Sheptone Stratocaster

Single coils, standard vintage-stagger strat pickups, with alnico 5 magnets. This was not an off-the-shelf set, they were purchase in a group of six pickups off of ebay, where Sheptone was clearing out the shop and selling of some prototypes that were laying around. Out of the six pickups the ones I kept are midway between typical vintage and overwound, the range being 6.3 for the neck to 6.7k for the bridge. There may have been a few old strats with these specs but most in my experience were wound to around 6kohms on average.

These went into a Strat made from parts, a newer Fender alder body, custom-made maple neck, Callaham hardware. It's basically like a 50s strat. I had tried a bunch of different pickups in this guitar. Originally I had a set of early 60s pickups that I had accumulated over time, which I had Lindy Fralin rewind, as one was dead and the others were weak. I'd had these rewinds for many years in a few different guitars, but was never toally happy with them, I think partly because they had alnico 2 magnets, I don't care for the softer/duller sound of A2s. Also had tried some Fender custom 69s, found them a bit too bright and thin. then tried a set of Don Mare "Supersports" -- these were too dark sounding and did not seem lively enough. (I love Don's tele pickups but these did not cut it.) Finally on a whim I saw an ebay auction for a lot of 6 Sheptone prototypes, and managed to score all six for around $130(!) They were not advertised as sets, just a group of pickups with various types of magnets, wire, and windings, however all were hand wound by Sheptone. So, it was a mix-&-match kind of a deal.

Three of these pickups were the perfect match for this guitar. After trying them all, I ended up keeping three alnico 5s, all wound between 6.3-6.7k with plain enamel wire. The neck pickup is reverse-wound/reverse polarity-which I like, because I have the guitar setup to blend the neck & treble pickups together, as well as the regular 5-way setup & so can get a hum canceling sound in several positions. These pickups just sound amazingly good, they transformed a guitar that I had about given up on. They have a very lively response, with an organic, detailed sound, yet are a little more robust sounding than the vintage strats I've owned. The bass strings sound clear in all positions, and there is almost none of the horrible wolf tones that you sometimes get on the bass strings of a strat when playing higher on the neck. For me it's the perfect blend of the vintage brilliance with slightly more guts. I play different guitars for different situations as I'm often playing a variety of music genres. Anything you would use a strat for, blues, R & B, country, rock, whatever... these pickups will do it and then some. Compared to a lot of guys I generally play fairly clean to mild overdrive, it's important to me to be able to get a great clean tone, and these pickups definitely have that covered, they cut and are detailed but are warm, not harsh. They also sound great with things cranked up.

I've been playing professionally since the early 1970s. I've owned many pre CBS Strats and Teles from the 50s and 60s, as well as just about every kind of tube amp you can think of. I've been a vintage die-hard as far as pickups until the last few years, now there are many guys making pickups that are consistently as good or better than the vintage stuff IMO. I generally favor Telecasters, but the way this Strat sounds now I think it will be getting some stage and studio time. I'm giving the pickups a 10 for value because I got them so cheap... after selling the ones I didn't keep, it was like getting a free set. However, I would pay full price for another set in a heartbeat if I lost these, and I would probably get them made in a similar fashion (he can make them to order as well as having a couple of standard sets).