Mie Music ” Music is Everything “. Custom Hand / Scatter wound 1963 Boutique Pickups in a loaded 5-Way pickguard. Demo is shown in my store at the bottom of the page. Premiere Guitar Magazine did an article about my guitar builds and vintage pickups in the April 2023 edition of Reader Guitar of the month. The 1963 Stratocaster with Formvar wire pickups was Jimi’s favorite studio guitars. Any quick Google Search you will find that the 1963 remained one of his favorites for studio work, a perfect workhorse on which he would experiment to reach the greatest level of comfort, and that he didn’t dare to play on stage for the fear of losing one of his most precious tools. Only one of them is known to exist and is owned by the Family. 2 had large headstocks maple fretboards. Jimi loved the plain enamel pickups for live shows on his Olympic White guitars. Seymour Duncan also wound some Formvar wire pickups for Jimi and was first used on March 28, 1968 at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were a 1 year model only as Fender was doing the sell to CBS in 64/65 years. Specs went from just under 6k to 6.3k and up. The Henries was 3.00 and under. The main reason Fender Vintage guitars are so sought after is the Tone. That Tone came from Hand wound pickups. Hand-Wound pickups/ Loaded Vintage Single Coil Pickguard with modern upgrades. Staggered and beveled Alnico 5, 187 Diameter magnets. Boutique hand/scattered wound pickups made and assembled in my USA Shop. 1963 Black bobbin: if you like the Pre-CBS pickups but wish they had a little more output these are the pickups you want. Tested at 77 degrees 42% humidity, +/- 5% on a DER EE LCR DE-5000, this LCR tester has a USB output that you can save on your PC in Microsoft Software. 1963 Pre-CBS Black Bobbin Averages: Alnico 5,187 diameter magnets, Vintage 42 awg Heavy Gauge Formvar wire. NECK: 6.10k 2.46h, Miiddle: 6.20k 2.52h, Bridge: 6.23k 2.52h. 047 Capacitor: Oil and Paper, Orange drop or Ceramic. POTS: CTS or Fender. Stock Pickguards: White-Black-Mint Green-Red Tortoise and Vintage Brown Tortoise. Covers and Knobs: Fender Aged White Complete accessary kit included. New guitar JACK included. 2- I dip the finished bobbin in lacquer. This does 2 things. # 1 This is where 90% of Vintage Fender pickups fail. The coil wire rubbing against the magnets, the lacquer protects against this. # 2 This glues the Flatwork to the magnets, eliminating the use of super glue. 4- I install lead Vintage push back Cloth covered wires directly to the pickups. 5- Perform the initial testing, k ohms, Henries and pf capacitance. 6- Waxing- I use 80% Paraffin and 20% Bees Wax, heated to 140-150 degrees for 10-15 minutes. 7- I wrap the coil with fabric tape for 4 reasons. #2 Helps stop high gain monophonic feedback. The tape has zero effect on tone. #4 Some guitarist while recording will sit in my control room with the AMP in the ISO room, while others like to sit or stand by their amp. I started to notice that most Gibson guitars did not have that high squeal and after checking those guitars they had Fabric tape on their pickups. So I put Fabric tape on a few of my Strats and was floored that this worked and I take the extra step to build all my pickups this way. Back in the 50’s there was no need for it because the AMPS was not as high powered as today’s. NO change in TONE. 8- Perform second round of testing, confirming the correct specifications are met. 10- Assemble and solder pickguard. I have a 5 way Stew mac Template finished and all I have to do solder in the pickups you choose to the pickguard you choose. My stock Colors are: Black-White-Mint Green- Red Tortoise and Vintage Brown Tortoise. Also I need to know your preference on your 5-Way switch. Option 1: Tone 1 NECKK ONLY.. Tone 2 Middle and Bridge. Option2: Tone 1 NECK and Middle, Tone 2 Bridge only. This is the most popular setups. I been playing Strats for over 50 years and have a pretty good idea of how a Vintage Strat should sound. 80% of the Strat players are ok or happy with their tone. Now for those 20% picky players they also know what to do with that vintage tone. These pickups are hand made one at a time, by me in my small USA Shop. I use USA Remington Wire and have made my pickups as affordable as possible, using the highest quality parts from USA suppliers. My pickups have that true Vintage tone that only fine made hand /scatter wound pickups can bring. All my pickups are Vintage spec’d to the correct pre CBS or early CBS years. My pickups are made to last, and come from the result of listening to my vintage guitar collection, and taking apart a bucket full of DEAD FENDER pickups, studying them, painstakingly un-winding them on video and taking very detailed notes. This is how I came up with my proprietary way of hand winding my pickups. I started BETA testing in 2020 on every kind of neck and body wood made. Plus I tested on Tube and solid state amps, pedals, digital devices, and software in my recording studio, that I opened in 1999 with fantastic results. I have built numerous partcasters, and have installed my pickups, and they are highly comparable to my vintage collection. The work has been done, so install, and you will have complete NIRVANA for recording and playing live. MIE MUSIC ” Music is Everything “. Thank you for supporting a small USA Company.
