Chicago Steel® for Strats

I have one of these directly mounted to the body of a thin line Tele in the bridge position. It sounds great for slide and mimicking pedal steel. Cranked up with a fuzz pedal is a sound like no other standard guitar!

This thing sounds amazing. I'm surprised that there aren't more reviews here or elsewhere online for the Strat version of this pickup. Though I liked a lot about my strat's (g&l legacy) stock bridge alnico, to get it working as a singing Ry Cooder/George Harrison slide style pickup required clicking on an eq pedal and compression. So, a lot of tap dancing to get to that holy grail sound I was pursuing. Now that sweet sound is just a selector switch flick away. Also, it's just a bit louder than the stock alnicos in the neck and bridge, and since it is beefier than a regular strat bridge pickup, it also kind of works as a boosted lead tone, jumping from say a chunky rhythm sound on the middle pickup to the Chicago Steel. No need to hit any foot switches. One last thing. While this thing is marketed towards slide players, it performs very well as a "non-slide" pickup. Sounds great clean and reacts well to just a little dirt for chording and just getting that gutsy P90 lead tone. And it blends well with the middle p/u (and neck, if you're wired that way with a toggle or push/pull) . With a volume pedal and some faux pedal steel licks in your arsenal you could fill in that spot in a country band. As with all P90s, especially over-wound p90s, this guy has a little 60 cycle hum when you add dirt and are in a less than optimal power situation, but it truly is negligible, and well worth the trade off. If you're on the fence on this guy, just do it! You won't be disappointed.