Fender Fat 50 Pickups

[richard_kolendo]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any experience with Fender Fat 50's pickups? Any opinions?

Richard

[Martyn]

I think it very much depends upon the guitar concerned. I've heard some that sounded OK using them but I had a brief affair with a '97 US California Series strat fitted with these and it sounded woolly. I changed to 57/62s, which made a bit of a difference but it still wasn't the sound I wanted so I broke off the relationship.

Given my Mex strat's sound improved hugely by changing from standard US pickups to 57/62s, I'd wrongly assumed the same would apply to the Cal. strat, which is why I say it can be very mixed and varied.
Sorry if this isn't a more concrete reply.

Regards,
Martyn

[RUSSET]

I too have a 'California' series Strat in F.Red with Rosewood board. When I got it, it came with Tex Mex pickups, which were the ones it was issued with from new. I guess Martyn's must already have had a pickup change. The Tex Mex pickups were a bit more high-gain than we are used to & didn't give a satisfactory Shads tone to my way of thinking. I changed mine to C.S.'54s & it made all the difference. I haven't tried Fat '50s pickups yet, but I would guess they are probably higher gain than the vintage-style pickups we need. I believe they are aimed at the 'Blues' players markets, & I would guess are excellent pickups for that genre.

Tony.

[panchodiaz]

Hi Richard.

I have Fat 50 in my main guitar and I´m very happy with them. We had to record some tunes two weeks ago but when in the studio, that guitar was very noisy so I had to use my japanese Squier which has CS 54s. The final result was fine but I noticed the sound a bit thin. I would have preferred Fat 50´s for that recording.

Pancho

[Martyn]

I too have a 'California' series Strat in F.Red with Rosewood board. When I got it, it came with Tex Mex pickups, which were the ones it was issued with from new. I guess Martyn's must already have had a pickup change. The Tex Mex pickups were a bit more high-gain than we are used to & didn't give a satisfactory Shads tone to my way of thinking. I changed mine to C.S.'54s & it made all the difference. I haven't tried Fat '50s pickups yet, but I would guess they are probably higher gain than the vintage-style pickups we need. I believe they are aimed at the 'Blues' players markets, & I would guess are excellent pickups for that genre.
Tony.

Tony's right - mine originally had the factory issue Tex Mex pickups but the previous owner changed them to Fat 50s - he wasn't a Shads fan but wanted more mids for his particular style, which the Fat50s offered. I could have swapped pickups again (always seem to be doing this ) but I was never happy with the wider neck or the medium jumbo frets, much preferring vintage necks with finer frets and that was my main reason for parting with the guitar.

My personal feeling is that the Fat50s aren't really suitable for any period of the Shadows sounds - not to my ears anyway, as they seem to be somewhere in between vintage and darker/rounder so neither one thing nor the other (that's the pickups, not the ears ).

Cheers,
Martyn