How are those SE 245 pickups?

[Boogie]

I'm thinking about chopping up some cash myself. I've been bouncing between the Seth Lovers and the Antiquities.

Stay tuned....

See what I did there?

You can’t go wrong with either one.

I see what you did…

oh, and thanks!

 

[64 Tele]

I've got an SE 245 and the stock bridge pickup is great, neck is "ok"by itself, but
works in combination with bridge fine.
Only SE I've never swapped pickups in.

 

[Lewguitar]

/hi all, sorry to awaken this old post again but....

as an alternative to swapping out these SE 245 on my Bernie mainly for aesthetic reasons, any feedback on installing nickel covers and what that would do to the tone..??
If the results anyone has had are minor, very minor...it would be an option to dropping $$$ on a new set....unless of course a new w/covers enhances the tone past bare SE 245 pups...
Just asking as this idea came around to me.

I have three SE Singlecuts and three Bernie Marsdens.

Now that I have the Bernies I'm not going to keep the SE Singlecuts.

But I did a lot of comparing of pickup sets in those SE Singlecuts and for a long time had two sets of Duncan Antiquitys in two identical SE Singlecuts: one set with covers and one set uncovered.

The set with covers always sounded slightly warmer and sweeter.

The uncovered set always sounded steelier. Brighter. More kiss to the treble.

I prefer the sound of the covered set. To me it's a prettier sound.

A lot of players who play jazz and blues seem to prefer the tone of covered humbuckers.

Although I think they like the classic look of the covers too.

Compared to the SE 245 pickups, either set of the Antiquitys sounds stronger and livlier, and has more treble than the SE 245 pickups in my Bernie. I'm waiting on BKP Abraxas pickups to put in that ax.

In the Bernie, the 245 set does get a nice thick warm tone with just a little sparkle on top, that's pretty appealing.

Very nice for blues.

In the right guitar (like a 24.5" scale, thick bodied Bernie) they're a better sounding pickup set than I originally thought.

 

[Prina]

In the right guitar (like a 24.5" scale, thick bodied Bernie) they're a better sounding pickup set than I originally thought.

Totally agree. I put on pup covers and swapped the caps out on my SE245 from the .022uF stock to .047uF Orange Drops and it, especially the neck pup, sounds so clear and so much better. The bridge has more distortion than I like so I'll play around with the height.