I am looking at a used 2008 MIA Deluxe that has had the pickups replaced with Custom Shop 65 pickups. Cool guitar

Does anyone have any experience with the CS 65s? What are they like, great????? Sound????

THx in advance

I have never used CS 65s but here is a very interesting article with sound clips:

http://areyouexperienced.net/fender_cus ... ckups.html

This guy goes into a lot of depth on why 65s may be one of the most different sounding; and maybe best sounding to some; strat pickups. They are different than the early 60s bell tones and go for a more piano/chorusy tone. They really nail Hendrix.

thx very much!

Do you have any audio clips out there for us to hear?

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DetroitBlues, I do not know whether you were asking me this or not...I am still saving up for a CS 1965 NOS...but the link I posted above has very nice sound clips.

Here is me playing my CS 65. Fast forward to about 3mins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkC2CzUPRHc

Here is my friend Joey playing one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhwH3NvQ ... re=related

Very nice Yogi, can you attest to the description of the 65s stated in the link above? Unfortunately youtube is not always the most true sounding. They are said to be more of a piano sound and a lot more unique sounding than the 50s and early 60s pickups, this seems to be the case in the sound files in the link but I just wanted another perspective.

I am looking at getting my first CS strat (a 65 NOS) and want to know as much information as possible.

Yeah I believe that is a good description of them. Very glassy, crisp and clear. Remind me sort of CS 69s but with a different flair to the voicing which I think may be attributed to the unique "Pink" copper wiring.

Here is a short song I was working on that I recorded with the CS 65 straight with a mic. Its just the Vibro Champ XD and the guitar. Never mind the awful singing

http://www.esnips.com/doc/a1064c05-e2e1 ... esongrough

I owned the pickups in this artical;

http://areyouexperienced.net/fender_cus ... ckups.html

The bridge was underwound so very weak but had a great sound if you did not mind weak bridge. The other two were normal 65 pickups. The wire used to wind that set was pink. Not the same as the old 70s or other 60s.

That said I also own a CS 65 which is nothing like those pickups. It has pickups that were wound to 65 specs but not like the set in that artical. I love the sound of my 65 CS.

Thomas

If the CS 65 pups sound anything like the pups in my original 65 then Acranfor's description is pretty accurate.My 65 has a clear almost bell like ring of a fine piano and as others stated sound nothing like the pups from the 50s and early 60s.The L series pups (62-65)to my ears were the best sounding of all the Strat pups,of course I've played L series Strats that had poor pups but when you got good ones they were beyond compare.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I have only experanced my cs 65 and the set of 65 cs in that demo website. They really were not anything alike. Two different bears.

The underwound bridge was not to my liking due to needing to get the pickup so close to the strings to get any signal. There was the problem of magnetic string pull effect before I could get to the sweet spot on that bridge pickup.

My 65 CS is strong. All three pickups have about the same ohms reading. They sound twangy in the bridge up to woody on the neck spot. A great guitar.

My 60s reissue CS is different but still wonderful.

My 69 CS is dark sounding. I think it is due to the wood used in the 69 CS. I loaded a set of Abby 50s in that 69 CS and it still was dark sounding. I ended up with a set of Abbys from the 300 set she wound back in the early 2002 or there about. That set also was dark but ended up sounding best in that guitar and that is where they stayed.

Thomas

So what you are saying is there are two variations of the 65 year spec pickups out there?

The link above stated that he had bought them from a person that gutted their CS 1965 strat so maybe Fender just changed the way they copied the sound of the original specs over time? You alluded to the fact that there is a difference in output. Naturally this changes the sound...Do the pickups in today's 1965 CS strats sound like those described in the "areyouexperienced" link?

I am just a little confused on why there would be two totally different sounding 65 reissue pickups since the point of them is to copy ONE sound of the original. (unless of course there were two different sounds/pickup versions originally in 1965)

I've been checking out the 60's CS Strats and I think I wanna go with a CS '65, where can I find one and what can I expect to pay? I saw one at Wildwood in Olympic White but it's a relic and I'm not into the whole relic thing...

I just wish I had local access to CS Strats but I'm not that lucky.

I,m not sure of what the deal was on the first set of 65 pickups I had. The wire color was the same as 1965, a pink, and the bobbins were correct. I would guess they were special order CS. My complete 65 CS seemed more to the norm of strats in general.

I was very happy with the clubby C neck of my 65 CS. The whole guitar was a different feel from the other custom shop models I have which include a 56, 69 and 60 but then they all are diffent from one another in many ways such as neck, body and pickups.