Stratafied
Dr. Stratster
What exactly are they, and how do they sound?
Scooped pickups.
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Butcher of Strats
Senior Stratmaster
I dont hear "them" (low wind Strat pickups) as scooped, but more winds adds bass & mids and reduces highs so scooped is the opposite of more bass & mids with less highs.
The reason i dont hear that as scooped is that for one thing its more low mids that are added by a hotter coil, and if you play a low wind Strat neck pickup through any amp you hear normal nice mids, not all treble & bass with scooped mids.
Low wind Strat bridge tone lacks bass, and scooped tone is predominantly treble & bass, so lacking bass is not really scooped mids, more like emphasized highs.
The reason i dont hear that as scooped is that for one thing its more low mids that are added by a hotter coil, and if you play a low wind Strat neck pickup through any amp you hear normal nice mids, not all treble & bass with scooped mids.
Low wind Strat bridge tone lacks bass, and scooped tone is predominantly treble & bass, so lacking bass is not really scooped mids, more like emphasized highs.
Stratafied
Dr. Stratster
Are they warmer?
Butcher of Strats
Senior Stratmaster
Warmer to me is more bass and less treble.
A low wind Strat neck pickup certainly sounds warm, but not really more warm than a hotter more bassy less bright Strat neck pickup.
But again, how i hear a hot over wound Strat neck pickup is maybe muddy and bassy.
Same two pickups (one low wind and one hot over wound) in the bridge position where you get less bass, the hotter pickup will indeed sound warmer, rather than muddy and bassy.
Thats why commonly a Strat set is calibrated, with something like 6.4k bridge, 5.9k middle, and 5.7k neck, assuming all same 42awg wire gauge. That ensures the neck isnt too bassy and the bridge isnt too shrill but they all sound clasdic Stratty as in clear bright classic Strat tones.
StratUp
Most Honored Senior Member
No, scooped is a lot more treble. Not warm. Think Fender Twin sound.
You can simulate scooped or boosted with the EQ on your amp (assuming you have bass, mid, treble). But, it's limited by the amp. A mid scooped amp might only get to "flat" with the treble and the bass all the way down and the mids all the way up. Same for a mid-boosted amp, in the other direction. But the extremes should give you a feel for it either way.
Edit: An EQ pedal, if you have one, is even better for this testing.
Stratafied
Dr. Stratster
Would ceramic pickups be considered hot.
When I play something that has scooped pickups I have to turn my treble way down on my DR. That's what they sound like.
Stratafied
Dr. Stratster
Definitely not for me !
I think a Fender DR is kind of a scooped tone stack in the first place.
That depends on how it's wound.
The type of magnet does not determine how hot a pickup is.
Butcher of Strats
Senior Stratmaster
The only pickups I see refererrd to as scooped are Strat pickups, and specifically vintage spec low wind low output.
As @Ebidis said, the magnet material doesnt make a pickup low or high output, hot or weak, and doesnt really have anything to do with the EQ.
Could be though that certain cheap ceramic magnet Strat pickups have a fairly hot coil.
Really, when the internet says scooped about Strat pickups it means bright.
What a Strat coil wound hot enough to reduce highs and boost mids creates is a mid humped tone that gets nasal as you make it still hotter.
So a stock vintage Strat coil wind is really more like flat EQ than scooed mids EQ.
Many players are also using amps with scooped mids like all the Fender RI reverb amps. So they take a flat EQ puckup and amplify it through a scooped mids amp, then say the pickup has scopped mids when its really the amp.
But even then, listen to any proper vintage style Strat using the neck pickup and run through a PRRI or DRRI.
Do the mids sound scooped in that the tone is all treble and bass?
Or does a Strat neck pickup through a DRRI sound fat?
Further consider that any bridge pickup needs to be hotter than the neck pickup its paired with to sound full and fat at amp settings that work with a given neck pickup.
Set your DRRI for a neck PAF to sound fat and not too bassy, then switch to an identical PAF bridge pickup, and it will sound too bright too. So the tone or EQ of a pickup also depends on where its mounted and how the amp EQ is set.
Yet a PAF is
If you're bridge pickup has it's own dedicated tone pot, then this is a non issue.
Butcher of Strats
Senior Stratmaster
Well right, and many players are fine with that solution.
For decades all guitars had the same bridge & neck pickups, except the Telecaster of course.
I vastly prefer the bridge pickup to have a tone i like, over cutting treble on an overly bright bridge pickup.
Both methods work though.
