Help! Stratty, but WARM pickups for a 62' Hot Rod Strat

[Vintage_Charlie]

Hello forum members!



I hope you guys can help me out with this. It's gonna be a long post, but i hope this doesn't scare the knowledgable people off.



I recently bought a 62 hot rod strat - already acousticaly a very good sounding, open and balanced instrument, with some great chime and jangle - to my ear as good as it gets with current production strats - puts all my other guitars to shame.



They had the 57/62 pups with the rwrp mid stock. My previous strat that i sold to buy this one - a CP 60's had the CS69 pickups, which were ok, but the bridge was too thin, and so was the middle to my ear (can also probably be attributed to properties of the instrument itself), neck was fine. had some quack in 2nd pos (bridge/middle) and bit of chime in the 4th. Those didn't sound very "stratty" to me.



What i'm looking for in a strat (sorry for the too many and too bad metaphors, but i want to try to be clear, because everybody seems to atribute the same words for very different properties in sound) is a full, round and defined neck, a combination of quack and chime in the 4th position that together makes a "glassy" sound - with the slight shimmer in the highs underlying each note - tho notes sound a bit like pearls gently rubed against each other, but without any shrillness - think of SRV's Lenny. Middle is "throaty", a bit nasal, but also full and a bit edgy, with slight bite. Really pronounced "quack" in the 2nd position and a "usable" bridge - meaning - it should have the bite, but also some body and a bit of fullness to it. This to me sounds like a "stratty" strat, the neck and 4th being the most important ones for my stratOfetish.



Well, i have the feeling that the 57/62's come close to this, except the bridge, which is not as bad as the cs69, but still too thin and bright. On my guitar, despite the rwrp i got a quite good glassiness in 4 and good quack in 2. I had a set of pickups from leosounds lying around - the VintagePlayer 56, which are qound at around 6.0-6.1K (according to specsheet) and that should be very balanced, with nice warmth and mids, without the slight scoop the 57/62 still have. Handwound - so they should be a bit edgier in the highs than machine wounds and should sound a bit more "vintage". If you listen to the sound samples on the leosounds.de - for the VintagePlayer 56 pups - thats EXACTLY the tone i lust for - it's a fantastic, classic stratty tone heard from SRV and almost any other recording of a good vintage strat. So i installed them, hoping they would be like the 57/62, just warmer, fuller and rounder. (i suppose they are similar to the CS 54's - though i've never tried those)

While i really LOVE the tone on the individual positions of the VP 56, they don't sound "stratty" in 4 and 2, although i tried everything with the pickup height, etc. 4 is chimey, but thats it - no quack, no real glassiness - not those round 3-d glass spheres shaping each note like in the clips. 2 has a bit of quack and actually sounds more glassy than 4 (?) - could live with that, but i can't live without the glassy 3d thing on 4.



I don't think that the guitar is lacking in tone or the potential to chime. I rather think, that my set of VP56 pups could be overwound (bought them used - so maybe, when ordered, this option was chosen, or maybe they are overwound by accident) - have to measure them someday soon.



I figure i could live with a slight mid-scoop, but with a pronounced glassiness in 4 and quack in 2. (i run it through a jtm-45 clone, so mids are not an issue)



The bridge from the vp56 is definetly a "keeper" - bright, but fulbodied and very usable - my first strat i can attribute this to.



I was also changing the 57/62 because they have the rwrp mid, which, afaik, make for a less glassy and quacky sound - so i wanted to try a mid without this.



So - at last my question - what would you guys recommend for me? What i want is generally a classic stratty strat sound with a balanced tone - not too much of a mid-scoop. So - the post-CBS types are not for me. I like the VP56 in the individual positions (so probably also the CS54's), but i miss the quackiness and glassiness i heard with the 57/62's, even with the rwrp (that's also why i think this not a problem of the instrument itself - i'm sure it can quack and make huge glass spheres :) ). Something like a mix between the CS54's and 57/62's? Or a warm version of 57/62's?



All my knowledge about pups is from forums and now i understand that it is not knowledge, it's confusion - everybody has their presumptions and experiences which are too individual. I always thought the 50's type pickups were the glassier ones, the bit more scooped ones, the quackiest (5.6-5.9K), while the 60's are the hotter, bitier, with more body and mids (6.0-6.4K, SRV'ish). So i thought i had to look in the 50's direction for glass and quack. But the glassiest and stratiest ones i've experienced are the most underwound-ones - the 57/62 (5.6K) that, for example, Klein sells as a 63' set? Why is that - i mean - the avarage on vintage strats in 63 was one of the hottest years - about 6.3-6.4K?



So, is the 5.6K (underwound, right?) the best range for the most pronounced 3d glass and quack? Still not being very scooped? Or are there other factors for the pickups that contribute to the glass and quack?



For now i plan to find somewhere a 57/62 non-rwrp mid (or trade it in for my rwrp with someone who wants this) and try it in combination with the vp56 bridge - maybe that will even improve the glass and quack on my guitar?



The other option i consider is going with a tapped set from Klein - 54/63' (5., 5.6, 5.6 (essentially a handwound version of the 57/62) / 5.9, 5.9, 6.5 - so i would be able to get both types of sound i strive for. Klein assured me on the mail that the set retains the exact tone of the individual sets - the 54' and 63'. So would a handwound 5.6K set give me glass and quack heaven? the 54 side should give me the warmer and fuller tones, when needed.



I know everybody has their own favorites from all the boutique stuff, but there are so many of them that it is just too confusing. So, please, let's stay within Fender and maybe, lets say Chris Klein pickups (because he has almost the same prices as Fender and a really huge variety of pups). And anyway idon't believe that, provided the right parts and materials are used, the handwound pickups of different manufacturers differ that much - what makes difference is probably the resistance on the pups, etc.



Thanks a LOT in advance to you who chime in on this and conquer this megapost! - sorry for that - but i wanted to deliver everything in context - otherwise it usually seems with such threads that there is only miscommunication going on.



Best Regards,



VintageCharlie