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A description of what makes my “Tui” pickup for Strat different.
I’ve wound a lot of Strat pickups since I started in 1995. I started off re-winding cheap pickups and then moved on to repairing old dead Fender pickups. Every experiment was written down in a notebook with tone comments. Back when I started there wasn’t much information available so there was a lot of reverse engineering and a lot of trying things out. That learning time was invaluable to developing instinct for how to change the sound of a pickup. I’ve still got the note book and I’m still adding to it.
The Bellbird vintage Strat pickups are a vintage voiced strat pickup strongly influenced by the pre-CBS Fenders of the early 60’s. Clear and chiming, low powered and pure. Suitable for a huge range of styles, ideal for that traditional tone.
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Bellbird vintage Strat pickups demos
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The Stratocaster has been around since 1954 and the legend continues. Reading the internet (!?) tells me there have been good and bad years or decades, guitars to avoid and ones worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve been repairing guitars since 1995 so I’ve played a lot of old Strats and analyzed a lot of old pickups. Vintage pickups aren’t all great but the good ones are fantastic.
In the 90’s there were a lot of old Fender pickups around and they were cheap back then. I got to work on and repair so many vintage pickups. There was very little available information so I had to figure everything out. Looking back I think it was such a good way to develop an instinct as to how to get a great sound. With all the old spec now available I’ve really enjoyed topping up my knowledge.
I’ve become a huge fan of the L series Strats. Every one I’ve played (particularly ’63’s) have been great guitars. It’s just a shame they’re so expensive now and very few of them get played at gigs.
I’ve based my Bellbird vintage Strat pickups on the best of the old pickups I’ve had the pleasure of playing through and studying. So I use AWG42 heavy formvar insulated wire – there’s something about the thickness of that insulation that just works with an old Strat pickup.
I’ve aimed for that old quacking chime that makes Strats wonderfully percussive but with a singing quality that’s so musical. Warm and clear with beautiful almost reverb-like clean tones – that’s what I want out of an old Strat. The neck pickup sound needs to be fat, round and clear, the middle pickup needs to quack and the bridge a cut through twang without thinness. The all important ‘in between’ sounds in positions 2 and 4 must be balanced and characterful. Nothing says Strat more than these sounds.
Bellbird Neck Pickup
The neck pickup on a Strat is the ‘go to’ setting for a lot of Strat players. In designing this set I realised this is what I had to get right first. In using heavy formvar insulated wire I’ve kept to tradition. I use heavy bevel alnico V magnets with my own custom stagger to suit modern string gauges.
Bellbird Middle Pickup
I love the quack of Strat middle pickups. I’ve worked hard to achieve that distinctive middle tone. There’s something great in that sound. The magnets are so important in achieving just the right percussive snap without harshness. The other factor with middle pickups is how they work alongside the neck and bridge pickups. Those all important in between sounds are the essence of Stratocasters. The Bellbird middle pickup is the ideal partner for both neck and bridge.
Bellbird Bridge Pickup
On the original early 60’s pickups all 3 were wound the same. I’ve chosen to give the bridge pickup a little extra, more like a late 70’s Strat Pickup. I want to reduce the ping of the attack and add a little more bottom end to make the bridge pickup more usable. I feel that makes this pickup set more suited to the modern player.
Under or Over Wound
At the checkout I have given you the option of having your Bellbirds under wound or overwound by 5%, or overwound by 10% as well as the standard wind. I don’t offer this for all pickups but the Bellbird is an equally good pickup in any of the 3 options. The early Fenders often varied within this range.
Standard Wind
The standard wind is the closest to the early 60’s Fenders. This is my personal favourite and all the demos are of the standard wind
Minus 5%
The minus 5% wind is for players wanting a super clean Strat sound. It has very clear treble and a little less bass than the standard wind. Suited to a very clean sound
Plus 5%
The extra 5% of windings gives a little more bass and slightly smoother treble along with that bit of extra power.
The Bellbird vintage Strat pickups has been designed mainly for clean tones but they’re certainly not afraid to perform with a bit of gain or fuzz. As part of a HSS set they’re great with one of my ‘Integrity’ humbuckers in the bridge position.
I agonised for months over names for my Strat pickup sets then during a camping trip to Tauwharanui Regional Park I heard my first Bellbird and realised that was the sound I had been looking for when I was designing this set.
The comparison in tone between the Bellbird and the more common Tui seemed exactly what I had in my head when designing my Strat pickups. Bellbirds don’t just go tweet, there’s a depth and warmth in the tone. It’s so hard to describe sound and the difference between pickups but I think the difference between the Bellbird and the Tui sum up the difference between my vintage and hot Strat pickups. So I called them the Bellbird and the Tui.
