ElectroKraft Vintage Tele

Pickup features: Beautiful sounding, 50's inspired, vintage wound single coil/passive pickups
Impedence or other specs: Mid 7's for the bridge and mid 6's for the neck

Model of guitar or bass: Custom built tele
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: Fender OV's, Dimarzio TK's, Duncan Antiquites, among others....
Other pickups on guitar: Nada
Artists using this pickup: None, but I think Vince Gill, Arlen Roth, Steve Warnier, Brad Paisly, et al would love these.
You musical style(s): A wide variety of blues, country, jazz and finger plucked altered tunings
Reason for pickup change: No reason really. Actually, I was quite happy with the OV's, Antiquites and Twang Kings with this guitar. The Antiquites are just great sounding, classic tele pickups and the Twang Kings are perhaps the sleepers of the tele aftermarket pickup kingdom. Great tone to dollar ratio. However, I was looking for something more....a set of balanced pickups that would give me amazing clarity and touch sensitivity. I found what I was looking for with the Electrokrafts.

Perceived output level: Output wise, these are on par with other vintage winds I've used.
Tone: Incredible balance between the neck and bridge pickups. The neck pup has a luscious sweetness that transcends most of the dull, bass heavy offerings on stock teles. Most aftermarket neck pups are good. This one is supurb.....allowing various subtle shadings to come forth from ones fingers. Plays softly and you are rewarded with a delicate, yet fat tone. Dig in a little deeper and feel the emotions of your playing come to the forefront. The tone is luxurious. Fat, sweet, woody and open. The bridge pickup is amazing! The first time I fired it up, I heard that glorious tele tone one hears on the radio from various country artists came spewing forth in spades. I won't say "hot", cause it's a vintage wind, but hot rod tele playing is right there with this pickup. Easily one of the best sounding bridge pickups I've ever used. Words like "Chime", "Liquid" "Piano" come to mind. Playing the low strings through a good tube amp with a bit of reverb is a revelation.
Sonic evaluation: I have several teles for different uses. My usual suspect has a humbucker in the neck and a hand wound P-90 style tele bridge pickup for my blues playing. I also have a nice vintage tele that I rarely play. It sounds delightful, but the vintage radius is not my cup of tea, so I wanted something to bridge the two. This guitar has filled the bill nicely and the EK pups are a big part of the reason.
I love hand wound pickups and have several examples from various winders. I really appreciate the various tonal differences each winder brings to the table. They each have a bit different recipe and we are the winners being able to sample the various flavors and season our guitars to taste.
Suffice to say, while you may have never heard of ElectroKrafts, they are as good as it gets.
The tones are so versitile. From fat, killer blues tones, to subtle jazz phrasing to hot wired country, they do it all.
How well a pickup responds to the guitars tone control is a major selling point for me. I've tried many pickups that sounded pretty good, but were dead to the tone control. These pickups are a real eye opener in that regard. The amount of varied tones availabe with a simple twist of the tone knob is exceptional.
So, as far as sonic evaluation goes....twangy, spanky, shimmery, glassy, liquid, fat,rich, detailed, complex, balanced and inspiring....all those things come to mind when discussing these pickups.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable:

Comments: Heavens yes......I'd order another set in a heartbeat!

Pickup features: Single Coil - passive
Impedence or other specs: 6.8k neck, 7.9k bridge

Model of guitar or bass: Fender MIM Standard Telecaster
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: Rio Grande Muy Grande & Duncan Broadcaster
Other pickups on guitar: none
Artists using this pickup: n/a
You musical style(s): country and blues
Reason for pickup change: I wanted a pure vintage sounding tele tone, like that of Redd Volkaert's. The other pups I had were all too high output, especially the Rio in the neck - very muddy and overpowering.

Perceived output level: Slightly more than the stock pups, less than previous sets of Broadcaster, Rios, Texas Specials and Nocasters
Tone: Neck is "sweet" , a nice mix of bass and treble, very reactive to the tone knob and will mellow for jazz/swing tones if needed. The bridge is crisp and present without going "ice pick". It has a very nice blend of bass (with a piano like chime to the low strings), mids(enough to be present, but not in the muddy range) and treble (presense without the icepick affect). Together in the middle position these yield a nice balanced tone, both pups identies are present.
Sonic evaluation: Overall these are a great solution to my want of a vintage toned tele. My '02 MIM Standard has seen a lot of mods in the past year - I've had Fender's Nocaster Bridge and Texas Special Neck, Rio's Muy Grande Neck and Duncan Broadcaster Bridge - all sets had one nice tone, but never did I find they worked with my amp (Vox AC15TBX) for multiple good tones. Those "hot" or overwound pups all have such a midrange dominant tone that with a EL84 based amp they wound up sounding muddy and lacked string definition. Now with the ElectoKraft pups, I've got definition, mellowed and CONTROLLABLE tone - they respond to the tone control and don't loose their overall defined sounds (nice work Tony !). The neck pup is sweet, rounded and has a touch of warmth (not too much, or again, string definition is gone). The Bridge is killer for my country licks - strings pop, bass notes chime and don't mush out, defintion is present for double and triple stops and the treble doesn't "cut heads" . The bridge pup breathes with the music, it has an "air" to it that lends to clarity, not mud and midrange dominance.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: I play mostly country (think Diamond Rio, Brad Paisley, Redd Volkaert & Vince Gill) and a little blues (Clapton, Jimmie and Stevie Vaughan). I like the overall vibe and breathy quality of the pups

Comments: I give these ElectroKraft pups a big thumbs up..especially since Tony will give you want you want in terms of his custom, made to order, hand wound approach. Email him, chat and he'll ask the right questions and give you a set of pups to really suit your needs. I've had Fralins (Blues Specials) and numerous other major manufacturer's pups, but overall I find these ElectroKraft pups hit "MY" tone right on the head. Thanks Tony...great job ! And especially at his price range.