What I use and Recommend:
Fender Stratocaster:

I've owned a few 50's and 60's Stratocasters and that's the tone I prefer. Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Ike Turner, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimmie Vauhgn, Robert Cray, David Gilmore...all those guys used vintage Strats with vintage pickups. My '63 Fender Strat is all original has been my #1 Strat since the day I bought it back in the 70's. It was my main gigging guitar throughout the 70's and 80's and it remains my benchmark for great Strat tone.

My favorite Seymour Duncan Stratocaster sets would be: Antiquity Texas Hots, Antiquity II Surfers, APS-2 & Twangbanger, SSL-1 & JB Jr.

The Antiquity I Texas Hots are handwound by Seymour and MJ in the Duncan Custom Shop. They are Alnico II pickups, and have thicker, chunkier mids, softer bass and smoother treble than the vintage Alnico 5 pickups in my '63. The Texas Hots also have a little more output than the pickups in my '63 Strat. The Antiquity I Texas Hot Custom bridge pickup is wound to about 9.5K and is one of the best bridge replacement pickups I've ever used. It balances beautifully with the 6.5K Texas Hot neck and middle pickups and has a fat, chunky, powerful tone that starts to overdrive my blackface Fenders at about volume 4. It's designed for the Texas Hot set but would be a great choice as a bridge pickup in any Stratocaster.

The Antiquity II Surfers are also handwound by Seymour and MJ and seem to be wound like the Texas Hots only with Alnico 5 magnets instead of Alnico 2. Compared to the Texas Hots, the Surfers have a little more bass, a little more sparkle and a little less mids. They are super chimey and have some of the best "Sultans of Swing" and "Bell Bottem Blues" tones when the neck & middle or middle & bridge pickups are combined of any Strat pickups I've ever owned. They're very similar to the original Alnico 5 pickups in my '63 Strat but are a little hotter. I really like them. The Antiquity II Surfer Custom bridge pickup is just as special as the one in the Texas Hot set, but it's a little brighter and a little less chunky in the mids. It has plenty of snap and growl and it too is one of the best Strat bridge replacement pickups I've ever used. I recommend the Antiquity II Surfers to my clients who have owned vintage style Strat pickups and love that bright, lively vintage tone but want something with a little more output, especially from the bridge pickup. I recommend the Antiquity I Texas Hots for those who have tried vintage Stratocaster pickups and found them to be to bright for thier tastes and would like a pickup set with slightly more output, more mids and a less glassy tone.

The APS-2/Twangbanger set is a great set too! This is another Alnico 2 set with vintage tone but even more output and thicker, chunkier mids than either of the Antiquitys or the pickups in my '63 Strat. I think they're a little brighter than the Texas Hots. I've heard that Jeff Beck is a big fan of the APS-2 and uses them in some of his Strats. Jeff is a Fender endorsee, but my friends in the know tell me that when Jeff Beck has THE tone, he's often using the APS-2. I do know that Jeff is Seymour's favorite guitarist and that Seymour designed the JB & Jazz humbucker set for Jeff and that they have been good friends for over 30 years. The Twangbanger is designed to emulate the tone of a '51 or '52 Fender Telecaster lead pickup - the great one's that remind me as much of a Gibson P-90 as they do a Fender. It's a fabulous Strat bridge replacement pickup: plenty of warm, deep bass, thick quacky mids, and bright, singing highs that sound fat - not thin or overly glassy. To my ears, the tone of the Twangbanger falls right between the tone of the Duncan Jerry Donahue Tele bridge pickup and the Duncan Antiquity I Tele bridge pickup.

The Duncan SSL-1 is another favorite of mine and very similar in tone to the original pickups in my '63 Strat. I used them for years with a Duncan JB JR. as the bridge pickup in my Strat that now has the Antiquity II Surfers, and my buddy AJ uses a Duncan SSL-1 neck and middle pickup with a Lindy Fralin Steel Pole 43 bridge pickup in his Fender Jimmie Vaughn Stratocaster that I fixed up for him. They're a little less complex sounding than the Antiquity II Surfers, but very similar and a truly excellent vintage style Strat pickup equal to or better than many boutique pickups costing alot more.

My favorite bridge humbucker in a Strat is the Seymour Duncan '59 Trembucker. The '59 is a faithful recreation of the 1959 - 62 Alnico 5 Gibson paf humbucker. Hotter humbuckers like the Duncan Custom, Custom 5, Custom Custom or JB sound great in a Strat too, but tend to overpower vintage output Strat neck and middle single coils. The '59 is a better match, IMO, and is also the one that Seymour often recommends. Through a cranked Marshall or tweed 4x10 Fender Bassman Amp, the Duncan '59 sings with a tone that's similar to Eddie Van Halen's earlier recordings or the tone Eric Clapton got with Cream. Compared to the standard Duncan '59, the '59 Trembucker has wider polepiece spacing to match the wider string spacing of a Strat bridge/vibrato and was designed specifically for Fender Strats. The Duncan '59 Trembucker comes stock with 4 conductor cable so you can install an on/on/on mini switch and go from series to single coil to parallel. Or you can replace one of your tone controls with a tone pot with a push/pull switch to allow switching the 59 Trembucker from series to parallal or series to single coil. I keep those push/pull pots in stock for $9. in 250K and 500K values.

Fender Telecaster:

I've played Telecasters since about 1970, starting with a real '51. I sold that one when the neck twisted, but the '54 I have today is just as nice and it's my #1 Tele. My favorite Seymour Duncan Telecaster Replacement pickups are those that sound like old Teles: the Seymour Duncan Antiquity I and the Jerry Donahue.

