Custom Fat '50s SSS Pre-wired Stratocaster Pickguard - Tortoise Shell Review

Fender Custom Shop Fat 50's Pickups & Pickguard Prewired

The sound of these pickups are exactly what I was looking for, the install was a bit tricky due to the middle pickup having an unclear wiring issue. Sometimes the folks at Fender who do these pre-assembled pickguard for Strats aren't always super sharp within the QC realm of things. All in all good pickups, great sounds, and excellent service from Sweetwater.

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Great set of strat pickups

This is my third round with Fat 50s, the last of which were in a strat I sold nearly 15 years ago. I am a blues player and a strat junkie having played many models and brands of pickups over the years, both Fender and boutique. For the past 8 years or so I have been using the Pure Vintage 59 pickups in all my strats. The 59s are great vintage toned pickups. They are stellar.… read more However, lately I feel like I want just a little "more" from my guitar in terms of fullness and push. I am a gigging musician but I play the local spots which all tend to be volume sensitive so getting that push with volume is often not an option. After listening and tweaking my amps I am hearing some room for improvement in my live tone with the band. So far these Fat 50s are great. They don't have that slight upper-mid grunt of the 59s but they do have a wide, open scooped sound with great bass and very nice treble which can be glassy or smooth depending on what you want. These pickups sound great clean and excel with a slight bit of breakup and medium drive. I am getting a perfect SRV type blues tone with these going through a Kingtone Blues Power and a TS used as a lead boost. These are very touch-sensitive and articulate and I can nail that SRV Little Wing tone. I really like the bass response of the Fat 50s—very full and authoritative but also articulate and dynamic. As with any gear change you need to spend the time to adjust all other parameters (amp settings, pickup height, pedal settings) but once you dial in your rig these will sound their best. Overall, these are great pickups. They are essentially vintage toned plus a little extra without becoming something totally different. Just enough hotter (but not a hot pickup) to deepen the tone and send a little more signal strengthen the tone. A great set of pickups!

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Perfect for Hendrix, Mayer, SRV style.

I love these pickups! I installed them in a fender squire Strat and made it sound like a custom shop guitar. Highly recommend it to anyone thinking about upgrading your pickups. Thank you so much Jeff for being helpful.

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