Vintage Hot Strat
Make your Stratocaster sound like a Strat should with Lindy Fralin’s Vintage Hots. As our best-selling Stratocaster set, Vintage Hots offer the purest vintage Strat tone. Vintage Hots have a warm, balanced midrange with lots of sparkle and clarity on the top, guaranteeing you’ll stand out in the mix. If you’re looking for the purest Stratocaster tone, look no further than these pickups right here!
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Fralin Vintage Hots: Real Vintage Strat Tone.
Want to learn more about our Vintage Hot Strat? Here's all the information you'll need:
Vintage Hot Strat FEATURES:
Vintage Hot Pickups: our best-selling single coil set. If you’re looking for a sparkling, bright, and open sound, you will love these pickups’ tone. Vintage Hots give you a balanced 50’s Tone: a smooth balance between bright and fat. They fit in the middle sonically of our Real 54’s and Blues Specials.
These pickups are era-authentic: wound with USA-made 42-gauge Formvar-enameled wire and built with USA-made AlNiCo V magnets. These pickups sound smooth, balanced, and beautiful.
Features:
- Modified Vintage Fender specifications, with modern output
- Bright, clean tone with balance across lows and highs
- USA-made Alnico 5 Magnets for optimal tonal balance and output
- RW/RP Middle for Hum-Cancelling in Positions 2 & 4
- Two magnet staggers available for different fingerboard radiuses
- Hand-wound with our “Sectioning” technique for unique, dynamic tone
- Hand-built fiberboard Bobbins for unrivaled quality control
- 10-Year Warranty on manufacturing defects
- 6K Neck & Middle, 6.6K Bridge
SOUND
Vintage Hots sparkle and sound very open and clear without sounding “tinny” or glassy. These pickups sound big and full, with an even balance of Bass, Middle, and Treble, clean or dirty. The tone cuts through with distortion – while remaining very dynamic and thick.
Expect a precise low-end and an acute attack. Single notes cut through with ease, while chords have an excellent string-to-string definition.
Are you looking for a Hum Cancelling Strat pickup that actually sounds like a Strat? Check out the Vintage Output of our Split Blade Strat Pickups
Our manufacturing process allows us to achieve unparalleled quality control. Our Vintage Hots consist of locally-stamped fiberboard and USA-Made Alnico 5 Magnets. We wind each pickup by hand, one at a time. We wind each pickup using our proprietary “Sectioning” technique. Our Sectioning Technique gives the pickup a sweet, bright tone. Finally, we wax-pot the pickup to preserve the pickup and prevent microphonics.
Tech Specs
See below for the estimated DCR and Polarity Information for our Vintage Hot Strat.
| SPECIFICATION | VALUE |
|---|---|
| Neck Ohm Reading: | 6K |
| Middle Ohm Reading: | 6K |
| Bridge Ohm Reading: | 6.6K |
| Neck & Bridge Polarity: | Clockwise Coil Direction, South to Strings |
| Reverse Middle Polarity: | Counter-Clockwise Coil Direction, North to Strings |
| Recommended Pot Value: | 250K |
| Magnet: | USA-Made Alnico 5 |
| Recommended Cap Value**: | 0.02mfd |
**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.
Sizing
Vintage Hot Strat Questions And Answers:
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Have a question about our Vintage Hot Strat? 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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Do you have any recommendations regarding resistors/tone caps for these pickups? Thanks! :)
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Q Do you have any recommendations regarding resistors/tone caps for these pickups? Thanks! :)A
Hey Filipp, we don't recommend using any resistors, but the 0.02mfd caps are the perfect cap value for Vintage Hots.
Just purchased a G&L S-500 with a set of vintage hot pickups. They sound great but are set (in my opinion) quite a distance from the strings. Is there a optimum distance for performance by design so I can set them?
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Q Just purchased a G&L S-500 with a set of vintage hot pickups. They sound great but are set (i...... Read moreA
Hey Dante, yes - check this article here. - Tyler
Are the vintage Hot neck and middle the same pickup? I bought a set and don't see any markings to tell them apart. Thanks!
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Q Are the vintage Hot neck and middle the same pickup? I bought a set and don't see any markings to...... Read moreA
The Vintage Hot Neck and Middle are essentially the same, but the Middle is reverse-wound from the Neck. If you bought them new, the Neck Leads are longer than the Middle Leads, and they should have stickers on the leads to differentiate them.
Hi, I have a Vintage Hot set. I am considering changing the bridge pickup, I find that the one that I have to lack chime...just a tad, comparing to Fender CS69. What can I expect if I would get a Real 54 instead for the bridge ? Thanks !
