My Search/Jerry Strat Pickups

[Maybeck09]

Here's another bump for Fralin's. I've got them in my black strat now, wired with a Chromacaster (allowing pickups to be combined to make a humbucker) They are extremely clear, responsive and powerful sounding. I have the "Blues whatever" and its a good one. Also I had a pickup go bad and went down to see them to drop it off for a rewind. (I live in Richmond). Really wanted to see his shop,which isn't much. But what a great guy. Set me right up.Just replaced the dead pickup with a new one and showed me where the wire had broken. I'm just a dude learning and he was great to take the time to walk thru it with some guy off the street. So his customer service and "get it right" attitude aid in any transaction. Ultimately its the sound and they sound great. Good luck.

[tcsned]

Here's another bump for Fralin's. I've got them in my black strat now, wired with a Chromacaster (allowing pickups to be combined to make a humbucker) They are extremely clear, responsive and powerful sounding. I have the "Blues whatever" and its a good one. Also I had a pickup go bad and went down to see them to drop it off for a rewind. (I live in Richmond). Really wanted to see his shop,which isn't much. But what a great guy. Set me right up.Just replaced the dead pickup with a new one and showed me where the wire had broken. I'm just a dude learning and he was great to take the time to walk thru it with some guy off the street. So his customer service and "get it right" attitude aid in any transaction. Ultimately its the sound and they sound great. Good luck.

Plus he's a good Virginian

[schmidtz]

You guys keep mentioning great pickups, but then you end the sentence with, "...though not exactly Alligator-like". (Not trying to be rude, just curious)
Has anyone found anything that is Alligator like?

[RiverRat]

.

[Marlow]

I haven't installed it yet, but I just received a repro 1974 middle pickup from Klein Pickups:

http://www.kleinpickups.com/p-45-74-stratocaster-pickups.aspx

If I understand Jerry's pickup choices on Wolf, he had the stock Fender pickups swapped out regularly, so in theory a '74 Fender pickup should nail the '74 Jerry tone. Well that's the theory anyway. I have no idea whether Wolf's pups were actually stock or some special alembic rewind, or maybe something else entirely.

[waldo041]

ron wickersham, rick turner, and frank fuller all state he used stock fender single coil pickups and ALEMBIC did not wind or make jerry's pickups. they produced low impedance pickups to go with their custom preamps. in fact ron wickersham designed the Alembic Blaster specifically for jerry for use with his HIGH IMPEDANCE strat pickups, that is why it was originally called the stratoblaster.

peace,
waldo

[keirweir]

I haven't installed it yet, but I just received a repro 1974 middle pickup from Klein Pickups:

http://www.kleinpickups.com/p-45-74-stratocaster-pickups.aspx

If I understand Jerry's pickup choices on Wolf, he had the stock Fender pickups swapped out regularly, so in theory a '74 Fender pickup should nail the '74 Jerry tone. Well that's the theory anyway. I have no idea whether Wolf's pups were actually stock or some special alembic rewind, or maybe something else entirely.

This is good info here. Does anyone have any experience with these? Mentall, I have a new guitar project started on a Wolf guitar with the single coils for that 74 tone.

[claytushaywood]

Sorry to bring up an old thread! but in my quest to find strat pickups for jerry's 72-74 tone i've found some definite value in the stock pickup from fender idea. i tried the custom shop 54's- definitely not sparkly and bright enough imo. i found a late 70's strat with stock pickups and they were much much brighter and spankier (tho a little ice picky for me) a lot more like jerry's late 70's tone though

on modern pickup builders. i actually emailed jason lollar of Lollar pickups the other day (october 2011) and told him what i was looking for (jerry 72-74 ish... key word ish) he actually responded saying that he looked up some videos and was asking if i was looking for europe 72 sound or shakedown street era or like 77 stuff... (i actually just told him 70s jerry garcia tones and then further refined it to 72-74 and sent him some videos in response) he made a recommendation that i will soon be trying out, just cuz i thought that was super cool (and i have a set of his 52 tele pickups that just sing and spank and do whatever you want them to)...

