19 Best Single Coil Sized Humbucker (2023 Updated)

I had been planning to upgrade the PUs in my MIM HSS strat for a while. Months of researching online led me to hundreds of ‘opinions’ that active PUs were ‘sterile’ and ‘only for metal’ etc. etc. However, always wanting to try something different (I have many guitarist friends all questing for ‘classic tones’), I delved a bit further.

Turns out lots of non-metal guitarists use actives (apparently they were originally developed for jazz!). You can find this exact set (EMG SA/SA/85) in the 5k Mark Knopfler signature Suhr. So I took the plunge and ordered a set.

In the box is everything you need to install the PUs, including the 5-way selector blade, 250k volume/tone pots and fixings etc. I had the swop finished in less than an hour. No soldering. One caveat though – The stock humbucker in my MIM HSS strat had three mounting screws but the EMG 85 has two.

Rather than drill a new hole in between and leave or fill the original two, I just bought a new pickguard online. Less than 20 for a non-Fender one but of very high quality (three-ply etc. MIJ). The guitar now sounds amazing, large and alive! I predominantly play blues, from clean slow licks to much heavier distorted tones as well as rock, funk and a bit of metal.

I like the compression the PUs give (personal tastes and all that. ) and the high output means that at neighbour-friendly volumes the clean channel of my Marshall VS100 breaks up beautifully. The pots can be used to ‘dial in’ in the tone to my satisfaction (I don’t do this a great deal) and the improvements in sustain are really noticeable.

Great feedback at higher gain too. Lastly, when I’ve had a bad day, I get home and blast through some Metallica or Megadeth and it sounds amazing 🙂 All in all, very happy!.

Overall: I just dropped these emgs red. in my usa mahogany strat and I’m blown away! I always loved the fender singles and decided to experiment and WOW! WHAT A SOUND I FOUND!! I would suggest anyone with any sss type ax to give these a go.

the sustains amazing. Hit a note. go make dinner. e back. STILL RINGING! what can I say I’m sold. ive tried all from lace to SD to damarzzio. Love all this but wait a sec!! These take ya to the ultimate stratosphere!.

Excellent sound and complete lack of hum/ interference from this pickup. The only downside is the need to use EMGs phasing circuit if you use 2 of them and want the ‘classic’ phased sound as the circuit is ridiculously expensive for what it is and comes with a chrome switch fixed to the board.

Because my guitar is black with black hardware it looked awful, so I replaced it with a remotely wired black switch (don’t do this unless you’re really good at this sort of thing), which was also expensive.

Why don’t EMG do a pickup that is already phased, or at least connect the switch to the board remotely with an edge connector and offer a choice of switch colour?.

I have had these in my Strats since they first became available in like 1984. I love them. I wanted to keep the narrow magnetic field of the single coil like Yngwie, but couldn’t stand the feedback, hum, and hiss of single coils.

I play what we used to call heavy metal, or more specifically neoclassical Bach Rock. The output on these is nice and loud and works well to cut through a dense mix with their narrow, crisp, yet warm focus.

You can’t go wrong with these for distorted tones. To use them with clean sounds, they are a bit too powerful, but you can wire them for coil-tapping, which I haven’t tried, but they are well-built Seymours, so I would think that tapped, they would give a more subdued quack.

Double check me or the coil tapping a Duncan’s website, but they are 4 conductor so almost certainly doable.

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.

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.

I have a 1994 Peavey Axcelerator basically a strat style guitar, maple neck Ash body, it came factory with these really cool humbuckers in a single coil style format look. Sometimes pickups after so many years become microphonic I’m not sure why but they do, I really hated switching out the pickup because I wanted to keep the guitar original.

If you ever get a chance to see or play or buy one of these guitars you will not be disappointed they are little unknown gems. I’m a Pro player and this guitar is in my arsenal and I love playing it.

My main guitar a Les Pauls standard I have a JB in the bridge and a 59 in the neck and I love it. I Researched a lot of pickups and even had the pain stacking trial and error not liking what i thought would be good.

On my third try, I bought the Jr and gave it ride. LOVE IT! it brought this guitar alive and really compliments this guitar. It feels and sound amazing making really fun to play, bringing back life this classic guitar.

