Porter 1960's Strat Pickup Set - Parchment

While the Fender Stratocaster has been making hits since its introduction in 1954, players like Hendrix and Clapton really put it on the map and imprinted the "Strat tone" into our musical consciousness. In the 60's vintage guitars were not really a thing, and an endorsed player was more than happy to have a new guitar. 60's music was more often than not played on the 60's guitars. Plus if you smashed them or lit them on fire you needed a new one....not something you'll find Joe Bonamassa doing with his collection.

The Porter 1960's Strat set faithfully follows the CBS-era recipe of staggered Alnico 5 magnets, 5.5K-6.5K DC resistance, 42 gage wire and scatter winding. What is scatter winding? With a machine wound pickup, wire is automatically fed onto the spinning pickup bobbin in straight even layers. It's fast and efficient. But parallel wires carrying a current (guitar signal) can induce capacitance in the wires, which attenuates high frequencies and can make the pickup sound less lively. With a hand wound pickup, the operator feeds the wires onto the bobbin in more of a random pattern, and often a more loosely packed coil. The wrapping pattern of the wire is "scattered" and not neatly lined up. The lack of tightly stacked parallel wires reduces the capacitance effect, and the pickup will sound a little brighter and more airy (it also means there can be more variation between pickups). Back in the day scatter winding was a result of picking winding being mostly manual, and not an intentional practice to create the best tone. As boutique pickup makers unlocked some the magic of vintage pickups, scatter winding became a feature and not a bug. 

If you are chasing the scooped, glassy tone of 60's Strat pickups, the Porter 60's Strat set has cracked the code.