All user reviews for the Seymour Duncan SSL-5 Custom Staggered Strat

Seymour Duncan makes some of the best old school pickups out on the market. While Dimarzio might pride themselves on their modern sounding pickups and EMG has their active metal lineup. This is one of Seymour Duncans great traditional sounding single coil pickups. This pickup is a really nice hot rodded strat pickup. It features two conductor wiring like most single coil pickups. It has staggered pole pieces for a more balanced tone and an alnico 5 magnet. The output is 13k which is pretty smokin hot for a single coil. The eq is pretty flat with a little slant towards the high end which is pretty typical for a strat single coil. It is a true single coil so you will get the typical single coil hum. You cant really get rid of the hum without changing the construction of the pickup on a single coil. It is just part of the physics of the design. This is one of the best sounding hot rodded single coils on the market. It is not trying to sound like a modern pickup. It just has the angry bitey single coil sound in spades. Seymour Duncan says it is perfect for texas blues rock, classic rock and even heavy rock. I wouldnt go crazy and try to play metal this this but it can do just about everything up until that point. This pickup will add some balls to your strat without completely making it sound like a totally modern pickup. This pickup works well in bright sounding guitars which is good when you consider the type of guitars it would be going into. If you are making a strat pickup you might as well voice it for brighter sounding guitars because thats what its going to be placed into more often than not. If you are looking for a hot rod sounding single coil with decent output but still retains the old school tone the SSL-5 is one of the best.

The Seymour Duncan SSL-5 Custom Staggered is a true single coil pickup that is quite hot. It has two conductor wiring, staggered pole pieces and an Alnico 5 magnet.

I absolutely adore this pickup as it sounds like a personification of “the” single coil sound. It has that pissed off sound that single coils are famous for, the “vowely” or “tubey” quality in the midrange and some nice treble going on. Seymour Duncan mentions that it has that SRV tone, and I think SRV is a great way of describing this pickup. However, SRV used lower output pickups, so it’s different while being the same, if that makes any sense.

Most people who get the SSL-5 are going to be installing it in the bridge of their strats. However, I think this works awesome in the neck position when paired with a nice humbucker in the bridge. Most single coils are lower output, and they’re a bit harder to play because of that. This has a ton of output, and given that it has a fatter EQ curve, it’s such a perfect match in the neck that it’s scary. Either way, this pickup should work for your situation. If you run it in the bridge, use the SSL-1 for the neck and middle. This’ll add a very versatile setup. If you run it in the neck, try another SSL-5 in the middle and a hotter humbucker in the bridge like a JB. This’ll keep everything even while giving you that classic tone.

If you’re on the hunt for a hotter single coil in the Seymour Duncan line that still sounds like a single coil, this is the pickup I recommend. It sounds absolutely glorious in the neck, too. Why more people don’t try this in the neck, I have no clue. I guess I’m the only one out there who likes hotter neck pickups.

I use this mic since January 2010.
I was looking for a simple good punchy, with a fairly high output level to implement a strat acute, as Gilmour, since this is how it is mounted on his signature Stratocaster.
So I started to ride along with Duncan SSL-1, as is recommended on the site of Duncan. I thought the microphones were unbalanced. Intermediate position was correct, but the SSL-5 only has an output level much too high, so I was obliged to decline to have a uniform thing, and suddenly, I felt I did not operate properly.
So, I mounted on a middle stratum in MSM, with a hot track and a serious Duncan SH-5, acute. Here he has revealed to me. Intermediate combinations sounded very good, with the split, it sounds very Fenderiennes got really happy in this position. He finds in this position a little warmth and presence.

Then I found a set of Fender Fat 50's, and I decided to give it a chance recently to position sharp with this set ... But disappointment, despite the gilmour fan than I am, I can not do anything. The output level is more appropriate this time set in 50's conceited, but I think this mic is cold, stale limit. He is flashy, aggressive enough, and lack of heat will make it will return in another config ...

So to summarize, I find this microphone perfect with twin high output level, but it does not correspond to a micro strata as I love them. This lack of warmth, not expressive, but it is too flashy and aggressive especially in easel ...