Your experiences with Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack Pups

[nigelcummings]

Does anyone have some solid experience with the Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack pups for Telecaster?

I've read some reviews, heard the sound bites on SD's website, but a bit apprehensive to take the plunge.

I realize I'm not trying to get that twanging, snappy, single coil-esque sound with these pups. I'm pursuing a more humbucker-meets-tele Coldplay, overdriven type sound.

Thanks

[TeleLubber]

Yes, I have installed a set on my buddy's Tele I built for him, and I wired the set to a push/pull pot on the tone control so he could "split" the stack, Seymour refers to this as the "power-boost option" in the schematic that came with it..

The Tele was an ash body with maple/rosewood neck .. the results were very good IMO, and to my ear the guitar sounded pretty tame as far as Tele's go in the "normal" stacked position, almost Gibson like, but slightly brighter .. and when the pups were "boosted/split" there was a slight perceived volume increase and the twang came out without being too "ice-picky" if ya know what I mean..

He was pleased because his other guitars are all equipped with humbuckers, so tone-wise he wasn't having to adjust his amp too much in a live situation.. I may actually put a set of these in another project down the road, and I've always been a fan of SD pups, though lately I prefer Fralins.. hope that helps.

[tiktok]

I've got them in two Tele's, and as far as I'm concerned they're single coil pickups that don't hum. I've heard all sorts of negative things about them, that they don't sound AT ALL like a single coil, they're missing "sparkle" and so on, but to my ears they just sound like Tele pickups without the buzz. I never mucked with the coil splitting trick described in a previous post.

I think the Coldplay guy uses regular side-by-side coil humbuckers in his Tele.

[nigelcummings]

TeleLubber, did you change the pots to 500K when you put the SD vintage stack pups in? I think most Teles have 250K pots for the single coils, while many humbucker-based guitars have 500K pots.

Another question: what about about power? How does the Vint. Stk. pups sound in terms of output power compared to say, Gibson Classic '57s?

[tiktok]

Vintage Stacks are nowhere near as hot as Classic '57's. They're maybe a little hotter than stock pickups, but nothing major.

[TeleLubber]

Originally Posted by nigelcummings

TeleLubber, did you change the pots to 500K when you put the SD vintage stack pups in? I think most Teles have 250K pots for the single coils, while many humbucker-based guitars have 500K pots.

Another question: what about about power? How does the Vint. Stk. pups sound in terms of output power compared to say, Gibson Classic '57s?

I use 500k pots with humbuckers typically, to avoid losing too many high freq's.. though I did use 250k pots with a set of Fender Noiseless pups I installed on another project, because it didn't dawn on me til I started playin it thru the amp for the first time that they were indeed (stacked) humbuckers too.. and TBH, I didn't notice a real change when I switched from 250k to 500k.. the Fender Noiseless pups I think have less "sparkle" than the SD Vin Stacks, and traditional single-coils as Tiktok spoke about.. I won't buy another set of Fender Noiseless BTW for that very reason.. When I said the SD Vint Stacks were "tame" I meant the "single coil sparkle" was there, but no "ice-pick".. and no hum either (except when I get near the TV LOL)

And as far as "power" comparison, I have '57 classics in my Gibson Flying V, and those bad boys are definately "beefier" than these Vintage Stacks.. not sure I would go with those for a Tele style guitar.. though I'm kinda biased toward single coils for the neck position, (traditional) humbuckers just sound too muddy IMO.. And I should mention that the SD Vin Stacks sound very "classic rock" smooth with distortion..

Seymour Duncan makes a P-90 Phat Cat pup that I just love due to its "snarly" attitude.. so there's another option.. it sounds great played clean or thru distortion...