While I was recently repairing the bridge pickup of a 1954 Strat he realised while sound testing this amazing instrument just how different the pickups from the period 1954/55 actually sound.
The guitars of this era had pickups with the so-called short magnet on the g string; they sound fundamentally different from instruments produced after 1956. Just think of Buddy Holly´s recordings from 1956 which were made using a ´55 Strat and a 1x15 Fender Pro Amp. But there are further remarkable examples of this different but also superb Strat sound of the early ´50s: Ronnie Wood´s but also Billy Gibbons´ legendary Hardtail Strats. This new perception was motivation enough for me to rethink the Strat pickups of the ´50s and develop new issues more inline with the characteristic sounds for the period. This marked the birth of the new Kloppmann Strat sets, the ST 54 and the ST 56.
The sound samples are from Rainer Gaffrey. To be heard are always the neck pickup, then the middle pickup followed by the bridge pickup and finally the neck pickup again. To get an even more detailed picture, I recommend visiting Rainer Gaffrey's site.
These pickups offer all the characteristics of the classical Strat sound: a bone-dry twang on the lower strings, punch in the midrange and just the right level of bite in the higher registers. So where have you heard this? Well, Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Vaughn and all the players of mapleneck Strats you can think of. That crisp, bold and swift attack – nothing for the faint of heart as all the nuances of the players´ technique are delivered with merciless candour. But the terrific sound of the ST 56 rewards all the guys who have their heart in the right place and for whom a handshake among pals is worth more than a thousand words.
ST 56 clean:
ST 56 crunch:
ST 56 driven:
... and yeah! This is a downright successful demo of the ST 54 Set from our finnish fellow Marko Karhu of Mad Professor Amplification. Marko is with the Ben Granfelt Band as guitarist on tour. During the last Tour 2015 he made a stop at Kloppmann-Electrics as customary, and as it happens sometimes, Marko and this Custom Shop ‘57 Stratocaster with this Kloppmann ST 54 Set fell in love and it was unavoidable, she had to go with him. Back in Finnland he made this video. Thanks to Marko for this awesome demo!
ST 54 clean:
ST 54 crunch:
ST 54 driven:
Here you can see a comparison video of Fabian Ratsak for the ST 56 and ST 54 Set.
The sound of the ST 54 is a revelation to all who live for the throaty and open sound but still favour a mild delivery. All Buddy Holly´s early recordings from “Love me” to “That´ll be the Day” are fine examples of the sound in question. A different reference covers the sounds in higher gain, overdrive mode: Reverend Billy Gibbons´ 1955 Hardtail Strat. The immortal solo on “La Grange” with its singing, slapping tone has just the right amount of midrange hit to capture the Reverend´s pinch harmonics. Or put another way with a further ZZ-Top title: I heard it on the X…
After 3 decades winding coils I have to say: Putting together Stratocaster pickups is the height of our art in this business. All the parameters have to fit, as experience shows there are just 11 variables which can make or break the task.
In my early years I was completely blown away by the sound of my ´62 Alder-bodied Strat. I wanted my ´65 Swamp Ash-bodied Strat to sound the same.This in retrospect rather wayward project did lead to 2 truly satisfying results: I learnt a lot about Strat pickups and then developed my first pickup set. The Real 62.
The sound samples are from Rainer Gaffrey. To be heard are always the neck pickup, then the middle pickup followed by the bridge pickup and finally the neck pickup again. To get an even more detailed picture, I recommend visiting Rainer Gaffrey's site.
Jimi Hendrix played a 1965 Strat both on „Are You Experienced“ but also at the definitive „Monterey Pop Festival“. This in itself is reason enough to salute the legendary sounds with my Real 65 Set. The pickups on Strats from the period Autumn ´64 to the end of ´66 sounded milder and warmer with a more reserved presentation of Strat highs. This was the result of the Plain Enamel Wire with which the pickups were wound.
ST Real 65 clean:
ST Real 65 crunch:
ST Real 65 driven:
My ´62 Stratocaster was my absolute favourite for many years and it is no surprise that my first Strat set should bear the name Real 62. These pickups are clean but fat and warm, they have much milder highs than the ST 60s but lose none of the pre-CBS shine. George Harrison bought an early ´60s Strat towards the end of 1964. This guitar war played on both the Help and Rubber Soul albums. From 1969 Harrison used his “Rocky” Strat for his crystal-clear, sweetly slide licks as on My Sweet Lord. If you savour these sounds of the early ´60s, you can´t ignore the Real 62 Set. As with all my other sets, it comes as purist straight or with the reversed middle pickup.
ST 60 clean:
ST 60 crunch:
ST 60 driven:
The ST 67 set represents the sounds of the period from 1966 to 1973. The legendary pickups on Jimi Hendrix´ Strat sang at the famous Woodstock Festival. As a homage to Hendrix, Gilmour, Blackmore and Yngwie Malmsteen, the ST 67 set is my reference. The sound has that touch of Telecaster bite which made them so distinctively dynamic and poweful, driving the hugely powerful amps of the period, Marshall Plexi, Fender Twin/Showman or HiWatt 100.
ST 67 clean:
ST 67 crunch:
ST 67 driven:
ST Real 62 clean:
ST Real 62 crunch:
ST Real 62 driven:
The ST 60 set is a true bestseller product. It is the perfect all round set and a homage to the best pickups on the famous Strats of the early sixties with their Rosewood fingerboards. The ST 60 covers all the bases allowing you to rock to the tones of Ricky King, Hank Marvin, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler and even SRV. This is your perfect partner, staying well defined and offering excellent string separation even in highgain, compressed passages. As the Three Musketeers would have it: One for All !
Arrange your own SSH Set for your Strat with our Stratocaster Pickups and our PAF Humbuckers.
