Sunbucker
PAF Tone meets Alnico Clarity
$175 – $350
The Fralin Sunbucker gives you 25% Humbucker tone and 75% Alnico Single Coil tone – with humbucker aesthetics. Enjoy a beefy, hum-cancelling single coil tone – all with traditional humbucker looks. Thicker, darker, and louder than our Big Single, and clearer than our Pure P.A.F.
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PAF Tone Meets Fender® Clarity
Want to learn more about our Sunbucker? Here's all the information you'll need:
Features
The Fralin Sunbucker® guitar pickup is a very snappy, bright sounding humbucker with a Single Coil vibe. Based on Lindy’s original design, the Sunbucker humbucker is clean, very articulate, and clear. You can expect a spanky, snappy clean tone that’s very articulate, unlike most modern humbuckers, while offering a lot of Single Coil tone. The Sunbucker has a medium output, which is very dynamic and expressive. Lindy created this pickup to help balance out very dark sounding guitars, or for those who want a bright, snappy tone with no hum.
- 75% Single Coil tone, 25% Humbucker
- Clear, Clean, Articulate sounding Guitar Pickups
- Late, smooth breakup
- Bright wound strings, pure-sounding plain strings
- Made by hand, one at a time.
Sound
Very bright, clear, and articulate. Sunbuckers will stay clean as it won’t break up as early as modern humbuckers, and you’ll find that it’s spanky and plucky. Built with AlNicCo V and 42-gauge plain enamel wire, this guitar pickup is an excellent solution to a dark-sounding humbucker in the neck position, or for those who are chasing after a single-coil tone with no hum.
When playing clean, you’ll find that this guitar pickup sounds very much like a single-coil: it’s incredibly dynamic, bright, and snappy. With distortion, you’ll find that the smooth and late, with a pronounced pick attack and pure-sounding plain strings and bright wound strings.
Tonal Graph For Sunbucker:
The tonal graph below for our Sunbucker features Lows, Midrange, Highs, and general Output.
Attack: Bright & Sharp
Tech Specs:
See below for the estimated DCR and Polarity Information for our Sunbucker.
Looking for Ohm Readings? This pickup features a unique design where the ohm readings can vary tremendously based on the choices you make. The output matches most modern pickups, like our Pure P.A.F.
| SPECIFICATION | VALUE |
|---|---|
| Neck Polarity: | Reversible with 3-Conductor Lead |
| Bridge Polarity: | Reversible with 3-Conductor Lead |
| Magnet Material: | USA-Made Alnico 5 |
| Wire Material: | USA-Made 43-Gauge Single Poly Nylon |
| Baseplate Material: | USA-Made Nickel Silver |
| Cover Material: | USA-Made Nickel Silver |
| Pole Piece Material: | USA-Made Steel |
| Bobbin Material: | ABS Plastic |
| Recommended Pot Value: | 250K |
| Recommended Cap Value: | 0.02mfd 2 |
Additional Technical Info:
2 We recommend a 0.02mfd Cap Value on most guitar and bass pickups. The exception is a Magic Cap, which Lindy prefers on the Bridge Pickup of Fender® guitars only. Learn More about Caps Here.
Polarity Information:
Here's how we wind and magnetize our pickups:
This is a Hum Cancelling Pickup.
If you're buying a set from us, all pickups will work together seamlessly. If you're buying a single pickup, all you need to worry about is Coil Direction.
To ensure your pickup will work, make sure you select multiple leads (2-Conductor, 3-Conductor, or 4-Conductor if available), or the 3-Wire modification so you can reverse the coil direction, if need be.
Lead Options
See below for our Lead color codes. For help with matching to other manufacturers, check out this resource here.
