Two Vintage Staggered SSL-1s and the SSL-5 that started life in David Gilmour’s Black Strat finally come together as an official set, in a hand-built run of 500.
Only three of Seymour Duncan’s new 50th anniversary Strat sets are headed to Australia, which makes this one of the scarcest pickup releases of the year. The Custom Strat Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Custom Shop Set is hand-built by the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop in a single run of 500. It pairs two Vintage Staggered SSL-1 single coils with a Custom Staggered SSL-5 in the bridge. Players have been putting that combination into their own guitars for years, but the company has never sold it as an official set until now.
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The SSL-1 was Seymour’s first vintage-style pickup for the Strat. Early in his career he wanted the bright, chimey sound of a 1950s single coil to be within reach of everyday players, not only people who owned an original. He built it the way the old ones were made, with heavy Formvar wire, Alnico 5 magnets, hand-filed Forbon flatwork and a period-correct pole piece stagger. Seymour Duncan also says he was the first to offer a reverse wound, reverse polarity middle pickup for the Strat, which cancels hum in positions two and four.
The SSL-5 came from players asking for a hotter, fuller bridge pickup that could cut through a band mix and still sound like a single coil. Its original name was the SSL-1c, and the first one went to David Gilmour in 1979 for his Black Strat. It stayed in the bridge position from then on, and the design was later used in Fender Custom Shop’s 2008 David Gilmour Signature Stratocaster, a replica of the Black Strat.
Maricela “MJ” Juarez leads the Custom Shop team building the run, and many of its builders have spent decades at the company. Every set comes in its own 50th anniversary packaging with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Seymour and MJ.
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