The Telecaster has become known for the ability to yield a bright tone, with more than enough edge, as well as warm and mellow tones perfect for blues and jazz. Depending on the pickup mount you choose, you can stress either of the two. If you want to get that bluesy jazzy tone, then you […]

Although iconic, the Telecaster has a pickup system that’s not ideal. The bridge pickup has a loud, clear tone with a bit of twang that makes the neck pickup sound bland and muffled in comparison. As a result, many players either use only the bridge pickup—limiting their sonic options—or look to upgrade one or both […]

Fender’s Precision Bass was a revolutionary new sound in the electric bassist’s arsenal when it came out in 1951. The tone is both warm and aggressive, strong in the mid-range with low end depth. Though it was originally released with one single-coil pickup, the company switched to using a split coil humbucker in 1957, and […]

Introduced way, way back in 1958, the Fender Jazzmaster guitar was crafted as a high-end option for jazz guitar maestros, but ultimately ended up mostly in the hands of surf rock guitarist and fans of more gain-driven and fuzzier sound. We’ll leave to music historians to determine exactly how that happened, but what we can […]

Singe coil pickups and humbuckers — as far as guitar pickups go, these usually form the two major groups. The major difference between the two is that singe-coil models are brighter, more crisp, and more expressive, while humbuckers are thicker, fuller and somewhat less articulate. This time around, we opted to delve into the world […]

The pickup on your guitar has a huge impact on your overall tone, controlling and shaping how the signal captured from your strings is processed and sent to your amp. For such a small piece of equipment, though, pickups can be a big hit on your budget, sometimes costing as much as or more than […]

Finding the right Strat pickups for blues makes a lot of sense. The Fender Stratocaster, with its three single-coil pickups, after all works like a charm for so many blues wailers out there. It’s without a doubt one of the best guitars for playing the blues, as such fine icons like Stevie Ray Vaughan and […]

PAF (which stands for “patent applied for”) was the nickname given to the early models of humbuckers designed for Gibson by engineer Seth Lover in the 1950s. Used by the company on their top of the line guitars between 1955 and 1962, the PAF popularized the humbucker style of pickup and revolutionized the guitar audio […]

People often overlook noiseless Strat pickups for their guitar. Upon buying a classic Fender Stratocaster, after all, many folks think that they have a finished product they’ll never have to invest in again and that all those small adjustments available on the market are pretty much nothing. Well, they are wrong. There is a variety […]

A humbucker for your Strat guitar is a fine idea. See, the traditional pickup configuration for a Fender Stratocaster involves three single-coil pickups, one each in the neck, middle, and bridge position. While single-coil pickups have a crisp attack that complements the already bright tone of a Strat, going with a humbucker pickup instead can […]