Seymour Duncan SL59-1 Little 59 Humbucker Strat Pickup - Black Neck

So I had the Gilmour Black strat setup but the Fender Fat 50's were not taking distortion very well... or high end pedals like Thorpy . I loved how it sounded clean though... but I just got tired of the weird wobble effect by the magnetic pull of the pups so I decided to go with sonethibg like a humbucker... I didn't want to lose the stratiness of my guitar so I got a Duckbucker for the middle, which the say if you put it in between two higher output pickups you get the quack and twang... I left the Bridge intact with the SSL-5.The neck has always been my favorite position , I love warmer tones... I did lose some chime and bell tones with the Little 59' but man... this pickup has a lot of balls. Very nice output, very nice cleans and best of all, it takes all my pedals like a champ... super smooth and amazing fuzz, overdrive or distortion... as promised the duckbucker gives me the strat tones from position 3 and down... position 4 sound similar to the 5th but with more high end sparkle...I was impressed by this pickup and I'm still getting used to it and experimenting. But it definitely feels like the best of both worlds... I was ready to start using my Les Paul, even though I was missing the whammy bar, but now I basically have a Les Paul on the neck and a strat on the lower positions and I can still use the tremolo arm even on the 59 Les Paul position ;)Overall I think it would be extremely difficult to not like/love this pickup... like I said, I did lose low end sparkle and chime... so it definitely does not sound like a Single Coil... but it's silent and has all the qualities of a Humbucker... I no longer have the Gilmour Setup, but that's a good thing... my guitar now looks a bit different, changed a few knobs to black... and now it sounds completaly different. I am stoked and can't wait to record and hear how it sounds!

This is the 3rd of these single coil space Duncan humbuckers I've put into the neck position. The JB Jr. is a little fat and gets muddy easily....but you can dial it in nicely with the tone knob using it in conjunction with the bridge or mid (depending on 2 or 3 pup setup). . The Lil' Screamin Demon...well, I have the full sized humbucker in a bridge position....and it gains out nicely. The mini in the neck, doesn't really accentuate the mids like I hoped it would...like its big brother does.This brings us to this pup...the lil' 59. This is a very well rounded pup. I can get a nice chunky set of chord progressions out of it, and soloing it will hang onto the high mids while staying just above muddy on the bottom end. While it lacks the "glass" of the demon, it still has a somewhat sweet high end. Of the three pups...this is the one to go clean with.....but it plays well dirty too.My 3 Duncan set-ups look like this:Screamin Demon bridge, Lil' 59 neck in a MIJ (86 JV) Squire,JB in the bridge, JB JR. neck of a 2000 Standard Stratand a Custom Custom in the Bridge, and Lil' Demon neck of the 1982 Strat.All 3 of these guitars are tonally very similar... with alder bodies and rosewood fret boards, and all 3 are upgraded with an unbleached bone nut. I think they make a decent base for comparison of pups. (these are the Duncan set-ups. These 3 guitars only have two pups. The other strats have all 3....the texas special set up in two, and a lace neck and mid, texas hot antiquity bridge set up in one, and the abby's (AY)that came in my custom shop.)The bottom line is that if you use these in the neck of a 3 pup strat you lose the sweet spot in the 4(th click toward neck) selector position. It has a very different sound used in conjunction with a middle single coil. But different is not bad.....because this pup will flat out howl if you let it.

I am tweaking my custom strat with basswood body. I want it to give me a wide range of sounds. I have a DiMarzio FRED on the bridge, a fender alnico on the middle, and I put this Mini 59 on the neck. I wired it with a mini toggle to do north coil/humbucker/south coil on the 3 position mini switch. My pots are 250k (the volume is 500k with a parallel resistor to the mini 59 hot to bring it down to 250k as the FRED sounds best with 500k). It sounds fantastic on all positions. The coil splits give some of that classic strat sound, the humbucker position really approximates the classic full 59 hb. On hb mode, it still has a bit of the chime of a single coil so it is not a perfect implementation of the full hb 59 but it sounds great! If you don't want to route your neck pickup cavity for a full size hb and want that 59 sound, get this pickup. It is not perfect but very close. I really like it.

What can you say about SD pickups? For most musicians, they are the Cadillac of guitar pickups. There are many other makes out there, so you just need to experiment to find the right one for your playing style and music. But SD will always give you a high-quality, long-lasting product that will increase the value of your guitar.That being said, a word about from whom you order your pickups. While all SD pickups are created equally, not all sellers are the same. I need two 'Lil 59s for the neck and middle of my Strat project, and a Cool Rails for the bridge. Because of availability, I was forced to order on 59 and the Cool Rails from one supplier, the other 59 from a different one. My 59 and Cool Rails arrived in two days. It took a week to receive the other 59. Sometimes you have no choice, but take some time to shop around, even here on Amazon. It could make a difference in delevery and even price.

Great upgrade! Adds punch and versatility, easy to install. ‘94 MM Strat.

Awesome Pick up!!!

Put one of these in the neck position on a custom build strat from parts. Paired with a SD lil screemin demon in the center and SD hot rails at the bridge. Very satisfied with all 3 but this one is my favorite by far. Love the tone!

I bought this to replace a factory Gibson Melody Maker pickup. I like the way this sounds much more than the hot rails I had just installed on a build.