yeh price is a huge consideration in this comp for sure!

I wouldn't call it "twang", the '57/'62 has more midrange for sure which helps it shine thru

I own tex mex pups. They're great for their cost. But even up against my Texas specials there's a notable difference largely in the high end, but in something else too. Through phone speakers they sound really close... they're not trust me. Again tex mex are great. I love mine. But they are different. They're like he said somewhat dark or muddy. Not in a cheap way or even negative way. They're just not very stratty sounding in person. If you like darker pups for your strat the tex mex might be the set for you.

Try the Vintera 50's pickups. They sound like 57/62's at half the price.

I did since sink them even lower into the pick guard and it did improve your right. But the other day i finally gave in and took them out for something else haha Thanks for watching

So to follow up on my previous comment about these pups.... you are absolutely right about lower them to the body... it made a huge difference

Tone wired to bridge, you're damn right

This is the way. I have this exact set up for years.

Cant go wrong with the 57 62 set 🤘🤘

Yeh it takes drive better then a more vintage style output single coil for sure

i just put a set in and thats my thougts to ,distortion is where they shine

See if i could be super duper picky id have the tex mex bridge just to handle the gain and 57/62 middle and neck haha

I still got the 57 62s. Texmex in the blue replaced with a used set of radioshop 63s i found

Glad you liked it :) I have recently done another shooting them out against the fat 50s. But here - a big factor I didnt really mention in the vid I dont think is the Texmex can be got a lot cheaper too so that always counts for something especially if they suit your needs

Agreed 🤘🤘

thats what i just heard

Same here, too - surprised he thought the Tex mex are “warmer”.

I think both sound great

I agree but that’s what I want, if I wanted warm I would get fresh baked bread not pickups

Ive tried so so many different strat pickups. And the 57/62 set just keep winning to me.

Thanks for watching and commenting 🤟

I just got a Strat in with Pure 65s - agree they are great

You clearly have an excellent ear by the way. You are completely right about the differences when you plug in and hear it in person. and yes correct on the RW middles.

You don’t understand electronics. All middle pickups are reverse wound, the pickup itself loses zero frequencies the fact that it magnetic field is 180 degrees counter to the pickups it is in parallel with will cancel certain frequencies, hence hum cancelling. The pickup alone has no change in frequency response.

Reverse wound pickups weren't common at all until the mid-80's when Fender started using them. To say "all middle pickups are rw" is wholly false.

@@undeadelvisall modern day or 99.9999999%. 1980 is long gone brother.

@@bluwngthe hum canceling changes the phase of the pickups slightly and creates a comb filtering effect. That’s part of the “quack.” The middle position wasn’t actually hum canceling until the late 80s. There is a definite difference in tone.

Well i hadnt considered that hahaa thats why the sunburst sounds and feels so good hahaha. Ill leave the tex mex in for now and use it from time to time. But the 57/62 set remains king of all things strat to me atm haha

Thanks man glad it came across 🤘

Funny today is finally the day where im getting rid of the tex mex out of Mr Blue strat haha

Yeh for me too 🤟

And heres mine for knowing about look on haha

@@Paul-Dit’s interesting you picked these two sets. There’s a lot of debate about John’s actual pickups. He said in an interview once that when the original 62 pickups died, he had Seymour Duncan Vintage Strat pickups installed (as that’s what his other 54-57 Strat had). But years later his tech said the set he actually installed was a regular off-the-shelf American Series pickguard in 1998 or 1999, and that John must have misremembered due to them having tried different sets. Thus, the actual pickups would have had Tex-Mex specs! As that’s what they were using in the Standard American series in the late 90’s.

There still my favourite

Fair play 🤘

I love them tbf. There not the only good pickups in the world like but ive tried sooooo many and they always come out on top for me

@@Paul-D - I found similar as you with mine and there is a mid range spikey thingy you caint e q out

I agree with you man, hot single coils just dont do it for me at all.

Your totally correct. Its hard to get across things on video with all the variables but thats exactly what there like in person through your own amps etc.

100% agree

🤣🤣 me too

Im loving how the comments are showing how different everyone hears things and its all to taste

57 62 all day long 🤘

thanks for checking it out. you wont be let down by the 57/62 set

I had the texmex set pretty low here too cant remember if i said. I have since set them basically level with the pick guard and it has improved them alot (in my opinion)

@@Paul-D I did the same with my tex mexs, and while it did improve it, I still dont love it... but It's unique enough to keep in my less used strat as a backup option

time ago a shopkeeper changed just 1 little cap - tone guitar if I recall well - in my guitar and the sound has "completelly" changed

Yeh thats a fair comment tbf. The wiring in my sunburst is far higher end. I basically got the absolute best and most period correct (apart from the grigsby 5 way) PIO caps, pot values, even as far as push back wiring on everything. That being said though thinking about it and all previous experience. The pickups themselves do account for the vast majority of the tone soup ingrediants. Everything else is 1% here 5% there.

