Late last night, my main Stratocaster underwent some unnecessary guitar surgery, as I went about replacing a set of Fender Hot "Noiseless" Strat® Pickups, with a set of Fender Custom '69 Strat® Pickups. I’m a big fan of the “hot” noiseless, for two reasons, first being they are noiseless and make recording in front of a computer a lot more tolerable, and second, they just sound fantastic – modern and full, with just the right amount of “quack” and bite. These are the same pickups as used in the current Jeff Beck Signature Stratocaster, and were specially designed by Jeff and Fender. Since I’m in the process of recording some new solo material, I thought I’d also take this opportunity to play around with the sound of my main guitar, "Sophi”, and swap the “hot noiseless” pick ups for a set of “Custom ‘69s” pick ups. I wanted something with some good “bite” as well as, a good clear, solid low end response. The CS 69s have that the perfect signature strat sound found on many recordings from 70’s and 80’s; sort of gritty, with a really nice breakup when you hit the strings harder. The low end comes through nice and clear, though the neck pickup seems to be a bitter warm that I prefer. One down side of the Custom 69s’ is that they aren’t noiseless, and now I have to deal once again with the 60 cycle hum factor. The other down side is that I prefer pickups with higher output, ala Lace Sensors or the Noiseless series. I am going to leave these in for the time being, as the dirty sound they have is perfect when mixed with a Marshal JCM 800 type amplifier.