I had original P-100 pups in my 1997 Les Paul Special, and they sounded okay — but not great. Still, they were fairly noiseless and serviceable. I replaced them with some hand-wound boutique P-90 pups from a noted pickup builder and they were too noisy, as P-90s are prone to be.

Plus, they were not that versatile — kind of a one-sound pickup. After reading reviews of the SD SM series pickups, I decided to try them since I love the traditional Gibson Firebird pup sound. After installing these in the LP Special, I won’t need to change pups again in this guitar.

I’ve rarely been this satisfied with the sound of any pickup over 35+ years of playing gigs. It’s clear and articulate, yet has enough push to drive well into effects or directly into an amp without bad sound artifacts.

Just a great sounding pickup that is absolutely dead quiet when the guitar is not being played. I paired it with the Seymour Duncan SM-1 in the neck position and couldn’t be happier. This pickup combination would be very hard to beat in this guitar.

Plus, the price of these pickups is very reasonable. I highly recommend these pickups in a Les Paul Special, Les Paul Deluxe, or Firebird. SD hit a home run with these pups and they are a tremendous value.

Some have complained about the big S logo made into the covers, but I don’t mind. I actually think they look kinda cool, and I really don’t mind a maker putting their visible brand on their products since it means they are proud of them, as well they should be in this case.

And, btw, while this pickup sounds superb clean, when using distortion, or driving an amp into distortion, they are beautifully smooth and creamy, with just a little edge you don’t get with regular humbuckers.

Ideal for LP guitars!.

Purchased these to replace the non working pickups on my Rogue violin bass. Needed different pickup surrounds as the originals were wider by a heavy quarter inch or so. But this and the SM-3b have taken my bass from being a pretty to look at knock off, to a strong nice sounding instrument! The solid bar magnet in the seymour pickups make the bass conversion possible unlike other classic minibuckers which have 6 poles typical of guitar pickups.

This pickup was a perfect match for my Le Brea bridge pickup. They blend well together and on its own…its my idea of a perfect tone

This plays similar to my ESP Kamikazes Screamin Demon humbucker, just a little thinner sound which actually works very well for me. My Fender American Standard Strat needed a wake up call and this is it.

Very happy with my purchase!!.

This is the third example of this great pickup that I now own. Great dirty sound with enough body but still clear. Rocky dirty sound with plenty grunt for riffs and leads. I flirt with other strat sized hum buckets but this is my fave.

I had this pickup installed in the bridge position of my Fender American Deluxe Strat. After 18 years of playing Strats, I have finally found “the one. ” I was looking to find a set of replacement pickups that would provide a sound somewhere between a traditional triple single-coil Strat and the PAF tones of a dual-humbucker Les Paul.

After consulting with a tech expert at Seymour Duncan, he suggested this pup for the bridge, a Duckbucker in the middle and a Little 59 in the neck. Homerun. The Li’l Screamin’ Demon has a fuller, creamier sound than a standard single-coil bridge pup, and is whisper quiet.

This pup has a very PAF-like tone – it’s creamy, warm and biting without being chunky or buzzy. Solos just flow from this pickup with a throaty voice and more sustain than I was expecting. Running it clean, the pickup has a single-coil pop and chime with a distinctive voice that really stands out with arpeggios.

When combined with the middle position Duckbucker, I can still get the Strat “quack” sound. If you’re looking to beef up the bridge position of your Strat, but still want the guitar to retain some of it’s traditional Strat character, this is your pickup.

Note, however, that if you retain the standard single-coil pups in the mid and neck, you’ll want to be careful how you balance the heighth of all three so the Screamin’ Demon doesn’t overpower the other two.

Compelled to write a review on this. Totally blown away. Replaced Fender’s vintage noiseless in the neck of my 02 Fat Strat. I knew it would be higher output, but wow this pickup SMOKES! Easily keeps up with the stock humbucker in the bridge.

It’s also super bright, brighter than the neck of my Baja tele (true single) and honestly it makes the bridge sound tame. The best part about it is how well it tames with the tone and volume controls.

I’ve never experienced anything like it, the changes in tone you can get by riding your knobs is absurd. So far I’ve got a spot on Shine On tone all the way through really ripping high gain. Highly recommended.

