Early Tokai Strat

Fatfingers

I bought this thing new when I was 14, with the profits from various summer jobs and having sold almost everything else I owned. It's the one that says Fokai on the headstock, that soon got changed after Fender kicked up a stink.

Being young, and because I played through a Hiwatt Custom 100, I was desperate to get a higher output pickup in there. This was well before the days of single coil size humbuckers so I took a Dimarzio Super Distortion that I already owned, a chisel, and Bob's your uncle.

A few short years later (well, 34) I manned to get hold of a genuine Tokai scratchplate and filled the hole in the bridge with another pickup I happened to have lying around, a Seymour Duncan JB. 

But what I'd really like to do is fit a single coil in there that would work with the original Tokai pickups. They have a pretty feeble output but that's no big deal these days. Any suggestions?

richardhomer

Why not treat it to a really nice set? Suhr V60LPs are one of my favourite Strat pick-ups - vintage output but not too thin.

Lovely looking guitar btw.

dogload

Those original Tokai Strat pickups sound really good (to my ears). I have a similar vintage Tokai which I prefer over every other Strat I've played, although it does have a Mighty Mite Screaming Strat in it, that I've had since 1980 or something. 

edit: Just checked mine and it is one with a 'T' rather than 'F'.

impmann

I had a similar Tokai strat - the original bridge pickup didn't do much for me either... I also thought they were a little too scooped/low output so mine ended up with a full set of Seymour Duncan Alnico IIs. A beautiful guitar IIRC, sadly sold long ago...

TBH, if you want something that sounds like a Strat in there, but with a beefier output either consider the Seymour Duncan SSL5 (a la Gilmour - technically his is an SSL1-C, as in custom wind SSL1) or talk to Ash at Oil City about one of his Stone Tone pickups.

Hope that helps.

Danny1969

I think those Tokai original pickups are the mutts nuts too. Just last night I was playing mine into the new hand wired AC15 and the tone to me was better than the America Strat I was supposed to be demoing the amp with 

Fatfingers

I rarely used the bridge pickup. It was too spiky for my ears at the time – although 34 years of high frequency hearing roll-off may have provided a natural remedy for that.

I have guitars with hum buckers so I think I'd like to stick to a single coil. Maybe a tad higher output than the other two but nothing too unbalanced. And something a tad warmer than the original.

Dave_Mc

If they're anything like the pickups in mine, they're very, very low output (as you said yourself). I haven't measured mine but IIRC someone on the tokai forum said they were ~5.5k (normally even vintage strat pickups are around 6k i think). I'd go for something vintage... slightly more output in the bridge might not actually be that much of a problem, since that's the way most people do it these days anyway. EDIT: if it's too spiky you could try rewiring the tone knob to the bridge pickup (or bridge and middle, or rewire the neck pickup tone control to middle and neck and use the original middle one for the bridge). I haven't got as far as doing that yet, needless to say. mine's a bit spiky too.

historyisjunk

Seconded the world historic SSL5 for a bridge pickup. They're one of my favourite pickups, definitely not shrill, great on their own & I think they go very well when you have the bridge & a lower output middle pickup on together, I don't like the sound of a low output bridge & middle together much.

WezV

go for a baseplated strat pickup 

the baseplates help it sound fatter for people who don't like the normal strat bridge pickups.   

Many makers now offer this as an option

Ash sells them here, http://oilcitypickups.co.uk/otherproducts.html

and obviously offers them fitted to his single coils

Fatfingers

Thanks chaps.

Evilmags

Just make it into a Dave Murray job. It's already routed for it...

Fatfingers

Had a chat with Ash at Oil City and I've ordered a staggered version one of his Triple Blues.