The Monterey Pop Festival of 1967 was a watershed event in American music. When it was over, the world had heard and felt the sound of a Strat® in the hands of a master. Single-coils in 1967 were bright and very clean. And, of course, they hummed. We've captured the classic bright and clean sound but totally eliminated the hum with our patented Area™ technology. We've also reduced magnet pull by 40% for improved sustain and clarity. The Area 67™ has the chime of 60s pickups, and the 2 and 4 positions are light, bright and quack-happy.

          Strat® pickups in the late 1960s used full-strength Alnico 5 magnets. The patented magnetic field of the Area™ models is more efficient and focused than it is on “true” single-coils, which allows us to use Alnico 2 instead. There's much less magnet pull, but no loss of output. This is a major advantage in the neck and middle positions, where sustain and intonation can both suffer if the strings are exposed to strong magnetic fields. In the bridge position, the patented technology of the Area 67™ produces a sound that's very bright but not brittle.