This is the second set of Area 61s I’ve put in my Strats. The first convinced me that I’d lost nothing in the way of stray sounds -just noise!! I like them, I think they actually sound better under gain than that the American Standard pickups they replaced.

And they sound really nice clean. Don’t believe all the carry on about tone loss. As you don’t need to compromise around noise ( which gets uncontrollable on many modern stages) it’s just win win.

Great pickup I have on in my neck and middle of my main Strat. I wanted something that gave me a more traditional sound but noiseless as well. The great thing about these pickups is how you can really hear the difference when you adjust to your picking.

An added bonus is various tones you can get from simply adjusting the height of the pickup makes these very versatile.

The pickup is everything its supposed to be just not what I was looking for. Tried to fit into a Strat custom shop 63 RI and the cavity from the guitar is not deep enough. The pickup sounded really good.

It maintains the Strat character. Sounds more like a Steroid strat than a Les Paul. I believe pickups will only do so much. Wood and shape still play important part of overall sound. Like I said, just not what I was looking for and some fitment issues, but still a great product.

I once had this pickup in and American Strat and was very pleased. That’s why I purchased it again. Highly recommended for extra punch and still sounding like a Strat should.

Installed easily. Definitely adds crunch that can’t be had with a stock Fender single coil. But the tone is more middle with much less high end or low end than I was expecting. Tweaking pole height helped some.

My Strat has 250k pots, so maybe if one were ambitious and swapped to 500k that could help? Don’t get me wrong -it ain’t bad at all. But it doesn’t have that sharp bite that my Ibanez or Gibson guitars have.

I have had this pickup in my Highway 1 Strat since 2010, and can honestly say that it is VERY close in tone to the full size JB that I have in a couple of axes. With a 250k tone, it is full, fat, and LOUD, with an upper mid sweetness that really cuts through.

This pickup excels at high gain but also has a pretty nice clean found on its own. Fat enough for riffing, and articulate enough for fleet fingered solos. You really can’t go wrong with this pickup.

This pickup is great for versatility! It may not be as defined as some might want, but for the not ridiculous picky players, this is the ticket for having the ability to get several distinct voices from! Mine is in a carvin tl60 tele, in the bridge position.

I am still getting toned the I like from this thing and combined with the middle pickup is even interesting! Seymour Duncan rocks!.

This pickup adds nice singing top end sizzle and harmonics to the guitars tone. I am using it in single coil and parallel connections. The various tones that you can get like this are awesome. The use of alnico 8 magnets is A really great choice by Symour Duncan.

Another big thankyou to Mr. Seymour Duncan and company.

By itself in any position or combined with the middle on my Strat for quack, its awesome. I added the Triple Shot pickup ring. My favorite pickup to date but I love P-90s!

Fitted this to replace an intermittently dead Fender Texas Hot one on my MIM Strat. Also fitted a mini toggle coil tap switch to enable a single coil sound option. Probably the single coil sound is not as jangly or bright as the Fender pickup, but acceptable.

Overall very pleased with the humbucker sound and is particularly good to be able to easily change to the full humbucker sound from s/c at flick of a switch. I had to lower the new pickup quite a bit to balance with the other 2 Texas Hot ones as it has a significantly higher output.

I ordered one of these pickups to replace the bridge pickup in a friend’s Ibanez GiO GSA60 (HSS). I wasn’t sure how it’d sound, but assumed that it would sound better than the stock bridge pickup and took a chance.

The price was unavoidable so I had to. The installation was a bit confusing at first since it didn’t include a wiring diagram in the package. I was able to quickly find one online as these pickups are pretty generic.

The twisted green/bare wire went to the common ground and the black wire is the hot lead soldering into the 5-way switch position 1 (north end). The red/white twisted wires soldered together were soldered into position 1 (sound end – 3rd contact from end).

That did the trick and it’s totally alive. The tone is great. It makes a fantastic hard rock/metal pickup. It’s also pretty quiet. At first I thought it was noisy, but one of my guitar leads ended up being the problem.

So I swapped the lead, and the guitar was hush quiet again. I couldn’t recommend one of these more if you’re looking for an inexpensive way to beef up your sound. It sounds killer!.

I received a Fleor M00074-4 wrapped in tin foil with 2 screws and 2 springs. If you do a search for this brand, you’ll see nothing but good reviews. I replaced the original single humbucker in my Peavey Rockmaster with the Fleor.

