Lindy Fralin

The guitar is a japanese reissue 54 strat, swamp ash body, 1-piece maple neck. The guitar is naturally bright sounding. Previous set were dimarzio/fender OEM pickups. The blues special is not hot/overwound in terms of output. It is very clean/less overdriven compared to stock fender pickups. But in terms of tone, it is darker/smoother/less harsh, but still has plenty of bite and quack. I feel the neck position is really designed for bluesy solo playing. It has strong character. It sounds fat and woody with plenty of midrange. Very SRV sounding. The in-between position has enough quack. But the 4th position (neck-mid) may sound too dark if the pickup height is not set properly. 2nd position sounds nice and funky. Generally I set my pickups low, about 0.7-1.0cm above the pickguard. I put metal baseplate underneath the bridge pickup. It change the tone a lot. Without, the bridge pickup is very shrill and trebly, almost unuseable. The bridge pickup is quite strong, and sounds great with overdrive/distortion, but obviously not as full/thick sounding as humbucker. It can do classic rock/metal well (VH, maiden, even metallica, megadeth). One thing I notice when I compare with other pickups (fender, dimarzio, duncan), is that they all sound like a strat. But the fralin sounds different in terms of clarity and note detail. For example with the 4th position, the fralin sound almost like an acoustic, while the other is just usual strat quacky sound. It's like taking picture of the same object, but with higher resolution camera. More detail is revealed on the fralin, especially in the mids/lower mids freq. Compared to lollar blackface (I swap pickguard with a friend), the blues special has more "flavor". Texas flavor it is. Mids and highs are exaggerated in a bluesy way. While the blackface is more neutral, with less tendency of becoming muddy in the mids/low mids. I think the lollar is slightly more versatile, but blues special is the ultimate for blues.

This is a review of the high output HUMBUCKER version. Which sits somewhere between 12.5 and 13.5k in output. I think this is a great pickup for almost any style of music! The cleans are very good as a bridge pickup it has headroom and doesn't have any unwanted break up. Where it shines of course is the distortion which is moderly high gain, I've played hotter pickups but this is quite hot for a PAF-type of pickup. Lindy says it taps well, I don't doubt that but I haven't had the chance to coil tap it myself. The distortion is very very organic sounding to me. I wouldn't say too thick either, it's got an almost neutral sound mixed in with some PAF persona in it. It's clear, and it's very dynamic. Cleans up quite well when you roll the volume down which is what I like in a pickup! I would say it's basically a hotter PAF type pickup that's clear, and coil tap well and also cleans up if need be. It doesn't have maximum output and doesn't shred your face off either. It's more like a well controlled high gain pickup with just enough output to be versatile. It is not too thick and not too bright. If I had to compare it to something else that's already out there, maybe.. if one can imagine..a perfected JB. Not so sterile, but clear, dynamic. Good cleans. All around good and gainy if you want it to be but not noisy. I was able to get some really nice metal or hard rock sounds depending of course on the amp. I also had the unbucker in the neck which was a good contrast to this high gain pickup. I give it a 9 strictly because it doesn't sound good in EVERY guitar, I've had this in a few guitars and it seems to favor more of the neutral or darker tone woods like mahogany. Of course this is just an observation I've made myself. It could've been the guitar I heard it in also. Fralin pickups are of high quality, nearly all of them are dynamic and can be used for a wide variety of music. If i were to get any humbucker replacements I would definitely look into Fralins again.