Postby Hydra19 » Wed Oct 08, 2014 8:23 am
The pickups on the 64 looks and sound pretty much the same as on the 63 reissue, both are made by Fillmore, but one is made in USA while the other one says Mosrite of California, I suspect they're both from the same place in Japan.
The pickups not only sound pretty much the same, but look the same too. They both don't have any logos on them, are made from shiny plastic and have pole screws that seem too small for the holes. My Kurokumo and original both have the bigger Mosrite screws, as do my M3 copies. I don't like this as it seems the screws aren't so stable, I often wonder if I change the height by hitting it with my pick.
Now for the sounds....The 63' was my first Mosrite copy, so I was prepared with a set of M3's that I took out of my Hallmark. Thing is, as soon as I plugged the 63' I had a Mosrite sound, it was the 1st thing that came to mind, and with my original being the only real Mosrite I had, I took that as a good sign. Since then I've set the pickups and pole pieces to my preference and both of the reissues now sound great!
They are very clear sounding, but powerful. I haven't measured the resistance, but out of all my 4 Mosrites, the Kurokumo has the most 'polite' sound while the vintage one sounds the best, hot and rude! The Fillmore reissues both handle distortion pretty good, but have the typical Mosrite squeal (from the pickups being too close). I've played along to the Ventures a lot, both studio and live recordings and they're all good for that. I haven't taken out the pups from the 64 red, but from messing with the truss on the 63' I had to remove the neck. The back of the pickup had no markings, and it looked like a Mosrite pickup, lots of glue so you can't really see anything.
So now I still have the M3 pickups that did miracles to my Hallmark, and they've been homeless for over a year now. I'll still keep them but the Mosrite Fillmore reissue pickups sound so good to me, that I won't bother replacing them and I've got the same set on 2 guitars!