@@Paul-D absolutely

Ive only tried them once so need to get another go on a set - I might prefer them too!

interesting, at the end you told, that TEX-Mex are muddier, rounded - but I hear exactly opposite! I hear Tex-Mex being sharper and more open sounding, especially in between positions where 57/62 were a bit muddy to my ears.

Judging by comments - everyone hears differently and picks up on different things. Its all down to the individual which is totally right.

@@Paul-D and listening on different equipment. I listened on studio monitors )

Yes very true. Muddy wasnt the best choice of wording really - what i meant was more keen to break up and wool out then the 57/62

@@Paul-D it is ok - I am 20+ years in the world of electric guitars and we still cannot agree on those subjective terms like warmth, muddiness, sharpness, openness, dullness, roundness, richness, etc, etc, etc :) That is why I love A/B tests like yours, because if I know one of the components in the comparison, then I can judge the other one relative to the one I know. Btw, I have made A/B test for TEX-MEX vs Player stock pickups: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ebKDqapz0J24g3k.htmlsi=UDL9M3hgf3JCw10P

same

For sure or even some tonerider pickups or something

@@tm1180 I ended up putting Wilkinson pickups in it and it sounds great

yeh they do handle gain better thats where they have an upper hand on the 57/62 for sure. But that neck pickup tone of the 57/62 set just has me won over haha

Thanks for watching 😁

For sure, its not like there bad. In fact these days its harder to find a properly bad pickup haha. But for someone out there hoping the tex mex might be a huge upgrade - i just wanted to make the point that they are pretty average. Thanks for watching.

@@Paul-D That is a good point. Helping people to not spend money in the wrong place is a good thing. Hope you and the family are all recovered now.

@@ccjmusic thanks man. Still not 100% but definitely over worst of it 🤟🤟

@@Paul-D hopefully you'll be fully over it soon

@@Paul-D Would ibe worth the price to pay to put either of those in a stock MIM strat would be enough sound difference either of them to be worth putting in a stock MIM strat? Or would find something more reasonably priced in a pre wired pickguard?

i probably shouldve said in the video the amp was left EXACTLY the same in all examples - i suck at youtube hahaha

@@Paul-D NAA man I just presumed the amp is the same settings 😁

Thats cool man 😁 i did have the texmex wound very low here btw. I know what you mean on the bridge tbf. Thats why i wired the tone to the bridge on the 57/62 set, but didnt use that here. Thanks for stopping by

There always cheaper then the 57/62 set. So thats worth considering too

They are already set about 1mm above the pickgaurd - i shouldve shown that. The blue one does have fresher strings on by a week or so, so thats a good ear!

Haha spelling is really not my strong suit. And being a "country boy" neither is talking really 😅😅😅😅

@@Paul-D All good buddy, I worry that some “modern men” don’t know that among men the goofing upon each other is the highest form of compliment.

Absolutely, anyone who thinks guitars wont sound different even if they're identical models either hasn't played enough guitars or is simply just not that interested/sensitive enough to it to notice haha. Same goes for valve amps no 2 are the same, more frustratingly the same amp is often different day to day too lol. Thanks for watching anyways :)

True when talking hollow body acoustic guitars. but when talking about different electonic magnetically wound pickups, you'd never know the difference. If I put a blindfold on you and played 5 different strats with the same 57/62 pickups you'd never not 1 time be able to tell me which one was maple cap which one was poplar etc the sound would be so miniscule its negligible. That argument is very strong in the world of acoustics but doesn't hold water in electric guitars 💯

@@ConditionZero76 You could not be more wrong. While I would agree that a person couldn't pick out the difference in fretboard material of a sample size of two, you damn well will hear a difference between guitar components. I've had bodies that sounded dead and necks that sounded dead. To suggest that there's no difference would mean that materials don't matter. Maybe not to your ear, but rest assured, they do.

