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King Loudness « Not bad for the price. »
Published on 05/01/11 at 13:34The Fender Texas Special pickup was designed to get that very thick and throaty 'Texas' blues tone used by people such as Stevie Ray Vaughan in an affordable package. That sort of texture is meant to be like a slightly overwound/hotter sounding single coil with a bit more girth and drive than a vintage voiced one would have. I had one in the neck position of a mongrel Strat and here is a sound by sound rundown of what I thought: (I should note that there was a Fender Custom '54 in the middle position and a John Suhr Technologies DSH humbucker in the bridge position of this guitar.)
Cleans: The clean tones out of this pickup were pretty good sounding overall. There was a nice classic Strat vibe in the spectrum, but it was kicked up a few notches as far as the punch and output. The end result was something that I found was never fully clean, but rather always sounded as though there was a very mild overdrive on at all times. It's kind of like an overwound characteristic, but compared to much nicer pickups like the Fender Custom Shop '69s (which are designed to have that sort of sound), the Texas Special sounded a little bit fake, as though an overdrive was pushing the output as opposed to the pickup itself. The clean tone in tandem with the Custom '54 in the middle position was very good I thought... it had a nice Hendrix type vibe. Since the C54 was more of a vintage voiced pickup, the balance was a little bit better tonally.
Drive: The drive sounds on this pickup were pretty cool overall. It had that nice throaty tone that a single coil has when overdriven, perfect for big chords or gutsy sounding solos. It was definitely a very "Texas" blues sounding pickup though. I didn't find that it did the hard rock/neoclassical thing very well because the frequency range wasn't designed for that. (For heavier styles I had much better results with the DiMarzio YJM). It always had that sort of throaty, raw blues type of character when overdriven, so I found it didn't sound as good for rock type things.
If you want a decent sounding pickup for the SRV type vibe that won't break the bank, give this a shot. It's not even in the same league with Custom Shop pickups though, so trying to compare those is a hard thing to do.
Cleans: The clean tones out of this pickup were pretty good sounding overall. There was a nice classic Strat vibe in the spectrum, but it was kicked up a few notches as far as the punch and output. The end result was something that I found was never fully clean, but rather always sounded as though there was a very mild overdrive on at all times. It's kind of like an overwound characteristic, but compared to much nicer pickups like the Fender Custom Shop '69s (which are designed to have that sort of sound), the Texas Special sounded a little bit fake, as though an overdrive was pushing the output as opposed to the pickup itself. The clean tone in tandem with the Custom '54 in the middle position was very good I thought... it had a nice Hendrix type vibe. Since the C54 was more of a vintage voiced pickup, the balance was a little bit better tonally.
Drive: The drive sounds on this pickup were pretty cool overall. It had that nice throaty tone that a single coil has when overdriven, perfect for big chords or gutsy sounding solos. It was definitely a very "Texas" blues sounding pickup though. I didn't find that it did the hard rock/neoclassical thing very well because the frequency range wasn't designed for that. (For heavier styles I had much better results with the DiMarzio YJM). It always had that sort of throaty, raw blues type of character when overdriven, so I found it didn't sound as good for rock type things.
If you want a decent sounding pickup for the SRV type vibe that won't break the bank, give this a shot. It's not even in the same league with Custom Shop pickups though, so trying to compare those is a hard thing to do.