I have a 60th Anniversary Strat which I purchased new in May 2006. It has over wound Tex Mex pickups. I don't like the pickups. Everything sounds flat and out of tune. I play rhythm guitar mostly. the pickups are ok if you play progressive lead or heavy metal, but I play country and 60's rock.
I know I can get a set old vintage 60's pickups, but I have another desire.
In the early 60's I was in junior high school and learned to play guitar. I got a Sears Silvertone 1478 Silhouette 2 pickup electric solid body.
I recently found out that some people believe that that guitar had the one of the best sounds ever made. I, also, had the 60 watt 1484 Silvertone Twin 12 amp. Some say that was the best amp ever made. I found a guy in lower New York state who has 100 of these amps to restore. He is making one for me now. I found where I can still get one of these guitars, but some aren't 100%. You can go to Youtube and hear the guitar and amp being played, which makes it more painful to me that I had sell my stuff to get money for college in 1969.
The pickups in my old guitar (which looked like a Fender Jaguar) were made by DeArmond Company. the old Silvertone had a beautiful sound, a perfect tone with no twang or oscillating sound. Does anyone know if any pickups are made for a Strat which can have that same sound? Go to Youtube and hear if, then, tell me if you know of anything that now has that same sound. There are several videos. Check out more than one first.
I'd like to get a set of pickups to fit my 60 Anniv. Strat to get that same sound. If I can't find any I'll settle for 60's Vintage pickups. (By the way the old Silvertone guitar and the Twin 12 amp were copying Fender Jaguar guitar and amps. The guitar was made by Harmony and the amp was made by Danelectro.)

Dan Beyer

Sounds like you have your pickups set too close to the strings. Try lowering them a millimeter or two then plug in and play for a while to see how they respond.

HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

I recently posted a problem I had with my 60th Anniv. Strat. MIM. It has overwound TexMex pickups on it and everything sounded flat even when tuned up properly.
I got 2 replies on the post. They were helpful. I resolved the problem with an investment of 0$ and just an hour of time.
I first lowered the pickups all the way down with the set screws on the front of the pick guard. That made it worse. then, I raised the pickups up to various levels and settled on 3/16" from the pickup cover top to the strings.
Then all I had to do to eliminate the flat sound is adjust the amp settings.
I set the bass between 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock, the midrange around 12 o'clock and the treble about the same as the bass. I had to adjust these settings slightly between my 3 amps, but the above will work on most amps.
I, also, set the two tone controls on the guitar at either 5 or 10. At 10 the strings are very active and you can hear every nuance which is good for lead, but may not be good for rhythm, since and variation in the strum stands out like a sore thumb. However, when the guitar controls are set at 5 the guitar is more forgiving and the rhythm fits in more with the rest of the music. You can, also, adjust the guitar's volume control to your ear. This procedure eliminated all of the flat sound.
Someone else posted a similar problem and replaced his pickups with 60's but still didn't like the sound. If you see this post try my solution. It works for me.
You really don't have to change the pickups. I was really frustrated since no one had the definite solution. No one would even state that 60's pickups would solve the problem and get the flat sound out. In the end the pickups weren't the problem.
I was searching the Net for different pickups and stumbled onto a web site www.BuildYourGuitar.com/. There was an article called The Secrets of Electric Guitar Pickups written by Helmuth E. W. Lemme. He is suppose to be the World's best Guru on capacitors, which is what a pickup is.
The bottom line is any pickup will sound different on different guitars. the entire system from the Guitar body, the electronics, the pickups, even down to the guitar amp cable and guitar and amp settings will make a difference. He says there is a common problem with Strats he calls Stratitis when the pickups are too close to the strings. This will shift the harmonics so they are no longer exact multiples of the fundamental frequency. If this variation is small it can sound good , but if too large it will sound terrible. Moving the pickups a little farther from the strings solves the problem. I moved my pickups on my Strat before I measured them, so I don't know how they were set up from the factory. Of course adjusting the action on the guitar will, also, mess this up. But on my Strat 3/16" is the sweet spot.
I hope this helps someone.

Note: On any electric or acoustical electric guitar, setting the tone controls the same at either 1/2 or full allows the guitar to output its unique tonal qualities that the builder intended. This allows the guitar to sound its best. Adjusting the amp controls will tweak the sound to suit your style or ear. If you mess around with variating the tone controls and the amp controls you can get into a situation where the conflicting controls are canceling or disrupting the good sound and can make a good instrument or amp sound terrible. If you are testing amps use the same guitar at the same guitar settings. If you are testing guitars, always use the same amp with the same amp settings. This will allow you to compare apples with apples. Do this first, then adjust from there. Since sound is subjective, each one has to adjust or fine tune to suit his ear.

That's cool dbeyer, good job. Just wanted to point out that a guitar pickup is an inductor (coil), NOT a capacitor. Nice website too, great info.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.