For soloing, the Antiquity I bridge pickup is one of the liveliest Tele bridge pickups I've ever used and pinch harmonics seem to sail off the strings with little effort. The tone is very similar to some of the best early 50's Teles I've owned and played. The highs are bright and lively but smoother and quackier and not thin and ice picky like some Teles can sound. The Antiquity I Tele bridge pickup reminds me of Roy Buchanan on his first and second albums for Polydor. I'm certain Seymour had Roy Buchanan in mind when he created the Antiquity I set! I use it in my Fender Custom Shop '53 Tele, and to me, it sounds alot like Roy's great old '53 Tele: Nancy. The Antiquity I Tele neck pickup is full and warm, and when combined with the Antiquity I bridge pickup, the combined tone is super chimey. That's my favorite tone for rythym playing.

I use the Duncan Jerry Donahue Model Tele bridge pickup in my Fender James Burton Telecaster. The tone is a little stronger than the Antiquity I, with more mids, more quack and more output. My '51 Tele had one of those rare, slightly overwound bridge pickups with alot of mids, quack and punch. It reminded me a little of a Gibson P-90. Turns out Jerry Donahue had a similar sounding vintage pickup in his '52 Tele and Seymour copied it and that became the Jerry Donahue Model. If you have a Tele with naturally bright resonance, or one made from alder rather than lightweight Swamp Ash, the Jerry Donahue Model is a great choice for taming those glassy highs and adding some needed mids, warmth and punch.

Humbuckers:

The alnico 5 Duncan JB is my #1 selling bridge humbucker. It's a real classic and sounds great in just about any guitar whether it be Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul or a semi-hollowbdy guitar like an ES-335. Great harmonics, singing mids and high output. I like to use the JB with either a Duncan Jazz neck or '59N. The Jazz N will have a little more sparkle on top and the 59N will have a little more bass, but I find the two to be very similar and either make for a great neck humbucker for rock, blues or jazz. And don't let the Jazz name scare you off if you're a rocker: the Jazz can do rock tones beautifully. BTW, the Jazz/JB set is the same set of pickups Jeff Beck used to record his now classic Blow By Blow album and used on tunes like Cause We've Ended As Lovers, Freeway Jam, and many others.

I recommend 500K volume and tone pots, BTW, for humbuckers and also replacing your tone pots with 500K push/pull pots ($9.) so you can split the coils of humbuckers for more of a Fender single coil tone. The JB does that trick better than any pickup I know of. The 59N and Jazz neck split into single coils very nicely too.

The alnico 5 Duncan Custom 5 is another favorite. It has a little less output than the JB but the C5 has more extended highs and the mids are a little less thick and more transparant. Another favorite is actually the same pickup as the Duncan Custom 5, but with a ceramic magnet: the Duncan Custom. Whereas the C5 has strong bass and strong highs, the mids sound a little "scooped" to some ears, the Duncan Custom has strong bass, strong mids and strong highs - a fuller, more aggressive tone than the Custom 5. The ceramic magnet in the Duncan Custom also seems to give the Custom a little more sizzle to the highs than alnico. One more to consider is the Custom Custom - same pickup as the Custom and Custom 5, only made with an alnico 2 magnet. I love the CC in my Hamer Monoco Super Pro semi-hollow body. It has more mids and quack than any of the other pickups I've described and has a fat, hot, strong tone. At higher amp volumes, all three of the Duncan Custom Model humbuckers sound different but equally great. But the Custom Custom sounds fuller and sweeter, at lower and cleaner amp volumes than the Custom and Custom 5. Just my opinion...your mileage (and experience!) may vary.

For the tone of a '59 or '60 Les Paul, a set of the Alnico 5 Duncan '59 pickups are perfect. The '59N is a little fuller and the highs are not quite as extended as those of the Jazz N. The '59B has less output than the Custom 5 or JB and a more vintage tone. Through a nice Marshall amp, the 59B reminds me of the tone Eric Clapton got with the Gibson SG he used with Cream on Crossroads on the Wheels of Fire album, or Eddie Van Halen got on his first couple of albums. Eddie did not use an overwound pickup for those tones...he used a vintage output humbucker alot like the Duncan '59B. Gibson Les Pauls from '57 and '58 used alnico 2 humbuckers like the Duncan Seth Lover.

The Seth Lover is an extremely accurate reproduction of Seth Lover's original 1955 Gibson PAF humbucker design, and like the Duncan Antiquity Humbucker, the Seth Lover is wound on the very same machine Gibson had in thier old factory at 225 Parsons in Kalamazoo, Michigan. (When Gibson moved from Kalamazoo in the 70's, Seymour bought that machine and brought it to California!) The tone of the Seth Lover is fat and warm with full thick mids and a beautiful, lively, complex tone.

And finally, there's the Duncan Antiquity Humbuckers. These are Seymour's most painstakingly accurate version of Seth Lover's 1955 PAF design, and are wound by master pickup makers Seymour Duncan and MJ. The Antiquity is similar to the Seth Lover but features an aged alnico 2 magnet, aged nickel covers and unbalanced coils like some of the original PAF's were wound. Unbalanced coils means that one of the coils is wound a little hotter than the other and this opens up the mids a little and makes for a breathier, more complex and slightly hollow tone...just a like a real 50 year old PAF in a $100,000 '58 Gibson Les Paul. The Seth Lover sounds like an original PAF humbucker sounded when it was brand new. The Antiquity sounds like an original PAF humbucker sounds today...now that it's almost 50 years old.