OilCity 'Masterwound' Route 66 Strat pickups

Samgb

A craftsman at work! I love these type of posts Ash. Brilliant.

Roland

Ditto

PVO_Dave

Excuse the dodgy playing, but everything is wired in and working as it should, quick demo here:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/810702/#Comment_810702

Basher

@PVO_Dave - great demo, nothing dodgy there. 

They sound very "rounded" and focussed without the harsh glassiness that some sets have. That said there's plenty of clarity so nothing overwound or muddy sounding about them. I could imagine these being great for classic rock in the Blackmore / Gallagher vein. Loads of fat power from that neck pickup and the bridge having powerful mids without the scratchy overtones some have.

I have a naturally quite bright ash bodied strat that I bet these would sound great in! 

OilCityPickups

I had a set of dead 66 Strat pickups to analyse and measure some while ago. When they were live they sounded great ... the owner had recordings of them, so they were carefully unwrapped and the turns counted ... a bastard of a job ,,,, as the decayed wire kept breaking. They turned out to be a smidge hotter than some of the learned books and gurus say they should be. Not by much, but enough to just thicken them a tad. I put it down to occasional operator error in the Fullerton factory. I rewound those and kept the spec. I have the second and prototype route 66 set in my own 'The Bastard' Strat, with reverse stagger poles.

A few more turns were added to the bridge for balance and modern tastes. 

This is perhaps my favorite Strat set I have made to date

:-)

ThorpyFX

Ok so i treated myself to a set of these pickups..... They have been put in a Cady Apple red Mex strat. Now previously that strat had the factory fitted custom shop fat sixties pickups but with the bridge swapped out for a Bareknuckle trilogy as i needed something a bit hotter. Having got a dave murray strat, i dont need the CAR strat to be aggressive. So the Route 66 pickups have gone into the guitar.

First off, the pickups look class, love the bevelling and love the vintage look. My bridge was fitted with a steel baseplate for a bit of added grunt and focus (for my taste) They fit easily into the strat, wire up nicely too.

The important bit, how do they sound? EPIC in a word, smooth warm, but clear too. powerful and jangly in the inbetween settings. All of the superlatives fit here. The neck and middle pickups sound creamy and so articulate. The bridge cuts through but without the icepick attack I hate of lots of other strat pickups.

Ash has knocked these out of the park. Give a set a go- you will not be disappointed.

PVO_Dave

ThorpyFX said:

Ok so i treated myself to a set of these pickups..... They have been put in a Cady Apple red Mex strat. Now previously that strat had the factory fitted custom shop fat sixties pickups but with the bridge swapped out for a Bareknuckle trilogy as i needed something a bit hotter. Having got a dave murray strat, i dont need the CAR strat to be aggressive. So the Route 66 pickups have gone into the guitar.

First off, the pickups look class, love the bevelling and love the vintage look. My bridge was fitted with a steel baseplate for a bit of added grunt and focus (for my taste) They fit easily into the strat, wire up nicely too.

The important bit, how do they sound? EPIC in a word, smooth warm, but clear too. powerful and jangly in the inbetween settings. All of the superlatives fit here. The neck and middle pickups sound creamy and so articulate. The bridge cuts through but without the icepick attack I hate of lots of other strat pickups.

Ash has knocked these out of the park. Give a set a go- you will not be disappointed.

Very happy with my set, glad you are too!

pickerg

Wow! Looks and sounds great. Amazing craftsmanship and attention to detail. I love UK hand-built stuff, any new Masterwound tele pickups in development?

ThePrettyDamned

pickerg;820521" said:

Wow! Looks and sounds great. Amazing craftsmanship and attention to detail. I love UK hand-built stuff, any new Masterwound tele pickups in development?

I've got a masterwound tele set, which is designed for sheer utter power.

I've wired them in and quickly put a cheap nut on and even though the action isn't amazing, by god do these scream.

Actually quite happy for classic metal, but excel at modern djent and tech metal styles which have a lot of upper mid/treble content for clarity at high gain across complex chords. I've whacked out some protest the hero on it, and it's excellent for it. I've not noticed hum either, but I'm used to running single coils and don't use hefty amounts of gain for my crunch sounds.

Clean, they're lovely. Bright but warm, and very very clear. The bridge is twangy too, much more so than the calibre 53 bridge pickup I've got in my strat. So it does have a very "tele" voicing.

It won't do that huge, thick, roaring saturated crunch you hear on trivium records quite so well as humbucker pickups, but that's why we buy humbuggies! Instead, these are probably the wet dream of rock, fusion, country (seriously) and alternative, fuzzy rock pickup.

All of this is very preliminary - the guitar is going to @felineguitars for a set up and proper nut in November, so I'll give a more in depth review then. But in short, yes, masterwound is coming to tele. And it's very loud

ThePrettyDamned

@theguitarweasel I hope you don't mind me posting initial thoughts?

FelineGuitars

pickerg said:

Wow! Looks and sounds great. Amazing craftsmanship and attention to detail. I love UK hand-built stuff, any new Masterwound tele pickups in development?

There are already a bunch of Oil City Masterwound designs in existence  and we have them all in stock .

These are the humbuckers in the range which Ash designed with my collaboration in terms of choosing specs etc

I have them listed on my site (although I need to update the page to reflect the change in name from ASL to Oil City Masterwound)

http://www.felineguitars.com/upgrades/pickups/ASL.html

OilCityPickups

FelineGuitars said:

pickerg said:

Wow! Looks and sounds great. Amazing craftsmanship and attention to detail. I love UK hand-built stuff, any new Masterwound tele pickups in development?

There are already a bunch of Oil City Masterwound designs in existence  and we have them all in stock .

These are the humbuckers in the range which Ash designed with my collaboration in terms of choosing specs etc

I have them listed on my site (although I need to update the page to reflect the change in name from ASL to Oil City Masterwound)

http://www.felineguitars.com/upgrades/pickups/ASL.html

Lol you have preempted my strike Jonathan, ASL designs are in the process of being taken in under the Masterwound umbrella, and as the man says he already has lots of my designs in stock! There are also some new options that I am taking on board to make the humbucker range among the finest you can buy. True 59 pattern covers for the PAF inspired Masterwound series, relic covers ... and butyrate bobbins will all be available for those who want total authenticity.

The old 'ASL' site will be taken into the Oil City site to make updates and news easier to sort out for me, and lots more goodies will be available.

I will try and get this sorted as quickly as I can, but I am running short staffed at the moment as my assistant Katie has moved on to pastures new. 

pickerg

Great cheers I'll check them out.

DefaultM

I was certain that I went on your website the other day and the masterwound pickups were listed and you had the option of gold covers for humbuckers? Am I going mad? Now I can't find any gold covered options at all on the site.

DefaultM

Nope been through the whole site and no idea what I was looking at, but I'm sure there were some humbuckers that interested me and they had gold covers.

OilCityPickups

Normally gold covers are an option I quote for ... so I paypal invoice for the adjusted amount. I am trying to get the site updated for all the options, but it;'s a long process ... just ask via PM and you shall get!