Fender Atomic humbuckers-- a love letter for fender stock pickups

[naneek]

Can anybody think of a tele bridge pickup that would pair well with these atomic humbuckers? or another clear well defined single coil that would be hot enough to pair with these?

I'm going to make myself something along the lines of the 3 pickup SG deluxe, using the atomic set as my neck and middle pickups, and a hot tele bridge pickup.

One option I have on hand is a fender-lace red sensor from a telecaster plus / strat plus. Any thoughts on this combo?

I'm leaning towards classic telecaster, but the lace would fit well with humbuckers because that single coil design has no 60 cycle hum.

 

[Vadim]

Texas Specials. American Special hss Strats come with a bridge Atomic Humbucker and two CS Texas Special single coils. Love mine. If you like Atomic humbuckers, you are likely to like Texas Specials. Fender also makes a bridge version for Telecaster.

 

[naneek]

Texas Specials. American Special hss Strats come with a bridge Atomic Humbucker and two CS Texas Special single coils. Love mine. If you like Atomic humbuckers, you are likely to like Texas Specials. Fender also makes a bridge version for Telecaster.

Thanks for the suggestion Vadim, sounds like a nice overwound pickup that still has that classic tele tone. I think that would go nicely with the atomic set.

I'll keep an eye out for those, maybe I'll be able to find a deal on the used market.

 

[johnDH]

I've also got an HSS Am Special Strat (2010), with the Bridge Atomic and two TX specials. I really like this combo and it's my daily player. But it's not super hot. The Atomic is 8.4k and the two TX Sp's are 6.2k. Just nicely on the slightly hotter side but not to the max. I've heard of other Atomics being more like 16k?

 

[naneek]

I've also got an HSS Am Special Strat (2010), with the Bridge Atomic and two TX specials. I really like this combo and it's my daily player. But it's not super hot. The Atomic is 8.4k and the two TX Sp's are 6.2k. Just nicely on the slightly hotter side but not to the max. I've heard of other Atomics being more like 16k?

the american special strat sounds like fun.

I haven't had a chance to measure mine yet, but I'm planning on taking my 98 toronado and the 03-04 toronado open coil humbuckers to a local shop for measurement and comparison.

I'll be sure to post the results here.

Without measuring, I would guess the atomics are a little less hot than a set of dimarzio super distortions. The atomics seem very loud, but they retain high end detail and the attack doesn't sound compressed.

They push an amp pretty hard, but the dimarzios have a much darker smoothed out tone which is what I expect to hear from an overwound pickup. I like super distortions but they definitely have that high end detail loss that seems to come from extremely hot pickups.