great for beautiful clean tones with just enough highs to get that harmonic balance you are seeking. Throw a bit of gain to it and listen to this pup open up! Ive really come to love the switch in the 4th position where I get that hot rails gain and the warmer tones from this pup all in one! Tho playing Pink Floyd solos with the switch in the 5th position just makes those old hairs stand straight up!.

So I’m not much on traditional strats. I love the way they play and feel but never cared for the sound. I had one collecting dust and was going to sell it when I decided to give the JB jr. a shot. My strat went from never played to played all the time.

Now I have a guitar that looks and plays great but is actually useful. The neck single coil is great for clean but now the bridge can do all the hard rock and metal stuff that I like to play. Now I can cover a lot of different styles without swapping guitars.

The great thing is installing it was as easy as dropping any regular single coil. It came with clear instructions and was a perfect fit. One of the best upgrades I’ve ever made.

Ok, so I bought an American standard Strat a couple years ago this March. so it was a 2015 American standard, came with the Custom shop Fat 50’s pickups, which sound amazing clean! The neck gives you that strat chine abd bell tones, the 4th and 2nd position had a nice quack to it BUT the moment I would hit a good overdrive or distortion it gave me a very weird wobbley tone like a magnetic pull almost like a vibrato effect in certain frets and it just soubded very metallic and harsh on the rest.

I assure you this is not a setup problem it’s just that the fat 50’s sound great with certain amps and certain gain pedals. I could defintely get away with it with a Big Muf* or A Klon Centaur. if I would put a tube screamer type circuit or a jfet, tube driver that’s when my sound became awful.

and with my Les Paul everything sounded fantastic, with my 200 dlls ibanez as well. then the real hurt was when my friend brought his brand new MIM Strat. sounded better than my more than double the price American Strat.

I was tired of the forums to try and find a fix, my pickups were as low as they could get and the string height as high as possible , I was ready to try different pickups even though some “experts” on the forums said that that wont get rid of the problem.

the guy at PitBull Audio recommended the Little 59 for the neck. I got the Duckbucker for the Middle and I already had an SSL-5 for the bridge that sounded great so i left that one alone. I definitely lost some high end sparkle, and the chimey bell like tones on the neck, but oh man.

sounds amazing!!! My strat was transformed to a 59 Gibson! On the 4th position since I got a lower output pup gives you the strat quack and you regain top end sparkle. on the 2nd position I get a very nice twangy quack from the duckbucker and the ssl-5.

but atill, the little 59 is my favorite! Even if if’s a little darker it takes distortion like a champ, very smooth and clean. Put an eq after it to add freqs to taste.

My main practice and bang around guitar is a Squier Classic Vibe Mustang. It had an acceptable sound with stock pups, but I really wanted more punch in the bridge for distorted and lead work. I purchased the Hot Rails (in white) for the bridge position.

Here is my experience with the install: First, if you need a wiring diagram for reference, go directly to Seymour Duncan’s website. I lost a lot of time Googling around and got a lot of bad information before going to Duncan’s site and getting the proper diagram.

In my experience, for anyone with a Mustang, I will also warn you that you might want to use a router or Dremel tool to make the bridge route a bit wider. The wire comes straight out of the pickup and you need to make the route bigger to accommodate the wires.

Something I was not thrilled to do, and it isn’t pretty, but fortunately the pickguard covers it. This is a player/workhorse guitar, not a collector’s item, so I’m not too worried. Anyway, the Hot Rails definitely gives a big full sound compared to the OEM single coils.

Much fatter and warmer. I still like the quack of the single coil in the neck position, so I’ll keep that, and I didn’t change any other components – same switches and pots. I’m very happy with this upgrade.

Thinking of upgrading the bridge positions in my American Strat next, which should not require any routing changes (fingers crossed). Great job Seymour Duncan!.

I like this Hot Rail pickup I installed in the bridge position on my guitar because it gave my American Pro 2 Strat that extra punch that only a humbucker can give. It was worth the $99 I paid to me, tone is priceless.

It was easy to install and will be just as easy to re-install the original pickup if I choose to do so. I have not found anything I do not like about this Hot Rail yet. Sorry.

The Seymour Duncan Hot Rail for Tele neck position pickup sounds fantastic, I’d give it five stars for that. But, that isn’t all of the story. From Seymour Duncan’s website: “If you’ve ever wanted to get full sized humbucker sounds from the neck position of your Telecaster, but didn’t want to route it out, then this is the pickup for you.

The Hot Rails Tele Rhythm is designed to give you full, warm humbucker tone in a size that drops into your existing pickup slot. ” I am here to tell you that slthough this pickup does fit into the route without any issues but that’s where the “drops into” ends.

you have to file/sand the opening in the pickguard and enlarge it to get the pickup in because it is slightly too large. Not only that, but it is not threaded to mount to your pickguard with the typical screws and springs (or tubing), it needs to be body mounted.

Because of the installation issues I took a star away. It would be simple to mount into a guitar with no pickguard. It was worth the effort for the tones, but was not informed of the extra work required to install it.