The Fleor is quieter than the original (silence—no hum at all!). Plus, all the poles are adjustable. Sounds really good and just as loud! I suspect Fleor probably makes pickups for the other major brands.

At this price, it is worth experimenting. They say you could a lot of money for a bad sounding pickup, so I recommend you start with this one.

Arrived very quickly, as described, I haven’t metered the output yet but it seems right. Plays dynamically, sounds good. Installed in my bridge position, taps nicely. Moderately quieter when tapped which I imagine is probably normal.

Just haven’t ever tapped a humbucker before. Retains the same tonal character when tapped though. Nothing to complain about other than excess wax on the top I needed to remove.

Sound: A+ tone for metal, but also REALLY good for blues, classic/hard rock, jazz (with the tone and volume knobs backed off a bit) and, yes, even COUNTRY. I wired it up for coil-splitting, and due to the high output level, it does a very convincing Telecaster single-coil sound.

I haven’t been able to get a bad tone out of this thing. Features: Excellent quality, exactly what I expect from Seymour Duncan. I haven’t been disappointed yet, and I don’t expect to. Ease of Use: Really easy to get great tones out of this, all across the board! Like with any pickup, you’ll have to spend a few minutes adjusting the height to get the response right, but that’s also easy.

Quality: Again, two words say it all: “Seymour Duncan”. Quality is pro-level, which is not surprising since many professional guitarists use these in their guitars for recording and touring. Value: EXCELLENT value, at least as good as pickups costing twice as much.

Again, there’s a reason that pros all over the world use Duncan pickups. Manufacturer Support: I’ve never had to contact Seymour Duncan for any mechanical or quality issues, but I did reach out with a wiring question some years ago – they were prompt, helpful, and responsive, and I don’t expect that that’s changed since then.

The Wow Factor: I got this to replace a Dimarzio D-Activator that came stock in an Ibanez Xiphos, and. Is it “better”? That’s subjective, but to me, the answer is an emphatic “YES!” The old pickup was serviceable, but not inspiring – it didn’t have the “mojo”.

This one does. Overall: The title says it all – Seymour Duncan markets this one for “extreme metal”, and it’s certainly great in that application, but there is SO much more loaded up in this thing. Balanced tone across the spectrum, and really amazing response to pick attack and volume/tone control adjustments.

After installing this pickup, I dialed in a high-gain lead tone on my old ADA tube preamp, and just for kicks I rolled the volume control back to see how well it handles. Well, it handles – I got an edge-of-breakup clean sound WITH THE AMP STILL ON THE HOT LEAD SETTING.

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.

I just purchased a 2020 Epiphone Les Paul Custom Silverburst to be my new back-up guitar. My number 1 being a ’19 Gibson Les Paul Traditional with the Burstbucker 1 & 2 pickups. I love my Gibson, but I wanted my backup guitar to be able to get some heavier tones for a few songs, and the Epi pickups don’t quite cut it.

Enter these Seymour Duncans. They really converted this intermediate guitar into a professional grade instrument. And the versatility can’t be beat. I’m now able to easily dial in tones ranging from early Steve Howe to Adam Jones.

They seem to be suited perfectly for the Epiphone Les Pauls. I’m truly blown away by the improvements in tone. If you’ve got a muddy, lackluster sounding guitar, don’t change your guitar, try these first! They are well worth the price, and a pretty simple install.

Put the Injector in the neck of my Vigier Expert 54. Was replacing a DM virtual vintage that was too vintage for my taste. Tried a YJM Fury first, but did not get what I was looking for. Enter the Injector.

Lots of power, with a lot of the bell-like qualities of a single coil for heavy blues, but has a more modern tone to it. There is a slight tilt towards full hum tone, but only slight. It can take immense amounts of gain and still remain clear, and tracks wonderfully.

This is a keeper.

This is a great neck pickup for any strat. I dare say it may be the perfect neck single-coil. Most single-coil pickups, regardless of their intended position end up having a seriously pushed treble range to get that sparkling, jangling strat tone.

This pickup is no exception, but for the fact that the treble isn’t as pronounced as in other pickups. With 160 mV of output and a B/M/T curve of 6/7/7. 5 the EQ curve isn’t so skewed that the pickup becomes brittle or piercing.

