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Area 58, 61 and 67 Strat Pickups

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darkbluemurder:
Hi,

Since I have not seen a thread on the Areas in this section I will start one. I have/had them in two strat style guitars (one ash body, one piece maple neck, the other alder body, maple neck w/ rosewood board, both vintage style vibratos). The first set I had was Area 61 bridge and Area 58 for the other two positions. I then acquired another set: 61 bridge and two 67s for the other two positions. I ended up in both guitars with 61-58-67 and later VV54-58-67 (going from bridge to neck) and the two 61s paired with a Kinman AVn-48b in a Telecaster.

Area 67: this is easily the brightest of the three. When used in the neck position it delivers the glassy clear shimmery strat tone - think Hendrix, Motown etc. When used with the right amp and pedals it can do Blackmore tones as well. I recommend a 250k pot with it - 500k makes it too bright IMHO. My preferred position for this pickup is at the neck. You can put it in the middle as well but I preferred the 58 there.

Area 58: this surprised me at first. In the neck position I did not really like it. I thought it was too thin, yet it was not clear enough. Some kind of neither fish nor meat situation. Surprisingly I liked it much better in the middle spot - both individually and in combination with the neck or the bridge pickup. Especially with the 61 in the bridge it offers a smoky quack that is very nice. The 61+67 combination was too thin and hollow for my ears.

Area 61: this is the highest output pickup of the three which makes it a natural candidate for the bridge position when combined with the other two but as I found out later it also works very well in the middle and neck spots together with a stronger pickup (e.g. a Tele bridge, P90 or a low output PAF-type humbucker). Even though I have not tried the 61 in the neck spot of the same guitar as I had the 58 it appears to me that the 61 is cleaner than the 58. 

Hope that helps,
Stephan

Steve K:
Didn't know you had this thread,Everything about these pups are nicely explained here in a short paragraph,Thanks.

bluediamond:
Hi, How's the 2 & 4 position quack of the 61/58/67, compared to 61/67/67?

Steve K:
The quack I get from the 67 in the Neck and the 58 in the middle is not as Bright as I want it to be,It is a little dark and if I set the amp bass and treble to adjust accordingly to get perfect quack from the Neck/middle setting, then the neck or middle by itself is too bright.But this is 2 noiseless pups combined which might be the reason.

RayBarbeeMusic:
I've found that pickup height makes a big difference. 

With Areas you tend to put them close to the strings because unlike regular singles, you can without causing intonation or warbling issues.  BUT, you lose quack with the middle pup up close. Backing off the bass side on both middle and neck helps as well. 

Oddly, I've found that two injector necks in neck/middle with 500k pot gets AMAZING quack.  With an AT-1 in the bridge set to go into parallel mode when in position 2 combined with the middle injector neck, the quack/tone is fantastic and authentic as can be.

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