In 1999, a reputable guitar builder made me a Stratocaster guitar (with my name and as my signature model). As for the first pickups, I put a Fender Lace Sensor Gold – Eric Clapton combination, with active electronics and middle boost. After a while I decided that that sound didn't suit me. Next I bought Fender Hot Noiseless pickups which were too muddy for my taste. Later on I experimented with Fender Texas Special pickup swhich, on the contrary, were too bright for my taste, so the next step was putting the DiMarzio Superdistortion in the bridge position. For the past few years, I've been playing Seymour Duncan SSL-6 (bridge) and SSL-2 (middle and neck) pickups, but I wasn't completely satisfied with either of those combinations.
A couple of months ago I saw on YouTube guitarist Frankie Lindia demonstrating the Steve Lukather EMG SLVX Set BK. Since I no longer wanted a humbucker for the bridge position, this seemed like a possible solution. I hesitated between the EMG DG20 David Gilmour pickups and these, but then I decided that the Lukather sound is more versatile and practically what I needed.
After returning from my guitar tech who changed the pickups in my Strat, I couldn't hide my delight: it was exactly the sound I wanted - rich enough in the bridge position to be thicker than a classic single coil, but significantly less muddy, cleaner and clearer than humbucker, no matter if I played clean sound or drive and with the best possible ratio of high end, bottom end and everything in between (in the middle). In other positions, the pickups also sound great, positions 2 and 4 are clearer than passive pickups, and the sound is equally deep and high, while position 5 (neck) is much better than any pickup I've had installed in a guitar so far, which means better than original Fender or any other pickup brand I had a chance to deal with.
All in all, if you want to upgrade your guitar in such a way that you get a modern instrument but without giving up the vintage sound characteristics, I really don't see a better solution on the market. Well done, EMG! It's the sound I've been looking for all my life! It was worth waiting a quarter of a century! :-)))
