Pickup Comparisons - SD, Oil City, Alegree.

Rkphilpot

I'm looking for opinions on pickups please;

Oil City - Stonetone and Diamond Geezer
Fender - Texas Specials
Alegree - Frostbite

I'm after quite a heavy distorted sound but I don't want to go to humbucking or noise cancelling.
If you listen to Wolves of Winter - Biffy Clyro, its that sort of sound. Im pretty sure he uses Texas Specials, however I'm really fond of the independent hand wound pickup makers. They have been exceptional in the past.

The problem is that all demos online are just people playing blues and 60's style.
I want someone to get a set, put a metal zone on them and spank the arse out of them.

Any feedback or demos will be much obliged. Cheers all.

andy_k

Not much help really, but I have a set of Alegree Texan Hailstorms in one of my strats, I am not a strat specialist though, but I do have another with Bareknuckle Apaches, and a Fender 56 reissue, as well as a Mex strat with full Clapton spec.
They all do the strat thing very well, the Mex is the best sounding, and the TBX does a healthy boost.
I'm not sure I'd dare to run a 'normal' single coil through my Boss HM pedal these days, when I tried it nearly 40 years ago, it inspired me to swap out my single coil bridge pickup for a Dimarzio X2N, remember those.?
I think the best term to describe that kind of single coil sound is 'harsh', and noisy, but if it's what you need a single coild is a cheap thing to experiment with, a set of 3 will be around £100 from the manufacturers you mention, and the resale will be about £90, so not much to lose to experiment.
You can probably do the experiment yourself,film it and put it on YT, if it hasn't been already done, win-win really.

geetarguy85

I can’t advise on any specifics, but I’ve put a set of Fletcher hand wound pickups into my PRS style build and it sounds massive. They’re geared towards a Tremonti style sound. Contact Ben Fletcher, I’m sure he’ll be happy to give you his views on what would suit

Rkphilpot

Thanks people, I'm going to get a few scratch plates and pre load them, then i can swap them out as and when I want.

Cirrus

geetarguy85 said:

I can’t advise on any specifics, but I’ve put a set of Fletcher hand wound pickups into my PRS style build and it sounds massive. They’re geared towards a Tremonti style sound. Contact Ben Fletcher, I’m sure he’ll be happy to give you his views on what would suit

Funny, I had never heard of Fletcher before last night when his name popped up in a Reverb search. Bought a set of pickups, turns out he lives like 5 minutes down the road, he delivered them to my door this evening and I've been trying them out, very impressed. Nice guy too.

Rkphilpot

I've just looked on his site, he has some awesome products on there. Really like the look of his high output fletcher-tron for the bridge of my solid body Gretsch. 

But I wasn't looking to modify my Gretsch again, god damn rabbit holes.

Teyeplayer

I’ve had a set of his Elysiums, but low wind and unpotted, in my Eastman for the last 4 years -awesome pickups. 

That said, my other new favourite is cats whiskers. Great pickup maker.

monquixote

Don't discount noiseless. The dimarzio areas are excellent.

I've always found Texas Specials to be very ice picky and harsh.

If I was going handmade I would contact Ash from Oil City and get whatever he recommends.

victorludorum

Another thumbs up for Fletcher from me. He's pretty busy now, which speaks volumes.

Rkphilpot

Thanks people, I'm going to get a few scrstchplates and preload them with various sets from these people
Then I'll swap them out and test till I decide. I like the idea of recording it and uploading. So I'll try keep you posted if you're interested. 

Dave_Mc

victorludorum said:

Another thumbs up for Fletcher from me. He's pretty busy now, which speaks volumes.

Yeah IIRC I had to wait about 6 or 7 weeks. The one I have (a Home alnico 5 PAF in the bridge position of my Framus superstrat) is really nice. That being said- pretty much all of the UK winders I've tried (a lot of them, but not all) are really nice. You don't have to wait 6 weeks (or more!), in other words.

EDIT: Regarding the ones mentioned by @Rkphilpot in the OP- Alegrees are brilliant (but I haven't tried his Strat pickups) and so are Oil City (I have tried his triple blues, albeit in an HSS set, so I haven't tried the bridge version).

Basically all the UK guys are great, so if it were me, I'd most likely go with whoever does a spec you like the sound of, at the most reasonable price, and with the shortest wait. (Out of the ones which are known to be good, I mean- obviously if something is "too good to be true" in terms of prices, it might be. That being said, I've also been really pleased with the cheaper UK-wound stuff I've tried too on e.g. Ebay. Sometimes you can get some silly deals- I've got some Strat sets (direct from the winder, new) for around the same price as a set of Toneriders, for example. And they're (IMO, and admittedly based on fairly limited experience with Tonerider) far nicer than Toneriders (or Irongears). Far nicer than Duncans or Dimarzios, too.

Rkphilpot

Dave_Mc said:

victorludorum said:

Another thumbs up for Fletcher from me. He's pretty busy now, which speaks volumes.

Yeah IIRC I had to wait about 6 or 7 weeks. The one I have (a Home alnico 5 PAF in the bridge position of my Framus superstrat) is really nice. That being said- pretty much all of the UK winders I've tried (a lot of them, but not all) are really nice. You don't have to wait 6 weeks (or more!), in other words.

EDIT: Regarding the ones mentioned by @Rkphilpot in the OP- Alegrees are brilliant (but I haven't tried his Strat pickups) and so are Oil City (I have tried his triple blues, albeit in an HSS set, so I haven't tried the bridge version).

Basically all the UK guys are great, so if it were me, I'd most likely go with whoever does a spec you like the sound of, at the most reasonable price, and with the shortest wait. (Out of the ones which are known to be good, I mean- obviously if something is "too good to be true" in terms of prices, it might be. That being said, I've also been really pleased with the cheaper UK-wound stuff I've tried too on e.g. Ebay. Sometimes you can get some silly deals- I've got some Strat sets (direct from the winder, new) for around the same price as a set of Toneriders, for example. And they're (IMO, and admittedly based on fairly limited experience with Tonerider) far nicer than Toneriders (or Irongears). Far nicer than Duncans or Dimarzios, too.

Thank you, I'm not in a massive rush so I'm going to acquire them in financial time and justt see what I prefer. I've just seen a set of the Oil City Stonetones on here, so will hopefully get them first. Then go from there.

I purchased the tonerider pure vintage for a squier, they are a mix of alnico 3&5 magnets and were pretty decent, but I got Oil City's Calibre 53 for the bridge of my strat and its brilliant, worth the bit extra. Plus Ash is sound, always happy to help.

Dave_Mc

@Rkphilpot Yeah Ash's aftersales service is great. It was a toss-up for me between the triple blues and calibre 53s... I'm sure I'd have liked either of them.