Gibson Braided Lead
Gibson-Style instruments
Phase Reversible
Coil Splitting
2-Conductor Lead
Phase Reversible
Covered Humbucker
Uncovered Humbucker
Pickup Pairing
Our Sunbucker pairs well with the following models:
Get It Prewired
Get our Sunbucker prewired into a Prewired Pickguard!:
Featured Reviews
Reviews We Worked Hard For, and Are Proud Of
Customer Reviews
30 Genuine Reviews for Sunbucker
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This is exactly what I was looking for in a neck humbucker for a Tele. Very clear, yet still has the humbucker girth. I have it paired with a Blues Special in the bridge with standard 3-way switching. Perfectly balanced and the two pickups together sound great–I think this is my favorite setting. I’m using with the recommended 250k, so no need to switch out a pot… Glad I took the leap.
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FINALLY! As a mostly single-coil (strat) player, I could never really gel with the complete lack of string articulation of most PAFs. I dropped these into a very light chambered tele body from Warmoth, which always made humbuckers sound muddy, and now it’s absolutely perfect. These pickups have all of the beef and punch of a PAF, but with the clarity and articulation of single coil pickups. Truly the best of both worlds, and I can’t say enough about them. If your current humbucker guitar sounds dull or flat, this is what you need, but don’t buy them until after my band has made it because I don’t want to have to compete with you.
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The Sunbucker might just be the definitive answer to ‘how do you wire your H/s telecaster’?
With 250k pots the neck Sunbucker sounds punchy, vibrant, beef without the mud. A fatter single coil without the drama. The superb middle position tone is a reminder of why you have an H/s telecaster in the first place.
As usual, the build quality, shipping, customization and ease with Fralin is top flight.
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Used this in a 12-string I built for a friend (which has separate volumes for each coil) – It sounds ridiculously rich. Very nice.
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Bright clear tones, no noise. Ideal for country music in key of G.
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The best Neck pick-up out there. I’ve used the Sunbucker Blues also and it’s great also. The Sunbucker stays cleaner though and sounds more single coil but with the dynamics of a humbucker. Extremely musical and was exactly ?% what I was looking for. It does everything from R&B, Jazz, Rock, Country and really anything. Very touch sensitive. Ordering another Fralin for the bridge. I only use Fralin’s at this point in my musical journey. As the sound of all his pickups are just Heavenly. Thanks to the Fralin Team!
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The only reason I can’t give this Sunbucker five stars is because of my Strat ironically. Its roasted alder body and roasted maple neck I’m afraid aren’t resonant enough tone woods for what I trust is an otherwise articulate bridge pickup, played thru my deluxe reverb anyway. That said, I’m FAR happier with this humbucker than the EVH it replaced… much, much obliged Lindy!
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I’ve started with 500k pots in an LP style, but these pickups will cover a lot of ground before I’ve landed them in one guitar exclusively. The note definition is aaall there. Lindy fielded my questions personally, with unassuming tact and advice that goes beyond the purchase, like talking with a friend. There’s ear candy on the website to give you a better example than I can describe, and the only warning I have is I’m now in danger of owning more.
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Totally changed my Kanggs Kenai. They gave it the clarity of a single coil with the growl and bite of a Humbucker. Exactly what I was looking for.
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I bought these pick-ups for my Gibson 335. I love the shape, size and feel of that guitar but really never cared for the mushy tone the stock pick-ups provided. I really wanted something brighter with a more articulate clean tone that would also sound “right” with multiple OD pedals pushing it. Lindy actually took the time to call me himself, ask about what I was trying to achieve with the pick-ups and talk through using the right pots/caps to get to the tone I was looking for.
These pick-ups nailed it. They sound great whether I’m playing clean or pushing them through multiple stacked ODs. The Sunbuckers have made a major difference in the tone I get from this guitar and I find myself reaching for it more than any of my other guitars now. For reference- I use Xotic RC boost- JHS modified mini-wah-Brown Protein OD, Keeley Rotten Apple- Catalinbread Topanga reverb- deLisle ABY splitter- Walrus Audio D1 delay- into a deLisle studio custom w/an AlNiCo Blue and a second deLisle loaded w/a Greenback…..
Buy these pick-ups- they sound great and come from a great company that really cares about making sure you are getting the tone you want to hear.
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