Fender 69 Pickups

The Fender 69 pickups for the Stratocaster are hand wound at the Fender Custom Shop by a woman, Abigail Ybarra, who's been with Fender since 1956. I've done several pickup reviews on the pages of this site, and I'm finding it difficult to differentiate sounds in words. I can say they sound great, but what's great, and my great might not be your great.

So here's my attempt at describing these pickups in a way that is as least subjective as possible. I own two sets of these and they are in two guitars that I use almost exclusively. I have one tuned down a half step for my SRV practice, and one tuned regular for everything else. Unlike Fender SCN's these are true single coil, so if you buy a set, shield the body cavity to protect from hum. Ok, the sound, from all the guitars I own, and have played these pickups are as close to what I understand a vintage Stratocaster is meant to sound like. Bell like tones, very, very clean. Unlike say the SCN or other humbuckers, these don't provide a punch. They are lower powered in output, however deliver a crisp, clean, bell like, strat quackish, sound that is just really hard to dislike.

That's about as good as I'm going to do, each set is signed by Abigail, and she's wound pickups for almost every artist who's ever played a Stratocaster. That alone makes them cool, and they can be had for right around $140.00, so by no means are they outrageous in price. Pick up a set and let me know what you think, thanks for reading, J.B.

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