A replacement for a similar but elderly Seymour Duncan Duckbucker which has now gone to the great workshop in the sky. Terrific cleans and great with overdrive for my now rejuvenated squire Strat. TBH, my last Seymour Duncan purchase ever due to price issues but still a great Strat neck pickup!.

Its very nice. Pleasantly surprised. Replaced a lace sensor (hope I spelled it right) which had too low an output in between 2 humbuckers. Much more balanced. Anyway, working perfectly fine and sounds great.

Good price too.

Super easy to install and they sound fantastic. These were the the first pickups I’ve ever changed and i was really surprised how easy it was. I wish i would’ve replaced them sooner. My Charvel sounds just like it did when i first bought it back in the early 90’s.

Used it in the middle of a tele style guitar Ala Brent Mason setup on a separate volume Goin through a separate on off switch so it can be blended in with whatever is on my four way switch. Also wired with a coil switch.

Turned my tele into real tonal smorgasbord. Great sounding pickup even by itself.

The covers were bought to replace some worn-out covers on otherwise great pickups in a Jackson USA SL1. The original covers had the “Seymour Duncan” mostly worn off. However, the new covers were about half the height of the neck and middle pickups (the bridge is a humbucker, so that doesn’t apply).

I believe this is due to the pickups being the “classic stack” types of pickups (model number STK-S4N). Long story short, these would work beautifully on any other single coil, but they are just too short to fully cover these pickups.

They still look great, and I’ll be able to use them on other guitars, so it’s no big deal for me. Just make sure of what you’re using them for!.

Use this pup in the middle position on a strat HSS with STK-S7 neck and TB-4 bridge. The combination is hard to beat and are a drastic improvement over the stock Fender pups. IT now sounds like it should with better tone and output.

My biggest complaint was that it did not mention what color the pickup was. The picture shows a white pickup. I received an aged white pickup. Luckly I was replacing one that died, so I was able to swap the covers to have it match the rest of my pickups.

I think these sound really good for their price range. There are better sounding pickups but they are going to cost you more. I have owned a lot of these pickups over the years and I have had 3 or 4 of these die on me.

The pickup wire actually breaks around the wraps and then the sound from that one pickup is cut to about 10% It is cheaper to buy a replacement than a whole new pickup set of something else, so I keep buying new ones.

Since this was Fenders first attempt at a single coil pickup with no 60 cycle hum, I think they really do sound great. I love the Neck and Middle tones out of my Strats. They sound great clean and they don’t get thin or muddy if you crank them through an overdriven amp.

Keeping the pickup with 2 wires really keeps it easy to install.

I got this to replace a Texas Special which I loved and was going to be a hard act to follow. The VN sounded dull at first but after adjusting the height lower than recommended, it came to life and sounded brighter.

I am using 250K pots which need to be replaced by 500K types for the VN. It is a pickup that seems to grow on you as you use it! Running in combo with SD Little 59s.

I had this pickup installed on my Deluxe Nashville Tele (in the center), along with the Seymour Duncan STK-T3 and STK-T1. It is exactly as described; classic fender tone without the noise. I was very skeptical about these at first but now I am a believer.

Keep in mind that the Seymour Duncan’s are a 4-wire pickup and standard Fender’s are 2 so you may have to reconfigure some things if you mix Seymour’s with Fender’s. You can hear a very slight hum if you crank all the way up and it is totaly silent where you are, but hardly anything to even mention.

I highly reccomend these for all vintage and modern guitars. Way better tone than most stock pickups I’ve used, plus they’re noiseless. A winner any way you look at it. Well worth the money. I also like that it comes tinted to look vintage (not bright white like the photo).

I put this pickup in a ESP/LTD strat since the stock pickups did not have enough bite. The Seymour Duncan Jimi Hendrix pickup definitely beefed up this guitar!!!!

Just want I was looking for new project. Fist the bill. Excellent choice for the new project couldnt be happier

Great sound. Nevertheless Fender custom shop 69 and Pure vintage 65 are as good and cheaper. Quality and finish, packaging excellent. Nice brochure.

You can drop a lot of cash chasing the tone these pickups offer, but other than going on internet forums and bragging to others about how much $$$ you dropped on a set of (insert boutique pup company here), theres not a lot reason to do so.

I have been down that path and have found that the tones are not really proportional to the money spent. These pups offer the same vintage sounds and looks at a far better value. As long as Seymour and Marciella keep building these you can save your money and invest in other pursuits.

I have played these and more expensive pickups through vintage Marshall & Fender amplifiers a long with other builds and am completely satisfied with these compared to the offerings of far more expensive pickups.

If youre on the fence wondering if you should go all in on a set of pickups costing 3-5 times as much, save yourself some time and a considerable amount of money. These will give you what you want if youre after vintage PAF tones.

These Antiquity Retrospec’d Humbuckers sound amazing! They are everything the Holy Grail 50’s PAFs should be. They are very clear and articulate. When played clean, they have a soft, chimey sparkle-like quality.

