Seymour DuncanSSL-1 California 50 S Strat Pickup Set - Set Of 3

I purchased these for my first custom build Stratocaster. I own a Chinese Fender and an American Fender, the difference is night and day. I considered purchasing Fender pickups for this build but after reading reviews decided to go with this Seymour Duncan trio of pickups. I must say I am very happy I did.After taking my time and building an unbelievable (I think so anyway) custom Stratocaster with the best of everything, I soldered in these pickups. After filing, sanding and buffing the frets all level and adjusting everything right by the book I tentatively plugged it in. To my surprise, silence.... no humming feedback as with some guitars. I touched a string and had sound. After going through all the switch selections and tone adjustments to make sure everything was working properly, I started playing.The very first thing I noticed was that it sounded smooth and toned down a bit from my other Fenders. Going through the pickups I noticed they had great range, reminded me of my Gibson Les Paul a bit. I could make it twang and bark, but could also bring the blues and rock mellow tone in easily.I prefer this OVER my Fender American HSS. It looks better (maybe that's a stretch) and sounds superior to either of my other Stats or my American Telecaster, although the Telecaster is still one of my favorites.I like these so much that I am going to purchase another set for my Chinese Fender and make a few other upgrades to it as I love the fit and finish of the guitar, it just doesn't sound and react like the American Stat. For 130 bucks, that's a lot of bang for the buck. I plan on upgrading a few other parts as well with it.I am working on a Les Paul build and already have a set of Seymour Duncan Humbuckers ready to install in it, hoping for the same results. I have another cheap off-brand Strat done up in red, white and blue (I'm a flag loving disabled veteran) and I hope I can do a few upgrades to it to make it sound as good as it looks.I am excited about this product and won't hesitate to install these in any of my future projects. Personally, I don't know how anyone could say anything bad about Seymour Duncan's except "you can't please all of the people all of the time". I think 9 out of 10 people would probably agree with me.I'd like to mention a few more things about the product. I got the Seymour Duncan covers and installed them over the pickups, made them look awesome. The also came packaged VERY well in a nice plastic container with the pickups set in foam molds, making it impossible to damage them in shipping. I'm going to use them to store old pickups in. These came with plenty of wire to make connections and great installation directions for soldering too, for use in any application. I am very happy with the product. I wish I could post a photo of my guitar, I'm so proud of it.5 stars all day long and I will and already have bought more of these for a future project. I wish they were a bit cheaper, but you get what you pay for. It's a small price to pay to make a $400 guitar sound like a $2000 guitar.

First of all, I am a HUGE Fender fan. Guitars, amps and especially their pickups. Second, when it comes to tone, I am very picky. I love the Fender Custom Shop ‘69’s, 54’s, 57/62’s and Fat 50’s. I wanted to try something other than Fender this time, so I chose these SSL-1’s. So far I think they are absolutely the best single coil pickup I have ever had. Big, full tone with bell-like highs and a clear bottom end. On a lot of pickups in Strats the neck pickup can sound too quacky, too much twang and it over powers everything else. These strike a very nice balance with quack and all the other harmonics that are present. Some other vintage single coils I’ve tried have too much chimey-ness in the tone, too much high, drowns out the mids, again these SSL-1’s don’t do that, even though there is still tons of chimey, bell-like tones, like glass breaking, very brilliant, but it’s balanced out with the mid and low tones as well. Very nice and yes I would buy them again.

I installed these in a Fender Classic Series 50's Stratocaster, along with a .047mF orange drop. The originals Fender pickups that came with this model Strat were too brittle and had little warmth. These are wonderfull and have that characteristic early-Fender clarity and warmth. W\I would buy these again without hesitation.Note: they DO NOT come with pickup covers.

I can't comment as to the sound of the pickups as I had to send them back. The picture and description showed the pickups as being black. They are actually white and don't come in black. I send them back and tried to order them from another music retailer. I had them check the color before shipping and advised they are only white. The picture show is without the covers. On Seymour Duncan they do the same thing. It makes no sense to show the pickups without the cover without also showing it with. If you are fine with the color they go ahead but if you are looking for black pickups these are not it. Unfortunately for my guitar white would not work.

I bought a MIM Fender Stratocaster, and though I was happy with the tone I felt like it was missing a little punch, specially compared to the American counterpart, so I went for this pickups and I was definitely not disappointed.The bridge pickup sounds crystal clear with a gnarly bite once you crank up the gain and though it doesn't handle very well if you put too much distortion (and I wasn't expecting that for a "50's style" pickup) it still shines through all other instruments on a live gig. The middle pickup has fantastic definition on all possible frequencies, but the jewel of this crown is the neck pickup, creamy, shiny, fat, dazzling tone that in my opinion even tops that of the American strats, it sounds so good, the first time I tried it I had to double check my pedalboard to see if I accidentally switched on any EQ/COMP/FX.Installation is relatively easy if you know to handle yourself around a guitar's components. I tested this pickups against several amps, from cheap and small to big vintage tube ones and it delivers fantastic tone no matter the conditions.The only con I could think about them is that the poles on each pickup are staggered, which means their height is different to respond to each string, but this implies that the pickups are designed to fit a right handed guitar. Being a lefty, it would be nice if Seymour Duncan offered a left handed version, but to be honest, I don't think it made a difference in the tone at all.So, if you have a Mexican strat because you're on a budget (like me), or because you liked the neck profile better (like me again) and you want to upgrade it, this is definitely the way to go, you won't be disappointed.