Sunbucker
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:
Sunbucker 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.
Tech Specs
Wound with 42 & 43 Gauge Single Poly Nylon Wire and Alnico 5 Slug Magnets. 250K Pots are recommended with this pickup.
Our Stock Set reads 9.8K in the Neck and 10.3 in the Bridge, due to mismatched coils.
Sizing
Humbucker Lead Color Codes
See below for our Humbucker Lead color codes. For help with matching to other manufacturers, check out this resource here.
Gibson Braided Lead:
2-Conductor Lead:
3-Conductor Lead:
4-Conductor Lead
Sunbucker Questions And Answers:
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Have a question about our Sunbucker? Ask it here. Your Question will be publically visible. If you want to ask a Private Question, please contact us through our Contact Us Form.
If you have multiple questions, please call us at (804) 358-2699.
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I’ve got a Les Paul and I’m thinking of putting a Sunbucker in the neck and a Pure PAF in the bridge. I did notice the Sunbucker output is higher than the Pure PAF. Will this be an issue?
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Q I’ve got a Les Paul and I’m thinking of putting a Sunbucker in the neck and a Pure PAF in the bri...... Read moreA
They are actually equal in terms of output, but we use a different wire gauge on the Sunbucker, which makes the pickup read higher.
What makes this humbucker sound different?
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Q What makes this humbucker sound different?A The Sunbucker uses Alnico 5 Magnets instead of Steel Slugs, like a normal humbucker. This gives this humbucker design a Fender Sparkle.
What Pots do you recommend?
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Q What Pots do you recommend?A You can experiment. 500K pots will give you the brightest, snappiest tone. 250K pots will mellow it out a bit, but it will still remain bright. We recommend 250K pots most of the time.
What lead do I choose?
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Q What lead do I choose?A This depends on your guitar and a few other things. Gibson Lead: Go with this if installing a set into a Gibson-style instrument, where each pickup has its respective volume pot. 2-Conductor: Go with this lead if buying a Single, or installing into a Fender-style instrument. This is also useful for phase reversal, which is why we recommend it if ordering a single pickup to match another manufacturer's pickups.
What’s the String Spacing?
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Q What’s the String Spacing?A 49.2, 50, 52mm. We can make them in all sizes.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.