When overdriven, they have a velvety smooth crunch. You could use these for a variety of musical styles but they excel at classic rock. If you play super high gain, you could encounter some squeal as these are not wax potted like the PAFs in the 50’s.

No wax potting gives these an airy quality to the sound. I highly recommend these pickups! AMS shipped quickly, has great customer service, has great promotions, and great payment options when you are short on cash.

You can’t go wrong shopping at American Musical Supply!.

I bought a DBZ (Dean B Zelinksy) now Diamond guitars model Royale FM in Tobacco. Excellent Korean made guitar but the pickups never meshed with me. I wanted it to sound more Les Paul-ish. The pickups that came with it are well made by G&B but seemed more geared for metal.

Triple ceramic bridge and alnico neck. These pickups give this great guitar Body and Neck a more traditional sound. I love them both, in humbucker and even split coil. The thin large body on this guitar has resonance for days due to its unique shape despite being light.

I took a chance and love this guitar. The neck and hardware is great too. The JB and Jazz set are Seymour Duncan favorite combination so what more is there to say? I still wonder about the 59 in the neck instead but I love the SH-2 Jazz so I am not disappointed.

Highly recommended.

These are really great sounding pickups. I replaced the 490R and 498T pickups in my 1998 Les Paul Standard and got rid of the muddy undefined tone instantly. These pickups made my chords distinguishable again using a Marshall at high gain.

I don’t split my coils but these have great definition, and while they can be split, I don’t because I have a strategy for that. Before replacing my stock pickups I was very uninspired to play my LP.

The tone palette I now have access to using the various combinations of neck and bridge with the volume and tone knobs makes me want to play for hours. You can tell a lot of thought and work went into crafting the sonic characteristics.

So glad I went with these. The tone quest is over and now I can just play and enjoy what I am hearing.

It’s a fantastic pickup . Sounds great in my Ltd eclipse . I bought it being a fan of Aldrch and Lion . Previously my favorite pickup was seymour duncan Jb . I definitely have a new pickup

Excellent pickup. Bought one on a whim about 3 months ago. Amazing tone loud or soft. But definitely comes alive the more you crank it up. Replaced Whole Lotta Humbucker. I just bought a third one this weekend for another guitar, replacing a SD SH4, which replaced a 498T Best pickup for Suhr !!!.

I wanted to like these pickups, but unfortunately they are too tall. The American Ultra guitars must have a deeper route to accommodate these or something. My vintage style MIM Fender body (purchased brand new as a replacement body from Fender/MF for a Partscaster) did not have enough depth in the pickup cavities to fit these.

Fits standard single coils with tons of room to spare, so it’s not a shallow route. These would go in if you bottom them all the way out, but then they’re just barely under the strings, buzzing on the pole pieces, no room for adjustment.

From what I heard, they do sound ok, but obviously need an adjustment, which I can’t make. The noiseless aspect was good. They are pretty low output. Even with them near touching the strings they were significantly lower output than the Fender Tex Mex set I was trying to replace.

I made recordings of before and after to compare, and they weren’t any better than the Tex Mex – actually preferred the Tex Mex for tone and output. The Ultra Vintage had slightly less mids, less output, and no hum.

that’s about it. If you can fit them, I’m sure they’d be great, though I would opt for the Ultra Hot Noiseless instead for the increased output. For reference, from bottom of the PCB to top of the tallest pole piece they are roughly 0.

984″ tall or roughly 25mm. Also only available in aged white, so no color options either. Side note – the listing says they come with pots, switch, etc. They do not. This is just the pickups and mounting screws/rubber “springs” – that’s it.

The screws are different from typical single coils too, using threaded inserts instead of plastic screws directly into the bobbin. Keep that in mind.

I replaced the stock ceramic magnet pickups in my Fender FSR Deluxe Ash Telecaster with these. The stock pickups are actually pretty good but really hot, midrange-heavy and lacking some of that vintage Tele sparkle and twang.

I wanted a more classic, traditional sound to go with the vintage looks of this guitar and the type of music I like to play (classic rock, blues, old school country). I don’t think I could have made a better choice.

They sound beautiful in all three positions; bright, articulate and twangy without any shrillness. You can spend a good deal more on custom shop and boutique pickups and will probably end up with something that might sound a bit different, but not likely better.

Highly recommended!.

I removed the mid boost and Fender Vintage noiseless pickups from my Clapton Strat and replaced them with Fender Custom 54’s, Mojo pre-wired pots and a new single ply white pickguard. Put the old Clapton configuration in a box in case I didn’t like the new setup or if I sell the guitar.

It was a somewhat straightforward job, still took a couple hours to “build” the new pickguard. The final result was incredible, clear and bell like tone, a tone I always thought Strats were known for.

Really excellent upgrade over lifeless vintage noiseless pickups, IMHO. I love the Fender custom 54’s and would highly recomend them to upgrade any Strat. (Except, the G string is a bit hot or loud due to the raised polls and 9.

5 neck radius).