The The Tui hot Strat set is designed for players wanting a little more from their Strat. A full sounding set suited best to blues and rock players. It will clean up with the best of them but is at its happiest playing dirty blues – think SRV and you’re getting there. Not only that, it’s the perfect Strat pickup for that Dave Gilmour tone.
They make a great neck and middle pickup as part of a HSS set with an Integrity or Cloud Nine bridge humbucker.
Full sounding and clear with a steel base plate to add that extra little push.
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Dave Gilmour tone
In August of 2025 I went to see a set of my Tui pickups in action performing Pink Floyd. It was at the Civic Theater in Auckland. The lead guitarist was Brett Adams. He contacted me a couple of weeks before asking which of my pickups would give that Dave Gilmour tone. So I sent him some Tui. This is just recorded using my phone but I think you’ll agree they sound pretty special through a big PA.
It was quite an emotional experience for me.
Here’s some more Tui goodness, this time in a HSS configuration with a Cloud Nine humbucker.
And in HSS with an ‘Integrity’ humbucker. The Tui is the single coil I recommend with HSS sets, they work so well with that bridge humbucker.
I received this unexpected video from a customer:
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What’s different about the Tui?
Here’s a video I made (with help from the dogs) to explain how the steel base plate adds to the bottom end of these pickups. It just gives that little extra push that I feel these pickups need.
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The Tui hot Strat set story
The Tui hot Strat set is a step up in power from my Bellbird and Kokako sets while still retaining the character of the Stratocaster. This set is best suited to Blues/Rock players who like a bit of dirt. There’s more bottom end and smoother highs. It’s very well suited to HSS set ups alongside my Integrity or Cloud Nine humbuckers.
I’ve wound a lot of Strat pickups since I started in 1995. I started off re-winding cheap pickups and then moved on to repairing old dead Fender pickups. Every experiment was written down in a notebook with tone comments.
Back when I started there wasn’t much information available so there was a lot of reverse engineering and a lot of trying things out. That learning time was invaluable to developing instinct for how to change the sound of a pickup. I’ve still got the note book and I’m still adding to it.
In, I think, 2014 a customer of mine approached me wanting a set of Stratocaster pickups. He’s a great blues player and had recently moved from using a Les Paul to a Strat. He described the sound he was after and it seemed to me it was the same as I’d been after myself so I put some time in to designing a pickup set for him.
The Tui hot Strat needed to be most definitely a Strat sound. I hear plenty of Strat replacement pickups that are fine but just not Strat-ish enough. Secondly, I wanted a bit more power, just a bit, enough to make a good old valve amp clip a bit easier than a “vintage” pickup would. And there needed to be dynamics – tickle it and it’s clean, dig in and it grits up.
As I was making the original version of this set for a player used to humbuckers I wanted to reduce the ”ping” of the attack. I’ve added steel base plated as standard to this set. This changes the shape of the magnetic field, broadening the harmonic window. They add a wee bit of power, a wee bit of bass and reduce that pesky ping.
The neck pickup needed to have “that” Strat sound with fullness and clarity. It’s the ‘go to’ sound for most Strat players. The middle pickup needed to have some ‘quack’ to it with its own distinctive personality.
The bridge pickup shouldn’t be too thin, it needs to have plenty of highs but not too much of that ‘ping’ or it’s almost useless. Then there are the other sounds – positions 2 and 4, mistakenly referred to as ‘out of phase’. They are really just 2 pickups in parallel. It’s hard to predict what those sounds will be, there was a lot of experimenting.
So I consulted my old note book and wound a lot of pickups and fitted them in a few test Strats. I’ve been lucky enough to have some great players as repair customers and so I was able to get quite a few opinions.
Eventually I was happy and I fitted a set for my ex Les Paul customer and he loved them straight away. A few months later he contacted me to say he was still loving them. It’s great when players do that.
I’ve fitted Tui hot Strat sets into a lot of instruments and it turns out that not only blues players like them, they seem to work for everyone. I shouldn’t be surprised, the Stratocaster is such a versatile guitar, of course they do.
Further experiments have shown the Tui hot Strat pickups balance really well as part of a HSS set with either my Integrity or Cloud Nine humbuckers in the bridge position.
I agonised for months over names for my Strat pickup sets. Then, during a camping trip to Tauwharanui Regional Park, I heard my first Bellbird. The comparison in tone between the Bellbird and the more common Tui seemed exactly what I had in my head when designing my Strat pickups.
The Tui has turned out to be my best selling Stratocaster pickup. It appears there are a lot of players out there wanting a bit extra from their Strats without losing the character we all love.
