Mustang pickups same as Strat pickups?

[David Schwab]

If possible, do measure the mag spacing carefully (I suppose the easiest way would be E to E right-edge-to-right-edge.)

Somewhere or another here I posted a photo of a Mustang pickup sitting upside down on a Strat pickup cover. The magnets line up with the Strat cover's holes.

[fieldwrangler]

Yup, I recall that you confirmed this a while back. At this point I'm gonna assume that this was consistent across the years of production (why would they have a reason to change it?)

One of these days I'll pull the pickguard off of that Strat and give the pickup a closer look (and will measure the spacing accurately). Wonder if it's an import with unusually detailed underside cosmetics?

[Jim Shine]

Duo Sonics and Mustangs use the same pickup set. The only difference between a Duo-Sonic II and a Mustang is the bridge assembly and decal.

The Duo Sonics and Mustangs have 2 different pickups in the set. The bridge pickup is reverse wound/reverse polarity of the neck pickup. Thus it has different color leads to differentiate it. The Duo Sonic was the first standard guitar made at Fender with such technology.

These pickups varied the most. Partly because Fender was evolving and the the usual pickups were changing as machines and product line wide changes were made. These are also by far the highest produced pickups made by Fender during these years. Not only because the Musicmaster family (Musicmaster, Duo Sonic, Mustang, Bronco, Swinger/Arrow, Musicmaster Bass) were the highest production guitars made at Fender, but because these pickups also appeared in various steel guitars as well. The Champ and Studio steels as an example used the very same pickup found in Musicmaster, Musicmaster Bass, and Broncos as well as Duo Sonic and Mustang neck positions.

Up until the late 60's these pickups were wound with less wire than Strats. They typically read in the 5.6-5.8 range, but in the CBS years when they switch to the automated machine winding, the readings drop down to about the 5.5- 5.6 range. When the wire goes to plain enamel, they typically read 5.5K. The wire winding style and type changes in the same lineage as Strats, but because of the larger batches and greater use, the changes are seen slightly faster. You also see greater numbers of Musicmaster family guitars with the smaller population changes on Strats. Like lots of yellow ink dates and ink dated gray bobbin transitions.

The bobbins are the same dimension as Strats of the same era, but the magnets are flush, not staggered. Early examples, the poles are leveled from the top rather than the bottom, so the magnets stick out from the bottom a little. In the early 60's they changed and were installed traditionally and are flush on the bottom. In the mid-late 70's the poles are slightly shorter than a Strat of the same period. The Strat has poles flushed to the cover and the Musicmaster family pickups will sit slightly recessed. Musicmaster Bass pickups contain an extra top Forbon fiber piece stacked on top of the usual one to set the magnets farther away from the surface of the cover, I guess this helps lessen the brightness, and I never understood it completely, but Fender did it.

In 1966-7 Fender was backordered on these almost 20K units, so you see some funky stuff done to keep up. You see black bobbins used on occasion and substitutions of the black and white wire colors with green, orange, or blue.

[Alan0354]

I always like the Mustang. I so wish they still have new made in USA. I do have a thing in buying the MIA Fender. I actually like it better than Strat as I like this and Gibson SG with neck and bridge pup farther from neck and bridge resp. It just give me the kind of sound I like.

[David Schwab]

I have a nice '74 Mustang. I need a new pickguard for it, since the original has shrunk and curled up like a potato chip. But its a great little guitar. I had replaced my pickups with old Bill lawrence L-250s, and they have a nice snarl in that guitar.

[Jim Shine]

My first Fender was a red 1965 Mustang. I bought it from my study hall teacher for $75. I remember putting stacked Seymour Duncans in it. I liked the funky tones those 3 ways made, so I ended up going back to stock. In later years I went through a ton of these guitars. Personally, I liked the Duo-Sonic II more. The Mustang tremolo left lots to be desired, so having a simple bridge sounded better and made more sense to me.

[Richard Lam]

Interestingly, the pickups bear a 1969 date code, while the pots bear a 1966 date code, which seems to suggest that Fender was keeping a truly HUGE quantity of pots in stock at the time.

Cheers

Bob

Just found out my "78" has electronics stamped 1979, haha. It'd be interesting to know where the heck this thing had really been those first 20 years before I got it...

[Sweetfinger]

Just found out my "78" has electronics stamped 1979, haha. It'd be interesting to know where the heck this thing had really been those first 20 years before I got it...

I've seen Fenders with "S 8" serial number prefixes show up on guitars manufactured as late as 1981. Your Mustang has a pot manufactured in April of '79 so the earliest it was made was mid '79.