What really led me to build this guitar was his ability to make his guitar sing with character and emotion. This was done through countless trial and error over the years. The tone that stuck to me till now was his Comfortably Numb sound right out of the album, The Wall. Fortunately, nothing has changed when it came to the pickups since the Wall tour, so let's what he has installed today.
It was around 1973, after a short US tour, that David decided to switch out his modified pickup set on the Black Strat with the electronics of a 1971 Bullet Truss Nut Black Strat he bought at Manny's back in early 1972. Moving forward into the future, right about 1978/1979 during the recordings of The Wall, Gilmour had switched out the DiMarzio FS-1 pickup he installed back in 1976, with a Seymour Duncan SSL-1C pickup he received as a gift from Seymour Duncan himself in July 1979.
The Dimarzio FS-1 was on the Black Strat and used on the "Comfortably Numb" solos during the Super Bear Studio recordings. Recording of the 5-6 solo tracks with the FS-1 were done up until the end of July 1979, in which James Gunthrie "comped" all the best bits David had recorded. From there, the SSL-1C was installed on the Black Strat after it was received at the end of July 1979. A picture of the Black Strat can be seen in The Producers Workshop showing the newly installed SSL-1C.
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| DiMarzio FS-1 (Current model name is DP110) |
The Dimarzio FS-1 was on the Black Strat and used on the "Comfortably Numb" solos during the Super Bear Studio recordings. Recording of the 5-6 solo tracks with the FS-1 were done up until the end of July 1979, in which James Gunthrie "comped" all the best bits David had recorded. From there, the SSL-1C was installed on the Black Strat after it was received at the end of July 1979. A picture of the Black Strat can be seen in The Producers Workshop showing the newly installed SSL-1C.
It was from the mid 60's, up to the very early 70's that Fender has light grey bobbins in their Stratocasters. Fender Custom Shop noticed a demand for these pickups (notice the Hendrix guitar on the front of the package?) and decided to put out a Fender Custom Shop Custom '69 Stratocaster Pickup Set.
This set come standard with the grey bobbins, initialed by Abigail Ybarra, who has been winding pickups for Fender since the early 50's. These come with standard parchment colored Pickup Covers, vintage cloth wiring, Alnico V staggered poles (without beveled edges) and wax dipped to give you that true tone of the yester years. Although the pickups in the original Black Strat were plastic covered wiring, I felt the cloth covered wire made this more authentic to its age.
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| Fender CS '69 Pickup (Bottom) |
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| Fender CS '69 Pickup (Top) |
It was indicated on the packaging that all the pickups are registered at 5.8K at DC Resistance, thus any pickup can be used on any location on the pickguard.
These were my readouts using my Fluke meter:
Pickup #1: 5.698K
Pickup #2: 5.675K
Pickup #3: 5.725K
Since the new Fender Custom Shop Black Strat uses a Fender Custom Shop Fat 50's Pickup for the neck which is rated at about 6.0K DC Resistance, I'll use the highest reading from the Custom '69 Pickup set for the neck pickup and the second lowest reading for the middle pickup. Did I mention that the average readout for a REAL '69 pickup is between 5.7K to 5.8K DC Resistance?
Now for the bridge pickup everyone loves to talk about!
Wow! You read the writing on the package correctly. This here is a custom made Seymour Duncan SSL-1C RwRp (Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity) Pickup, straight from the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop! In fact, I also have a standard SSL-1C Pickup, but you see in a bit why I opted for a RwRp pickup instead.
Knowing that the pickup the original Black Strat was a custom made one, I looked into getting a custom one made myself. But what should the rating be at? Thankfully, Craig at Overdrive (www.stratcat.biz) has gone to great lengths in finding out the readouts from a Fender CS NOS & Relic Black Strat to give you an average readout of the pickup. Usually, for those who already know, the SSL-5 derived from the SSL-1C, and often place that pickup for a Bridge pickup instead. Not for this build! Finding out that you can have your pickups custom wounded and stamped at the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop (http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/custom-shop/), I was able to order a standard SSL-1 vintage pickup, and have it wound to the specs Craig had found on his Black Strat's. The average readout on his Bridge pickups were about 12.5K DC Resistance, so I gave the Custom Shop the specs as well as applying the proper stamps and bingo! There you have a one-of-a-kind pickup for this special Black Strat.
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| Custom Seymour Duncan SSL-1C RwRp (Top) |
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| Custom Seymour Duncan SSL-1C RwRp (Bottom) |
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| Custom Seymour Duncan SSL-1C RwRp |
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| Fender Custom Shop NOS Seymour Duncan SSL-1C Pickup (Courtesy of Overdrive) |
When I ordered this pickup to be made, I asked for them to simply stamp "SSL-1C RW" on the same location found the Fender Custom Shop Bridge Pickup. Instead I got the "SSL-1C DG RW" placed in it instead! This is definitely a plus on the authentic factor! Fender Custom Shop has Seymour Duncan making their pickups for the Black Strat using a standard SSL-5 pickup (indicated with a sticker on its bobbin) while this one was from a SSL-1. My pickup get the same treatment as the Custom '69 pickups, except for the grey bobbin, it has vintage cloth covered wiring, beveled poles and as well as being wax dipped.
With this newly acquired pickup, I took it through the notions and look at the readout using my handy Fluke meter. Looks like the meter reads out at 12.20K DC Resistance. Winding pickups to a specific value are a bit difficult, and 0.3K off shouldn't be a big deal on it's overall performance. Reverse wound pickups works exactly the same way as standard wound pickups, so no tone will be affected by this process. So you ask, why I decided to go with a reverse wound? Well, that's for another post to explain it all.
I'm looking good so far with the parts I need to get this Black Strat beauty together. So what am I missing? Oh yeah! Looks like I'm up for the electronics to put these pickups to work. That means finding out what this "Magic Switch" business is all about and why it gives you the heavenly Gilmour tone everybody wants out of their guitar! Back to the book!
David Sarmiento