The tones you get from the Injector Neck pickup retain all of the great “tubular” tones we love from strat neck pickups, but the flatter EQ curve ensures that there is plenty of tight bottom end to keep the tone balanced and focused.

The Injector Neck can do both rhythm and lead equally well. The tone remains constant across the spectrum from cleans to fluid metal. I’ve never heard a neck pickup that I’m comfortable using playing rhythm.

The neck usually produces a sound that won’t cut through the mix, live OR in the studio. I fully intend to try the bridge model at my first chance. I already have the “Area” pickups, so I know they’re phenomenal-sounding!.

Firstly, I’ve always loved Dimarzio pickups. A have the Adny Timmons, Super Distortions, Cruisers,Tone Zone and Chopper pickups in various guitars and they all are brilliant covering the musical ground they are know for.

I have a Fender Tele that I was feeling in terms of tone. I replaced the bridge pickup with a Tone Zone and its great but still not the perfect axe. I decided to get a pro rout job and add a middle pickup.

After speaking to Steve at Dimarzio, he recommended the Injector which I hadnt even considered but he said it would balance nicely. Thank you Steve (and Paul Gilbert of course ;-)). The pickup makes the guitar truly complete.

The bridge pickup will overdrive the amp but the Injector oddly doesn’t. Instead it creates this beautiful, warm tone that alone, or combined with the bridge pickup is sublime. I’d love to try these pickups as a neck or bridge pickup also.

Ten or so years ago I bought a used strat with three of these pickups already installed. I had no Idea the brand because there were no labels on the pickups. I was and have been very impressed with the sound.

Vintage strat with no buzz, and high output. The perfect combination. I have played in some pretty high gain situations and these pickups have never failed to produce. Though my guitar is a 1988 Jap strat, it is the most playable guitar I have owned and these pickups are icing on the cake! Thank you Seymour Duncan!.

i purchased this pick up last month to drop into an early ninties rainbow crackle Charvel Predator in the neck position along with the SH-6 custom red in the bridge. i also replaced the original 3 way selector switch and volume pot with a CRL and Duncan Liberator 500k respectively.

i’m completely happy with the new tone of this STK-S2 as it produces some really sweet, jangly flavors which i haven’t been able to squeeze out of any stock pick ups. the SH-6, however, is not quite as hot as i’d like it but you can effortlessly shape your own individual tone with a good pick attack.

great! well built! worth every penny.

This pickup sounds like a Stat should and is, of course, nice and quiet. I’ve been playing Fender guitars since ’64 and Duncans have been the only replacement pickups I’ve use for a long, long time. Understands the Fender ethos and you can’t beat his prices.

I dropped a shiny gold Deathbucker into a Jackson Dinky, along with the matching gold single-coil size Alumitones. The gold version looks absolutely fabulous! If you want flash, sparkle and bling, this is the pickup for you.

It sounds good. Very balanced tonally, without much of a frequency peak. It’s a slightly odd sound compared to a Dimarzio or a Duncan, but it’s a nice sound. Tonally similar to a better EMG. Much more dynamic response than active pickups though! My only complaint is that due to the new design of the pickups, there is no series-parallel option.

It’s also not possible to use phase switching unless you have a second pickup. No in/out-of-phase with itself options. That said, it still gives a nice, trebly out-of-phase sound when used with another pickup.

The single-cool switching works best when combined with the phase switch. The difference between single-coil and humbucker is much smaller than with a traditional humbucker. It’s definitely usable, but much less treble and gain drop than a traditional split humbucker.

Overall, I’m very happy with this pickup, and I’d strongly consider it as a replacement pickup for a future guitar.

These pickups are awesome. I installed them in a chapman standard ML2. They look simply fantastic. This is a light guitar to begin with and these took off almost 2 more lbs, making this the lightest most comfortable guitar to play that I own.

I installed them so that coils can be split, but I almost never do that, I just play them in full humbucker mode. Still, it’s a nice option for more tonality. I did not replace the pots with 250k pots (guitar has 500k pots) and I think they still sound great.

The literature that they come with says that they are optimized for 250k pots, I will probably try them like that eventually, but for now I’m really happy with how they sound. They are incredibly noise free, except for the noises that you want to make.

