Seymour Duncan SSL-1 WH

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.

I got myself an old 100$ Squier as my newest modding project and decided to install this in the neck position.

The pickup is packaged inside a hard plastic case with a foam mold around so you can expect this to arrive in perfect condition.

There's two wires: black for the ground and white for your lead. 'A' grade wiring enclosed inside a push-in type of casing. The wires are quite long. Two screws and tubing included.

The sound of this pickup is just amazing. It pushes out a really clean and glassy sound. I have installed it with a 500k pot and the sound is almost metallic (not to confuse with the genre). With some overdrive this has that beautiful mid-to-high range crunchiness.

5/5 packaging, quality and sound.

I ordered this pickup because my favorite guitarist John Frusciante uses it in his guitars. I was especially attracted by the SSL-1 tone in the neck position.

This pickup sounds as it is supposed to sound - like a vintage Strat pickup. The mids are accented and the lower notes seem clearer. However, it is not possible to describe the beauty of its sound in text, I can only suggest to listen to the sound samples and see some Youtube videos with SSL-1 in action.

I don't know if it's really a con, but to get the most out of it you have to set up your amp's parameters well. I suggest high volume, small overdrive, high volume, high presence, and high bass relative to treble.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised that there is a scheme and instructions how to replace your original pickup with this one, which makes it easier if you know how to solder.

I always had troubles to find the perfect bridge pickup for my '96 AmStd Stratocaster. One of the pickups I loved the most is the SSL-5. Unfortunately, for me at least, the SSL-5 tends to restrict too much the audio spectrum, very prominent in mids, but lacking highs and, due to the proximity of the bridge, with not much bass content to begin with, it's clearly a great pickup for solos, but not so much for chords, especially distorted, causing me to revert to the neck position even when I wanted a bit more bite. The rest of my pickups are custom shop 69, so I wanted to keep this sound range, but the CS69 in the bridge is too trebly. The SSL-1, still slightly overwound compared to the CS69, retains most of that characteristic, is full of mids, but is not so much scooped in lows. The extra wounds helps ensuring that the pickup bites less than the CS69 in the bridge. It's a wonderful pickup, takes distortion very well, but sounds very balanced, still comparable to the CS69 and with a bit of the magic of the SSL-5, it's a perfect compromise, great for lead work.

This pickup is supposed to have a vintage sound, and it does. It has an even sound across the strings, very little hiss, and seems very solid. You can probably mount and unmount it 100's of times without having it fall apart. And Seymour Duncan pickups actually have an after-market value, so you can sell / trade it for something else if you want to get something else.

I just wish it wasn't so bassy, but that is a problem with most Stratocaster neck pickups. Lately I've grown tired of that "Strat"-sound, so I'm going to be buying a Seymour Duncan Little 59 (neck), to compliment my bridge-59 which sounds just fantastic! My 59 has a very characteristic "twangy" sound that works for many different styles, but this SSL-1 really only shines for blues IMO.

On Seymour Duncans website, they have small demos, so you can hear the differences between pickups. I suggest everyone spends a little time there before buying. Last piece of advise: Don't buy cream-coloured pickups! They look horrendous after a couple of years =).