Anyone seen "SRV's #1" pickups?

[ken]

Hello all,

I need to settle a bet.

Supposedly, SRV's #1 Strat had customized pickups. I say that they were regular 1962 issue pickups, sort of like a Tom Anderson pickup with just a piece of copper tape wrapped around the outside of the coil, and nothing on the top or bottom.

My corquesniffer friend said they were supposedly custom wound extra hot pickups with foil wrapped completely around them on all sides with only holes in the foil for the magnets and wires to come out.

A bottle of singlemalt is riding on this one... does anyone have a good photo
of #1's pickups uncovered?

Thank you,
ken

[theboss]

They were stock from what I understand. I think I read that they might have had warped bobbins, but i wouldn't call that a mod...

[Possum]

......

I did as much research as possible on his Number One pickups. There are no photos that I ever found. Even the video of them examining Number One in a hotel room, they didn't seem interested in the pickups at all.

The best description I found was in a British guitar magazine using sources at Fender. Basically they were a stock set of 1959 pre-CBS pickups. The neck pickup was the hottest and the other two "relatively weak" according to the article. Foil shielding was mentioned but no details on whether the inside of the covers were shield or the coils were foil wrapped, no mention of if the shield was grounded or not either. Typical '59 sets usually have the neck around 6K and the other two below that. They were NOT custom wound, sorry. Copper shield yes but you can't find any details there. OK, do I send you my mail address for the brew?

[Sweetfinger]

My corquesniffer friend said they were supposedly custom wound extra hot pickups with foil wrapped completely around them on all sides with only holes in the foil for the magnets and wires to come out.

I've never heard or read anything that indicated the pups were custom wound.

[Possum]

....

Hey, quit trying to horn in here, that booze is MINE! Just kidding. There have been rumors for years that Van Zandt hot wound some pickups for him, well maybe he did, and maybe he found out hot pickups suck. Texas Specials were designed to be "the same as the hot pickups Stevie has in his guitar." Except 1959 pre-CBS era strat pickups aren't wound with 43 gauge plain enamel that Fender used. I think Stevie did some kind of semi-endorsement deal with them for that signature guitar and thats what was used in it and he played one of those guitars on TV once I think, but am pretty sure that guitar got stuffed in some closet somewhere real quick. I also read, again this is rumor and was not in the official autopsy of that guitar reported by Fender, that there was also a switchable dummy coil in the guitar but was removed after his death so no one would know about it. Here is THE guitar, notice how they ignore the pickups, though I did spot a multimeter laying around there somewhere:
YouTube- Stevie Ray Vaughan Number One The Real Guitar

[salvarsan]

My corquesniffer friend ...

You mispeld "corquesniffeur."

[David Schwab]

I did as much research as possible on his Number One pickups. There are no photos that I ever found.

They did a thing on the guitar in GuitarPlayer some time back. They showed the pickups with the copper shielding on them. I seem to remember he did that himself. I also seem to remember that they were totally stock 59's, but the bridge was hotter.

Some of the pictures of the guitar are in Dan Erlewine's GuitarPlayer Repair Guide, but not the pickups.

[ken]

I've been doing some research here, and no Dave I didn't find the pickup photos.

There have been rumors for years that Van Zandt hot wound some pickups for him, well maybe he did, and maybe he found out hot pickups suck.

If one of the copper shielding tape's effects on tone would be to cut highs, then a hotter pickup with less highs before shielding would be worse for him than the stock ones he already had. I can see why he kept the '1959' pickups he already had.

Fender is remarkably closedmouthed about the pickups SRV really used. Also, their whole autopsy vid looked to me like a prospective RI ad for TV.

still lookin'...

ken

[Busterdawg]

hmm...

That video is a tad obnoxious. Teasing, shaky camera glimpses of the guitar followed by grainy black and white photos of the examination.

What's the thought process here? Is the Custom Shop afraid that the exact specs of 1959 Stratocaster might slip out and be made public?