He recommeded his "blonde" strat pickup wind
ill report with a review soon

on another note- just to clarify... did jerry EVER use 3 SDS-1 dimarzios? i noticed that Moriarty guitars ships their single coil wolf with 3 sds1's. i thought this was just a misunderstanding. if he did, when was it, id love to hear it, i do dig those pickups, fat and round as all get out, i wouldnt mind popping one in the bridge

[waldo041]

DC Resistance 5.8k - Alnico V

Fender Custom Shop 69's or
Fender Custom Shop Strat Abigail Ybarra Hand-Wound Pickups

peace,
waldo

[tigerstrat]

on another note- just to clarify... did jerry EVER use 3 SDS-1 dimarzios? i noticed that Moriarty guitars ships their single coil wolf with 3 sds1's. i thought this was just a misunderstanding. if he did, when was it, id love to hear it, i do dig those pickups, fat and round as all get out, i wouldnt mind popping one in the bridge

interesting question. I'm not sure if there has ever been confirmation of Wolf's pickups (other than that they were 3 single coils) during the time from when he returned to it after the Travis Bean period, up until it went back to the shop to be fitted with the humbuckers, roughly 9/28/77 to 6/1/78.

[jeager]

I am in the process of putting together a strat from warmoth, callaham and waldo parts. I have not settled on a pickup yet but I am going the single coil/hum canceling rout. I have such a nice quiet sweet sounding rig (thanks to Brad) that plugging in a hum-caster would just kill me.

I am considering either the Dimarzio area pups or the Fralin Split blades, kind of leaning toward the Fralins at this point. If you don't mind waiting a month for my project to be done, I will let you know and put up some clips.

Currently I play a stock Clapton strat with Fender's noisless pups and after finally dialing in the sound right on the SMS and getting two JBLs most folks say it sounds very Jerry...
I think a good single coil and the right amp can get you pretty close (especially to the 70's stuff)
I will try to post some youtube, not sure how this works though. I'm the guy playing lead over in the shadows/barely visible.

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

DC Resistance 5.8k - Alnico V

Fender Custom Shop 69's or
Fender Custom Shop Strat Abigail Ybarra Hand-Wound Pickups

peace,
waldo

These are precisely the pickups that I'd go to first for the Wolf or Alligator strat or really just a Jerry-ish pickup tone in general. These seem to have a certain brightness to them that just sounds right.

Brad

[claytushaywood]

where does dc 5.8k resistance? is that an opinion or a measurement of jerry's pickup or the cs 69's? if so which pickup are you talking? I do agree with you that the custom shop 69's are a good choice. I tried them out recently and they are definitely brighter than the other custom shops (54's and early 60's ones) and they were pretty similar to the late 70's strat with stock pickups I tried out.

about noise... Really quality single coil pickups are usually not too noisy. wax potted ones seem less noisy (though I think the fender 69's might not be potted) my buddy has some D. Allen pickups that sound AMAZING!!!! and are very, very quiet. much more quiet than fender's stock pickups (besides the noiseless cobalt ones or whatever). i think the dimarzios with the dummy coils have the strat character but they are definitely lacking something inherently stratty, that extra top end bell overtones is not fully there in em... not saying they wont work for you though

using boutique quality pickups, with proper shielding, wiring, grounding plugging in quality cables into a low noise amp like the post alembic modded jerry (those component changes look like theyd reduce some noise at least) and a hi fi SS poweramp. i dont think you're gonna get noise that is gonna come close to mattering live. you also gotta think that jerry never really used humbucking pickups... a coil split super 2 is gonna hum too!

[jackevorkian]

Did I just see you at the Fall Festival in Hamden? Definitely did sound very Jerry...was actually going to ask which JBL's you had in there and if that was a HT cab.

I am in the process of putting together a strat from warmoth, callaham and waldo parts. I have not settled on a pickup yet but I am going the single coil/hum canceling rout. I have such a nice quiet sweet sounding rig (thanks to Brad) that plugging in a hum-caster would just kill me.

I am considering either the Dimarzio area pups or the Fralin Split blades, kind of leaning toward the Fralins at this point. If you don't mind waiting a month for my project to be done, I will let you know and put up some clips.

Currently I play a stock Clapton strat with Fender's noisless pups and after finally dialing in the sound right on the SMS and getting two JBLs most folks say it sounds very Jerry...
I think a good single coil and the right amp can get you pretty close (especially to the 70's stuff)
I will try to post some youtube, not sure how this works though. I'm the guy playing lead over in the shadows/barely visible.

[strumminsix]

Sorry to bring up an old thread!
...
Lollar pickups

Most folks here, myself included, LOVE seeing old threads resurrected like you did here!

I think Jason makes some of the best pickups money can buy. My #1 guitar has a pair of his mini-buckers!