In the late 80s Thomas Blug was having a number of his vintage Marshalls serviced by the amp guru, Manfred Reckmeyer. But he was also looking for someone with an inroad to pickups. Master Reckmeyer had the answer: “Talk to Andreas Kloppmann, he knows what´s best!”. Shortly after that Thomas and I met.
Over the years Thomas and I have learned to appreciate each others knowledge and experience over endless discussions and analyses of old Strat pickups and how they compare to the curves my creations produce. The highpoint of our relationship was reached in the early 90s when I mounted a bespoke mid pickup on his beloved ´61 Strat. Since then this pickup has not once left its designated harbour. Thomas and I have continued our exchanges on guitars, pickups, capacitors and amps over the past 25 years, thereby cementing our respect and friendship for one another. Thomas´s experience and advice but also his tireless campaign supporting my pickups are major contributors to the international acclaim Kloppmann Electrics now enjoys.
During the testing of the Blug Signature Guitar, Thomas tried out my new Real 65 Set in one of the prototypes. He was blown-away by the typical mid´60s tone and promptly combined the neck and bridge pickup from the set with his rewired 1966 middle pickup. In doing so, the ST Blug II Set was created for his new project. The set was further fine-tuned and Thomas described it as follows: “My typical Strat neck pickup sound harmonizes perfectly with the beautifully mild bridge pickup and fantastic pearly sound can be produced in the positions 2 and 4”.
ST Blug I:
Thomas Blug was instrumental in my decision to develop my own Dummy Coil (DC). So what is a Dummy Coil? Well, I´ll have to get a little technical now: The Coil picks up the same interference as a normal Strat pickup. This is then serially mixed with pickup signal but with alternative phase. The disturbance is then materially reduced. The tone is more stable and smoother, which is hugely beneficial in high-gain sounds. Thomas uses the DC as much as a filter as a hum-reducer to create his sounds. Put in a less than technical manner: it sounds great and doesn´t hum!
At the end of the 80s Thomas Blug was on the lookout for the optimum middle pickup for his ´61 Strat. The studio projects of that time were driven by the intermediate 2 and 4 positions but the ´61 Strat´s middle pickup did not offer enough incisiveness to the tone. Thomas soon found an original 1966 Strat pickup which covered his needs and had me reproduce one as a RWRP version in 1993. In the meantime, Thomas has been named Best Strat Player in Europe with his individual tone being his trademark. The ST Blug Set consist of a replica 1960 neck pickup, the 1966 middle pickup and a 1962 bridge pickup.
Award winning guitarist Marcus Deml has a worldwide following of fans and music lovers based on his work with “Errorhead“ and now with „The Blue Poets“ A big part of the attraction is his larger than life Stratocaster tone to which I have been honored to contribute.
We have been working together since the „Modern Hippie“ album in 2008. This cooperation resulted in the Errorhead set which is in Marcus´s opinion probably the best balanced HSS set on the market.
The new „Blue Poet“ ST-Set provides all the sounds and nuances of a vintage Stratocaster pickup set with the advantage of a special voiced bridge pick-up capable of both screaming and whispering. It performs beautifully with the entire tones range from crystal clean through crunch to high gain. Once again special attention was given to the balance of each of the 5 positions. An extra blend pot for hum cancelling – a must-have for Marcus – is also an attractive option for the Blue Poet Set.
Blue Poet Set clean:
Blue Poet Set crunch:
Blue Poet Set driven:
For Marcus‘ black Strat with HSS configuration (bridge humbucker and single coils) the two sound doctors, Deml and Kloppmann developed a special set: with the singlecoils from the Real 62 Strat set and a special new humbucker, the HB-DML.The Real 62 Strat pickups sound fatter and earthier than the ST60 set.The HB-DML has a coilsplit and offers the best of both worlds. While displaying all the biting legendary Kloppmann humbucker drive, the singlecoil has the true, authoritative Strat tone.
This pickup was a custom made homework for my friend Till Hoheneder, a German musician, comedian & author. He wanted to have a typical Strat bridge pickup with the gain and midrange of a good Telecaster bridge pickup in order to compensate the loss of gain when changing from his Esquire to his Strat during a set. Mission impossible? So I came up with the ST60 Tillcaster bridge pickup: Although slightly overwound it´s sonically a typical Kloppmann! Gainy with a chimey top end, punchy and dirty – but always with clarity, definition and superb string seperation! And the best: the ST Tillcaster has not lost his Strat identity. A perfect choice for fans of Billy Gibbons or Keith Richards and a best kept secret for Hardtail Strats.
ST Real 62 Tillcaster clean:
ST Real 62 Tillcaster crunch:
ST Real 62 Tillcaster driven:
Till Hoheneder - Author (u. a. für Comedians, Fernsehen & Film, Stern Online), Musician (Till & Die Altobellis / Hausband für Atzes Sommer / Ex Till & Obel) and Comedian (Qutasch Comedy Club / Schillerstraße / Genial daneben / Nightwash / Samstag Nacht / Lachen verboten u.v.m.)
Oh yes, it´s Stratty alright! I has all the bite and honk in the mid positions, but something is different. Till Hoheneders Tillcaster Set cries out loud and clear: “Lean, mean and DIRTY!“. Lean, mean and dirty! The young Gary Moore springs to mind… John Frusciante and all those who like a shot of dirt in their Strat sound. These guys all like to go straight into their amps and control the dynamics with the pickups, the stroke of their picks and the volume control. But one more thing is still on here: the Tillcaster Set can also play clean! Other pickups might sound finer and more elegant but if you have fallen in love with this radiant and completely filthy little rowdy you won´t look any further than the Real 62 Tillcaster!