Thank you very much. I'm glad you liked it. Personally, I find that the hand-wound pickups have more clarity, touch sensitivity and a more refined tone overall, but as I said, the stock pickups are very good.
@@charlesdespres I have to add that i can only judge based upon the video - never heard those pickups in person. So your experience is more "real" than mine. Somehow i prefer the more "nasally" or "honky" sound of the original pickups for their quirky character in this video, but i bet the hand wound pickups sound clearer and more refined.
@@modestoney1577 There is nothing wrong with liking the stock pickups better. If it sounds good to YOU, then it IS good. And it is true that listening to pickups being played by someone else in a video is only second best to being able to try them out yourself. Also, an important factor, besides tone, that is seldom mentioned when discussing pickups is how they FEEL to the player, and that cannot be translated in a video. But when it is all said and done, it all comes down to personal preference, and everyone has to decide what they like for themselves. Thanks for the comments!
I bought a Silvertone 1303 with lipstick pickups and absolutely LOVE IT! Incredibly comfortable, playable straight neck. Really good fretwork and assembly. Cannot believe it is only $399. Lightweight, sustain, great variety of tone, and the hardest guitar to put down once I put it in my hands. Cannot be bought.
The mojo pickups sound way more like a hollow danelectro, which is the distinct lipstick sound. The benefits of hand wound pickups are immediately noticeable and huge so this guitar is definitely amazing with them. I have a jazzmaster with custom voiced pickups and it sounds insanely better than my stock jazzmaster which already sounds great, it’s like everything good about there sound 10x.
Very nice playing , review and mod comparison. Myself i often attack the strings a little different after a pickup swap , only because i mentally know there was a pickup upgrade . premeditates my bias feel. A habit i just cannot kick .
Thank you for the kind words! It is true that there can be a psychological bias when making mods. Sometimes you hear what you WANT to hear, which is why I said in the video that it's best to live with a mod for a little while and try it out in many different contexts before you finally make up your mind.
@@charlesdespres oh yeah it takes time for me . Waiting for shipment on a used one myself. read/watched all the reviews and yours connected to me the most.
Contrary to other comments I preferred the replacement pickups. Not havimg heard lipstick pickups live I imagined how they would have sounded back in the day based on reports. I assume that the replacement pickup configuration and resistance being as per in the 50's guitars. Regardless of personal preferences of the pickups compared in this review which of the pickups are closer sounding to the 50' guitars.Anyone made a sound comparison between the generations
I too prefer the Mojo pickups. They have more clarity and more touch responsiveness, as I have found to be usual with handwound pickups. As I measured in the video, the original pickups are nowhere near vintage specs, since the coils measure in the 6-8 KOhms range, whereas the Mojo pickups measure 3.5-4.0 KOhms, which is consistent with vintage specs. What that means is the original pickups either have more turns of wire on them, or a thinner wire, or both. Both factors would contribute to the fatter sound they have. However, I do not mean that this is necessarily bad, as some people might prefer a fatter sound, even if that is not "vintage". And to be honest, I found the original pickups to be surprisingly good, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Thanks for this fine demo, I have the same guitar in the cool blue finish, completely stock, I have the impression after the A/B comparison that the stock pickups have more character...the stock tuners on my Silvertone 1449 are weak and need to be replaced with real Klusons for better tuning stability, cheers 😉
Thank you for the comments! The blue finish is really beautiful too! Actually, I hesitated between the red sparkle finish and the blue one when I bought the guitar. The stock pickups are very good, as I said in the video, and do not necessarily need to be replaced. This guitar is really good as it is stock. But while the stock pickups are a little fatter, the hand-wound Mojo Pickups have a bit more clarity and, as I have come to expect from hand-wound pickups, better touch sensitivity. Overall, they have a more refined sound and I like them very much, but if you are happy with the stock pickups, there is no reason to change anything. As regards the tuners, mine have held up very well so far, but I have not used them a whole lot. Keep on picking! :)
I also liked the sound of the stock pickups more. I think the hand wound pickups made the guitar sound almost like a Jaguar- brighter and less bassy sounding, which is probably closer to the vintage spec pickups that came in the original 1960’s versions of these guitars. That said though, I prefer the sound of the stock pickups. They sound fuller and I feel like they better suit the music I play. That said, the other pickups aren’t bad at all either and I could see the benefit of getting more clarity due to less response from bass frequencies. But I also feel like I could achieve similar results from the stock pickups with the help of an eq pedal. I own the Daphne blue version of this guitar and I’m happy to see these getting some love from those who know and appreciate how cool these guitars are! Thanks for making this great and informative video!
do you happen to know a good place I can buy the vol/ton pots for this guitar? youre about the only person on youtube that has opened one up. I broke my bridge vol/tone.
Not sure where to get them. You would need concentric pots (not a dual pot with a single control) with a logarithmic taper, Asian shaft size (I'm assuming, I did not measure). You should measure the resistance of each pot part (volume and tone) by touching an Ohmmeter to the input and output of each pot. You will probably come up with something between 100K and 1MegOhm, and volume and tone may have different values. Then you will know exactly what you need and you'll be able to start a search. You could choose to change values for different "custom" results. Hope this helps!
I bought one of these guitars and I like it except that the screws which adjust the height of the strings at the bridge stick up and irritate the palm of my hand which I use to mute the strings.
Thanks for the comment, Tom. I have noticed the same problem. Obviously, it had not bothered me enough to mention it in the video. Not all the screws stick out much on mine, though. The problem occurs mostly on the screws in the string saddles that sit lower, such as the low E and high E. It is due to the fact that the saddle screws are all the same height, unlike those of a Strat, for example, so the screws stick out more on the lower saddles. You might be able to find shorter saddle screws, but you will need the right diameter. These are probably metric screws, considering that the guitar is made in Indonesia. Or you could grind the bottom of the screws slightly in order to shorten them a little. But you may need the extra length if you ever want to raise the string action, for slide playing for example. So I would save the originals and try to see if I can find shorter replacement screws.
Thank you! I just weighed the guitar and it weighs 4 lb 13 9/16 oz (2.2 kg), making it an extremely lightweight electric guitar. For comparison, Strat or Tele-style guitars typically weigh between 6 lb 9 13/16 oz (3 kg, very lightweight and rare) and 8 lb 13 1/16 oz (4 kg, heavy). I prefer lightweight guitars, as I think they feel and sound better. I cannot guarantee that all Silvertone 1449 reissue guitars are as lightweight as mine, since mine is the only one I have ever held in my hands.