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Q Hi, I have a Vintage Hot set. I am considering changing the bridge pickup, I find that the one th...... Read moreA
Hey Robert, you can absolutely expect a bit more chime and shimmer out of the bridge when comparing a Vintage Hot to a Real 54. The Real 54's Alnico 3 Magnets give it a touch more sparkle and shimmer.
Hi ! Is the Stock Stagger identical to the one found on vintage pickups (with the pole piece under the G string raised quite high) ? Or is it adapted to the specs of Vintage Hots ? Because I sometimes find the G string to be a bit too dominant with those vintage stagger... For info the radius of my fingerboard is 9.5".
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Q Hi ! Is the Stock Stagger identical to the one found on vintage pickups (with the pole piece unde...... Read moreA
Hey Cristophe, it's adapted, without the "Tall G". We can make a Tall G stagger upon request, but ours has a lower G string for better balance.
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Featured Reviews
Reviews we worked hard for, and are proud of.
Best pickups set I’ve ever played
I have replaced the original set of pickups of my American Standard Strat with the Vintage Hot(test) and couldn’t have done a better choice. The sound of my guitar changed completely for the best and now it has a huge personality. Super happy with my purchase and definitely recommend them. Honorable mention for the Blender Pot that I installed with the VH pickups, once you get used to it you can play sounds unknown before to a Strat and very similar to a Tele. Almost two guitars in one. Thank you again guys
Incredible pickups. Surpassed all of my expectations. I got the hybrid stagger for my 16″ radius neck and the balance is amazing. The folks here are a pleasure to work with as well. I will definitely be a return customer.
Wow. Just Wow. With a good setup, quality neck and these Vintage hots installed you just can’t go wrong. Especially through my cranked Silverface ’68 Princeton Reverb Reissue, holy cow do these pickups sound great. Exactly as Strat should sound, these make everything else sound way too hot, with way too many mids or just lifeless and flat. Highly recommend investing in these if your strat doesn’t already have a set of actual, good quality vintage pickups in it already.
Something was always nagging me about the G&L Legacy Special obtained in my youth. Maybe it was the humbucking dual-blade pickups, or the PTB™ that kept it from achieving the magical tonality I expected. After installing a set of Vintage Hots and blender configuration I can finally hear the fully realized sound of the this expertly crafted instrument.
Replaced a set of emg dg-20 pickups with vintage hot w/ pickguard. Much brighter and fresh sounding. Clean distinct edges to each note. The pickups have great response to the pots. My old pickups clearly didn’t like a couple of my drives; the vintage hots sound awesome with those same drives so now they’re back in the lineup. I basically have a new custom strat with a couple new drives for the price of a set of pickups. Couldn’t be happier with my purchase. Went from a guitar that was seldom played to being my #1.
Just installed a set of Vintage Hots in my MIM Strat – it’s like I have a brand new guitar. Somehow the guitar is cleaner & more articulate, but more aggressive & throaty at the same time. I couldn’t be happier.
Neck standard stagger. Soundwise everything it was said to be. Very easy to get that sweet gritty sound and still have clarity. Only drawback was that the white lead cable was quite short and since I bought the neck version it needed an extention. The black lead was longer and A OK!
The sound of the Vintage Hots is absolutely incredible. Articulate and versatile, I now love the sound of my Strat. Not only that, Lindy spend a very generous amount of time on the phone with me answering questions and discussing every aspect of my rebuild including shielding, capacitor values, wiring schemes, treble bleed circuits and more. As a result, I tried some things I might not have otherwise and ended up with way more than I bargained for. The pickups shipped fast and I couldn’t be happier. Great product, great company, great people!
I discovered a secret. If you want a great sounding guitar, don’t buy a top of the line Fender Strat. Instead find a Squier with a good neck and get Lindy’s Vintage Hot pickups installed. Better sound for a fraction of the price. By the way, I also love his Blues Specials, Split Blades, and Sunbucker pickups. His installation work is also first rate.
It’s hard to describe these pickups any better than all of the previous reviewers have, but I’ll offer what I can. I bought myself an MJT relic-job Strat type guit that came with some vintage hots. Aside from the beautiful job MJT did, it was the Fralins that attracted me to the GUI in the first place. After a little bit of adjustment (raising the high E side of all three pups), the guitar just came to life. What beautiful tone. Just absolutely perfect. Round, warm, snap, chime. It’s all there. The toughest decision you’ll have is which position you’re gonna want to play in. Nice job guys! Thanks for your dedication to the art and craft of making beautiful pickups.