All of the melodic structure you could want from a vintage sounding pickup. The truth is, the hotter you make a pup, the harder it hits the preamp, the more gain you get, but you lose a lot of the underlying harmonious melodic structure too. Most of the guitar gods back in the 70's and early 80's weren't using hot pups overwound and high strength magnets. They were just using the pups that came with the guitar, and then turned their amps all the way up and got the gain there, or put a pedal in front of the old pups. Something I have noticed over the years, even though the pickup winders say they have that "true vintage tone", what they are missing is the dynamics of those vintage pups. Even those coming from the guitar factories, that promise the same thing, they are trying to reach that warmth you get from an alnico pup that has a degraded magnet in it. Warmth and dynamics. Pick hard, it drives your amp hard, pick soft and it cleans right up. These dynamics are lost in most factory pups, regardless of what they claim. This set of SD pups, are right on target. They have all those harmonious structure going on under the chord or note, plenty of warmth, without sacrificing the single coil sound. And dynamics like crazy. I have written two other reviews for a special David Gilmour Black Strat build, that this purchase was part of. Go read those so I don't have to write it all over again. But if you're looking for a true Fender vintage tone, these are your pickups. Fender puts out a lot of signature pups, many I have tried since I am a small custom builder myself. None of them really reach what SD has been able to do. This is vintage Fender Strat tone at it's finest.
