Fender Stratocaster pickups were developed by Fender in 1954. They were based on the already popular Tele pickups issued in 1948 and remain more or less the same to the present day with only minor changes in pickup winding and magnet design.  Generally the 1950's pickups are considered brighter with crisper overtone harmonics, where the early 1960's pickups are considered to be fatter and warmer sounding. In the later 1960's the pickup wire guages, magnets and the number of windings, changed and these pickups are often considered to be thinner sounding and weaker in output. 

     The pickup manufacturing process in Fender's earlier days was haphazard at best so a comparison of vintage strats will often show differences between guitars built in the same year. 

      Modern strat pickups fall into three categories; first are the vintage replica and vintage sounding pickups. Fender makes the standard Vintage pickup that comes in all U.S. VintageReissue Strats and the "scatter wound" Custom Shop and Texas Special pickups. These pickups are stock in the 1954/62 Custom Shop Strats and the Stevie Ray Vaughn Strat.  They are wound in the same sloppy fashion as the 50's pickups creating a slightly microphonic more acoustically resononant pickup. The bridge  pickups are also considerably hotter. Fender has gone to a great deal of trouble to see that these pickups are accurate reproductions and they campare well to the pickups we hear in the high priced vintage strats that come through our shop. 

      The second category of pickups are designed for hum canceling but still produce a  reasonable vintage sound. The most popular are the Fender Lace Sensor series of pickups that are made in models approximating the 50's, 60's and 80's tonal styles. Other pickups include the famous Joe Barden pickups, popular with studio musicians and the DiMarzio and Duncan vintage stacks. Active EMG pickups were used throughout the 80's by more studio musicians than any other hum canceling strat pickup. EMG's can only be installed as a set due to the active circuitry and they cannot be mixed with other pickups. 

       The third category includes a number of pickups designed to sound like regular humbucker pickups but miniaturized to fit into existing strat pickguards without modification. The most successful of these is the Duncan Hot Rails pickup. This ultra hot pickup has plenty of top end bite and more output than almost any pickup we've encountered. The new Jeff Beck Jr. is a warmer pickup meant to simulate the Jeff Beck humbucker. For a full sound without super high output the Fender Lace Sensor "Red" and the Duncan Cool Rails fit the bill nicely. 

       Hum canceling and a true vintage sound can be achieved with a "reverse wound reverse polarity" (RWRP) middle pickup. This gives total hum free vintage tone on the so called "out of phase" positions 2 and 4 of the 5-way switch. All Fender Strats and Custom Shop Strat pickups are now made with a middle RWRP pickup. For older Strats you can install the vintage Seymour Duncan RWRP strat middle pickup to eliminate the hum but the hum cancel only works when two pickups are used.