Fralin Guitar Pickups
I’ve long been one of those mad scientist musicians who modifies equipment to improve sound or extend functionality. Whenever I get some new piece of gear, it’s just a matter of time before I fire up my soldering iron. My main Stratocaster is a mid-1990s “Ultra” model, which came equipped with a set of Seymour Duncan pickups installed. It sounded good but I suspected it was possible to squeeze a little extra mojo out of that great guitar by installing a set of Fralin pickups. Lindy Fralin custom-manufactures some of the very best (and therefore expensive) electric guitar pickups available. His approach to pickup making is to recreate the most desirable tonal characteristics of vintage models, using the same materials and construction techniques, but by applying much tighter quality control. The result is a newly built pickup that sounds like an ideal vintage model.
Fralin pickups are available singly and in matched sets. For my guitar I installed his “blues” set with a bass plate for the bridge position, typically the Achilles Heel of Stratocasters. This seems to help dampen some of the thin brightness of that pickup position. Most of the product reviews indicated that it’s noticeably better with the bass plate installed.
Single coil pickups tend to have inherent noise issues. They’re built from a magnet wrapped with copper wire, so along with detecting the vibrating string, they also pick up a lot of radio frequencies and 60-cycle hum. My own experience with my Fralin blues pickups is that they have a vintage tonal vibe, but with much less hum and other noise. They’re not stacked humbuckers or some other kind of modified design. These are classic single-coil pickups with great tone. This was a worthy investment for a fine guitar. The improvement is readily apparent. Good tone helps inspire good playing. I know that when my gear performs well, I’m a lot more satisfied with my musical experience.