They sound sick through all my amps, tube and solid state. They play friendly with all my effects pedals. Sound great clean or dirty. This is the second pair of Lace pickups that I have, and I think Lace is my new brand.

I’m in the process of building a new guitar from scratch right now, and I’ll bet that Lace pups will end up in that too.

I was excited to receive these pickups. I was playing EMG 81/85s for 14 years but there was always a lack of warmth in those. I have since switched all my guitars to Duncan Blackouts which are amazing.

I had one 9v battery start to leak in a guitar (thanks duracell!) so I wanted to try something that would supposedly be similar. Wired as recommended, brand new Bourns 250k tapping pots (250k pots recommended).

Their wiring diagram on the site is a 50% wiring diagram and LACE references another 3rd party site for diagrams which show (coil tapping) wiring different from theirs. I had to re-write the recommended 3rd party diagram with theirs to get it to work properly (come on guys.

) These pickups are lacking that overdrive push/output level. I have been playing both side-by-side over the past few days through the same 3 amps and same exact Schecter Custom XXX guitars. They just don’t have that compressed “UMPH” that the blackouts have.

They have a more MEDIUM output sound when compared to the blackouts. I am returning them unfortunately. They would probably be good if you are coming from vintage humbuckers and want a little more balls but if you are looking for the “tightness” and “compression” of actives you won’t get it.

I have Wilkinson vintage ceramics in three different Strat-style guitars. Great low cost pickups that have good clarity and trebly chime. A good low cost upgrade for a budget guitar like a Squier or other non-Fender Strat style guitar.

The difference is that one set is the Low Gauss set and it has that nice Strat quack in positions 2 and 4 whereas the other two pickup sets barely have it. So I give the edge to the low gauss set. The pickups have very long wire leads on them, so you shouldn’t have any issues running pickup leads to your switch or other solder points.

These Pickups are a bit hotter than the Wilkinson Hot pickups. Mine measure out at Neck: 6. 32K Middle is 6. 28K and the Bridge pickup is 6. 63 K. I have used Wilkinson before and I am looking forward to hearing these (building the pick guard now).

Some people are snobs about ceramic pickups but if you have never tried them, you should. They are warm and powerful. The Fender MIM use ceramics. These are not Seymour Duncan but these are awesome pickups.

I wired these pickups in a 3-volume no-tone configuration, with a push-pull switch to connect the neck pickup to the bridge switch position so that I can use them both (when in position 1). The sound is really good for Rock and Hard Rock songs, I think they will sound great with a normal Stratocaster wiring too.

I can’t find anything negative about these pickups. They are are as good (in terms of sound and quality) as pickups at a really higher price range. Thank you so much Musiclily and Wilkinson for making and selling great parts at nice prices!!!.

This humbucker pair is the most incredible upgrade to a very fine mahogany body Agile guitar with stock pickups. They sound amazing and what the guitar deserves. I am very happy to recommend them. I had them professionally fitted by a qualified luthier and he rated them as a 1000% upgrade.

Get them today!.

Bought this pickup for the neck position of a Telecaster that originally had a Fender humbucker in it. This guitar is strung with 12-56 strings and tuned down to standard C. The humbucker sounded dead and flat with this setup, presumably because of the thick strings and lower frequency altogether.

The Phat Cat is much louder than the Fender humbucker, and actually trumps the skinny Dimarzio Super distortion in the bridge. I have the Phat Cat set quite a bit farther away from the strings than the Dimarzio.

I usually play a Blacktop Jazzmaster and was trying to get something close to that neck pickup sound that was a direct drop-in; the Phat Cat is bassier and a bit louder, but the Jazzmaster cuts more with highs and slightly more mids.

Alas, these are two different guitars, just trying to set a point of reference for everyone. Overall it is a great pickup so far.

This pickup is awesome let me tell you. I swapped it out for a dragon 2 neck humbucker in my prs custom 22. It sounds amazing I am so happy with it paired with a prs 57/08 in the bridge. One thing to note it this pickup is wound in a different direction then prs pup so the middle position is out of phase.

Not totally unusable but definitely not going to be your main tone. I’m thinking about getting the bridge phat cat but I just cant part with a bridge humbucker yet. I have all kinds of seymour duncan dimarzio gibson and prs pups and this is one of my favourite now.