No doubt a way more interesting video could have been culled from that footage. The actual examination and measurement of the neck and pickups would have thrilled me.

Brilliant PR! Made me wanna run right out and buy that SRV tribute ax so I too can play like Stevie. Bravo Custom Shop! Now go think up another celebrity signature edition. I think one the Fall Out Boys might play a Jazz Bass he wrote on in magic marker.

[Possum]

.....

Were they closed mouthed about the pickups or just plain stupid. We sometimes attribute more intelligence to companies like Gibson and Fender than actually may reside there. A good example is Fender's "reissue" pickups, are any of them actually accurate vintage copies? No.
Greg sent me this, no surprise to me:
Worst Companies To Work For: Glassdoor.com's List (PHOTOS, POLL)

[Possum]

....

Copper foil tape won't kill any highs or shield unless its grounded and loop closed, if you ever find what year Guitar Player did that article would love to see it....

[Busterdawg]

Were they closed mouthed about the pickups or just plain stupid. We sometimes attribute more intelligence to companies like Gibson and Fender than actually may reside there. A good example is Fender's "reissue" pickups, are any of them actually accurate vintage copies? No.
Greg sent me this, no surprise to me:
Worst Companies To Work For: Glassdoor.com's List (PHOTOS, POLL)

Wow. #1!

I knew Gibson was #1 in something... just had a hunch it wasn't in guitar building.

[automan]

It was a terrible company to work for. I was in the custom shop for years. Those people do good work in SPITE of management.

[mkat]

In Dan's book, he states that the Strats were all pre '63 and that the "only significant change from stock on these Strats has been the addition of 5-way switches and a good coat of shielding paint in the control cavities." No discussion on the pickups in that book as David mentioned.

However, the book Guitar World Presents Stevie Ray Vaughan (1997, see google books: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=...age&q=&f=false ) documents some interesting details by Martinez ([...] is text omitted by me for brevity):

"GW: Were the pots in the guitar of the stock 250 k variety?
MARTINEZ: Yes. In the last tone position, we installed a push-push pot, because we were trying to cut down on the hum from the single-coil pickups. I added a dummy coil in there to keep the guitar from buzzing, plus some different value capacitors so the tone would stay as close to the original sound as possible. That was about it. I changed some of the pots that had worn out or broken."

"MARTINEZ: [...]The first time I ever saw Number One was at a music store in Dallas called Charley's Gutiar Shop where I worked. [...] You can tell how old Strats are by taking the necks off, because the date is stamped on the end of the neck, where the neck joins the body. The "1962" was stamped on the neck, and the year "1962" was written in the body cavity, as it usually was on Fender guitars of that vintage. Now, Stevie always referred to the guitar as a '59. So I looked at Charley and said, "Why does Stevie call this a '59?" It wasn't until a while lager, in a talk I had with Stevie, when he said to me, "Well, if you look on the back of the pickups, '1959' is hand-written on there."

"GW: Aside from the black pickguard, which obviously was added later, was that guitar 100 percent stock?
MARTINEZ: Yes, all except for the five-way toggle switch that Stevie had installed, and the lefty tremolo arm."

Also, there was an discussion here in late 2008 on this topic, but there are other discussions from memory about the dummy coil:
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t10162/

On the dummy coil, if that's true, then it must have been a very tight fit into one of the cavities.

[Busterdawg]

It was a terrible company to work for. I was in the custom shop for years. Those people do good work in SPITE of management.

Point taken.

Being less flip about it, I'm sure many good people work for Gibson. I've just been less than thrilled with the quality of the lower priced models and the "interesting" choices in new models like the Les Paul BFG. Oh, and let's not forget the announced "Jimi Hendrix Gibson Strat" - Of course it is not the average Gibson worker that is at fault, it's the amazing minds in corporate management, from Henry Juszkiewicz on down.