@hawkgeoff Sorry, but this has been proven over and over at nauseum again and again!! Put the same pups "any" pups you prefer in 5 different solid body strats. Throw the blind fold on let someone play each strat, nor you or I can name what strats made of basswood or alter or maple etc etc its just reality we're humans not PC's. I'm not saying your an idiot or something its just like not even something to argue about. Understand Im not saying you couldn't tell the difference in texmex from 57/62 etc of course that's easy, but the best of best players on earth cant decipher the miniscule 1 to 2% of sound difference in material of the guitar blindfolded. Your eyes and mind will play tricks on you once the blindfold comes out everything changes. I've seen guys play multi thousand dollars strats up against $400 dollar CV's with the same pickups, and they had NO idea what was what, got everything wrong. The blindfold tells the story of woods when comparing the same pickups

I would never suggest that someone could listen to all 5 guitars and say, that's alder, that's ash etc. What I'm saying is that you will hear differences. Hearing a more lively guitar doesn't mean it's made of a particular wood... I suspect we agree on that, but if you A,B two different guitars with identical woods, necks, bridges, etc. you can hear a difference. That said, I'm not sayin that there's a shitton of difference, but I guarantee you will hear a gem vs a dog. My fav strat is a partscaster that was assembled after numerous body and neck combo tests. One body was dead... no sustain, no life in it. Others had different qualities. Go tell Eric he's full of crap. certain bodies are going to sound and pair better with certain necks. Fact. I suspect we're not that far off because you keep seeming to say that you can't identify are particular wood type. No arguement there, but you have to be able to admit that certain guitars, built to the exact same spec as others just sound better. @@ConditionZero76

and mics always brighten things up abit too, honestly in person they are quite a flubby pickup. I get its good for driven texas blues tones. but there are much nicer strat pups for sureeeee thanks for watching

Yeh man, i had the tex mex wound right down to the pickguard too pretty much to try and tame them abit

Do you find the extra tension of 11s to be a concern for the neck? I always find guitars with extra tension feel like they want to bend haha

@@Paul-D um kinda. Sp your neck should have a curve in it anyway else you'll have some wicked fret buzz...and yeah look I wouldn't advise changing a gauge unless: a- you know how to adjust the neck and bridge to compensate Or b: pay a professional to set it up. The cool pay off from using larger gauges is also stronger fingers

me too

Yeh totally right on the fat 50s for sure.

Thats the thing nailed on head there, everyone will hear things differently so you have to find what suits your ear and lets you enjoy the sound more to play

The 57/62 always a great shout. For something more budget friendly ive enjoyed quite alot of the tonerider pickups.

@@Paul-D they sound nice and warm, I don’t want to spend £200-250 on something to put in a lower end guitar but defo going for this sound was also looking at the vintera 60s and hot 60s too but they seem extinct in the UK at tho moment

If you like the 57/62 i would look for lower output the vintera 60s hot sound nothing like these ive had them and didnt last long haha

Which set did you prefer? I find the 57/62s hard to beat

@@Paul-DWhich ones for a current HH MIM strat to get RHCP and Frusciantie tones? A mix? what do you recommend?

@@strat_1880 i wouldnt be going HH at all for any frusciante or rhcp tones

I get most of mine from local supermarkets that for some reason sell fender tshirts haha

Im still using them now. The tex mex are long gone haha.

@@Paul-D what about say the 64 thru 69s.. are they muddier or clearer what's the deal ...

The other fender ones ive tried are the Pure 65s and the Classic 69s. I would say both were better than Texmex but the 57 / 62 keep coming on top for me time and time again. The only odd thing ive learnt since this video is guitars that came stock with Texmex (think old MIM roadworn Strats) sounded very different to the Texmex you buy off the shelf.

Thanks for getting back to me on this one, i was hoping so cause it will be much easier to get a set of them than hunt for those other ones it looked like.. but I looked at so many fender pups after your vid that I just can't remember if they being so hard to find on ebay if they were commanding huge prices.. you made it ez for me so thanks again.

Fairly certain this was just using the Katana. At the time until quite recent it was almost always the katana or Neural DSP plugins if recording late after work haha

You could do for sure. Remember the pots and other electronics too. Pickups are most of it, but all the other electronics do make a difference too 😃

100%

Yeh in person they were just hotter and abit bitey but did handle higher gain well.

@Paul-D ye they seem too bright for my ears and playing style . I appreciate you doing the comparison.....I'm gonna go with the 57/62s . Now Im trying to find out if theres a difference between original and pure vintage 57/62s, do you know ? Thanks Buddy

I did look into it a while back but forgot off top of my head - is it something to do with one is reverse wound middle and the other isnt?

@Paul-D oh ok, thanks. I'm coming up empty in my searches, but one way or another I'll hopefully figure it out. Thanks

For what its worth, mine were originals

It was PIO 0.05uf caps in that. Relatively speaking i spent a small fortune on the wiring a pickups on that guitar 😅

Well if you saved all the old stuff, you can replace it back to original when you wanna sell it.

From memory i think i used the neural dsp Plini amp plugin on this one. Up until recently it was always either the boss katana head into a marshall 212 or that. Recently its mostly my jubilee 20w haha

You will 🤘 There not bad pups just the 57/62 ive found to be better in shootouts time and time again, but yesterday i got some fat 50s to put against them, vid coming soon lol

@@Paul-D hell yeah thanks man, im putting in the pick guard tomorrow