The loaded Strat pickguards in the vintage Schecter style have been available in brass and white aluminium for a while now, but from now on they are also available in black aluminium. You can chose between two versions: with the VFS-1 or the F500T-style pickups. As both are tapped pickups (two different sounds for each pickup), you will get 26 different pickup combinations and thus 26 different sounds.

The black ones are otherwise identical to the white version and have the same burnt-in enamel coating , the same high-quality toggle switches, the same extended-life quality potis, and of course the same sound. You can choose between three different metal knobs: chrome, gold, or black. The price is the same as for the white ones.

More info and more pictures in the mk-guitar.com online shop:
with Schecter-style pickups
with VFS-1 pickups

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Related articles

• Inside the Schecter F500T pick-up – What is a tapped pick-up?
• First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard
• How close is the VFS-1 Pickup to the Original Fender Vintage and the DiMarzio FS-1?
• The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards
• Demoing pickup combinations of the Schecter style pickguards
• Limited Alchemy Edition of the white Schecter pickguard

After the last video in which I already  compared the VFS-1 pickup to a 1955 Fender Strat pickup and to the DiMarzio FS-1, here is a first demo of the complete Schecter-style pickguard with the VFS-1 pickups. I was jamming in the Mark Knopfler style over a self-produced 2 chords backing groove on my metallic pink Strat, which is mainly a 1983 Japanese vintage Squier but with a new bird’s eye maple neck. You are hearing the combination of neck & middle pickups, the switches are in the up position (tapped coil). More demos of others of the 26 possible sound combinations will follow.

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Related articles

• The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards
• How close is the VFS-1 Pickup to the Original Fender Vintage and the DiMarzio FS-1?
• Demoing pickup combinations of the Schecter style pickguards
• Limited Alchemy Edition of the white Schecter pickguard
• White Aluminium Schecter-style pickguards now available
• Schecter-style loaded pickguard now shipping

Our loaded metal pickguards are now available with a new pick-up model: the VFS-1. V stands for vintage, F for fat, (and S for Strat).

Unlike our Schecter-style pick-up (which is very close to a Schecter F500T), the new pick-up has the “normal” sized magnet pole pieces, like a vintage Strat pick-up, and can be used with a plastic cap (the F500Ts do not allow to put a cap on them). So it looks and sounds similar to the Seymour Duncan SSL1s or APS-1 that Mark Knopfler played in his red Schecter dream machine Strat. But that’s not all, the VFS-1 has also a second outer coil to create  fatter sounds, similar to the DiMarzio FS-1 that Mark Knopfler played in his red Fender of early Dire Straits days.

In other words, the new tapped pick-up allows two sounds that can be toggled with the up/off/down mini switches of our pickguards. You will have the same 27 sound combinations from the three mini switches as with the F500T pick-ups. In the up-position of the mini switch the sound will be  much closer to the vintage Strat sound than the thinner but bassier  sound of the F500T.

The new pick-up is also ideal for all who would like to have a DiMarzio FS-1 in the neck position of their Strat for those Single-Handed-Sailor sounds but do not want to lose the normal Strat sound. You can e.g. switch the outer coil on or off with a push-pull poti (available here) so that the overall look of the original Strat is not changed.

The price of this pick-up is the same as of our F500T-style pickups, and the loaded pickguard also costs the same as with the old type (which of course will also remain available). Sound demo clips coming soon. [edit:  here is one which A/B compares the VFS-1 to both a 1955 Strat pickup and to a DiMarzio FS-1, more to come]

See the VFS-1 in our shop.

"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

Related articles

• First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard
• How close is the VFS-1 Pickup to the Original Fender Vintage and the DiMarzio FS-1?
• Demoing pickup combinations of the Schecter style pickguards
• Limited Alchemy Edition of the white Schecter pickguard
• White Aluminium Schecter-style pickguards now available
• Schecter-style loaded pickguard now shipping

Here is a youtube video that demonstrates some of the 36 possible pick-up combinations of our loaded Schecter-style pickguards. Each pick-up can be switched to the full or tapped coil which means a fat sound or a vintage-like sound. This way you will not only get new combinations that are not possible with the standard 5-way switch like bridge & neck or all three PUs, but you can also mix full and half pick-ups in any combination.

The guitar is my old Japanese JV Squier, over a brown Fender Vibrolux amp, no effects except some reverb.

 

"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

Related articles

• First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard
• The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards
• Limited Alchemy Edition of the white Schecter pickguard
• White Aluminium Schecter-style pickguards now available
• Schecter-style loaded pickguard now shipping
• MK-Guitar.com presents: Loaded Schecter F400-style pickguard

The family of the loaded Schecter-style pickguard – currently available in white aluminium and brass with tapped F500T-style pick-ups – got a new member: A pickguard with a pick-up configuration just like in Mark Knopfler’s red Schecter Strat in the early 80ies – thus the name Alchemy Edition. For now it is a really limited edition of just a few – so if  this is what you always wanted better don’t wait too long ( I try but at the moment I cannot promise if I can make these availabe in the future again).

The pick-ups are three Seymour Duncan SSL1 with white caps just like on Knopfler’s red Dream Machine (that’s the name for those Schecter Strats), everything else is as in the normal version. Note that these are non-tapped pick-ups which means those mini switches are on in the down position and off in the up and middle position (just like in Knopfler’s guitar).

More  pictures and more info

Related articles

• First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard
• The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards
• Demoing pickup combinations of the Schecter style pickguards
• White Aluminium Schecter-style pickguards now available
• Schecter-style loaded pickguard now shipping
• MK-Guitar.com presents: Loaded Schecter F400-style pickguard

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