What Kind Of Pickup Is this?

[ajeffcote]

A friend brought me a Strat that needed a little TLC and new strings.It is his 13 year old son's guitar.I cleaned it up,changed the strings and set it up like I like 'em.Plays real nice.It is a pieced together guitar.Mexican neck(and a real good one),Mexican body(but from 2 different guitars)and CUSTOM STAGGER pickups of unknown origin.They sound absolutely fantastic!!!The magnet stagger is radiused to follow the fretboard radius.The E's are the lowest,the A and B are a little higher,the D and G are the tallest.If I can get it back i will take a closer look,under the pickgaurd.But I want a set of those screaming pickups!!!
Does that kind of magnet profile ring any bells?

[Possum]

........

Fender had the same pickup on its weird tele that I think is called a '54 custom or something, they are like $100 and have a humbucker bridge and a strat neck, the strat has the same magnet setup, probably chinese pickups.....

[spud1950]

That stagger pattern is very common on Asian made ceramic magnet pickups and is also used on the Mexican Standard Strat stock pickups,which also have ceramic magnets,two per pickup,one on each side of the pole pieces, and are wound fairly hot.Since the guitar is using a Mexican Strat body, I wouldn't be surprised if they are just the stock pickups that were on the Mexican Strat that the body came from.They have,as you say,a much more "scream" to the tone then a traditional vintage Strat tone. A peek under the guard will tell you for sure,but if they have plated steel pole pieces instead of Alnicos,you can pretty much rest assured that they are Mexican Standard Strat pickups.Here's a picture of the pickups out of a Mexican Standard Strat.You can see the ceramic bar magnets peeking out under the pickups.

[spud1950]

Here's a picture of the back of the Mexican pups.

[ajeffcote]

Hmmmm....Cheap pickups that sound good???I may have to start watching Ebay for a set.I've got SD AlnicoII Pro's in my main Strat at the moment,very vintage sounding.A set of these ceramics may be a good alternative.
My son had a Mexican Standard Strat with ceramics in it,an 'o6 model,but those had a different stagger and did not sound like these.I have been modding my amp.Maybe it's just that combination of new amp sound and those pickups that just work???
Thanks for the info.Aubrey

[David Schwab]

I have a box full of those pickups!

I've been steeling the ceramic magnets.

You can push the steel poles in any stagger you want, since they have plastic bobbins.

[David King]

That's funny I was just taking one of these pickups apart this morning. Though the one I have is older and has a clear plastic bobbin and the single ceramic magnet is a 1/4" thick block stuck to the bottom of the staggered poles below that was a steel plate with six useless pole holes and the M3-50 threaded mounting holes. The ceramic mag has almost no charge and these were probably the worst sounding strat pickups ever made. Bobbin is wound with AWG 43 I think and measures 8.3K ohms. I'm just about to stuff 4 alnicoII mags into the 4 center holes to make me an archtop tenor guitar pickup (4 strings)... Can't beat the price..

[GlennW]

They could also be Am Std pickups with alnico rods. They'll move up and down in the bobbin without hurting anything. I did that to a set...don't sound that great, but the price was right.

[David Schwab]

The ceramic mag has almost no charge and these were probably the worst sounding strat pickups ever made.

I have some of those also. The magnet is always really weak. Really bad pickups.

[SK66]

Those pickups are great if they work for you. You can't beat the bang for the buck.

I don't really "get" all the bias against them. Plastic bobbins! So what, so is just about every humbucker out there. Ceramic magnets and slug poles! Again, so what?
The design is very similar to Fralin's Steel Pole, my S-90 and several other copy cat "S-90s"...My design is somewhat different than Lindy's and I believe a lot of the copy cats are of my design because I was very free with sharing the construction methods, and as far as I know Fralin and I were the only ones making that kind of design then. That said, Fralin should definitely get the credit for the basic design.
My S-90 has always been one of my most popular pickups and they cost a lot more than a set of mexi take-outs.
FWIW, I think the ones with the dual bar magnets are much better sounding then the single bar directly under the slugs...the mag's too weak and the resulting field is "mush".

[David Schwab]

Those pickups are great if they work for you. You can't beat the bang for the buck.

I don't really "get" all the bias against them. Plastic bobbins! So what, so is just about every humbucker out there. Ceramic magnets and slug poles! Again, so what?

I agree with you. ceramic magnets get a bad rap, but in this case it evens out with the steel poles.

The only time I see a problem with this design is when they are trying to make them sound like the original pickups, which they wont, because there's a space between the coil and the poles, and of course the use of the ceramic magnet and steel poles... but even then I'm sure you can make these sound like the original Strat pickups, if that was all that important, and it's not.

FWIW, I think the ones with the dual bar magnets are much better sounding then the single bar directly under the slugs...the mag's too weak and the resulting field is "mush".

Yeah, you need more juice than those cheesy magnets put out! Those pickups with the dual ceramics have pretty strong magnets. I made some nice bass pickups with them.

[madialex]

LOL, I have a set of those cheap PU's here and to be honest they sound better than about anything Fender puts out in the custom shop range... I wont sell them for anything.....

[NoFi]

I have three of those from a Honner Strat copy (made in Korea), i really like them.

[ajeffcote]

I don't know if these have 2 magnets or 1,but they do sound real good.They must be the 2 magnet variety because they are definitely strong!I really like them.
I am new to this forum and I have never even considered making my own pickups.But after reading about what you all are doing,I may have to learn how to wind my own.Trying to learn how to build an amplifier at the moment.
Thanks for all the input.