The solderless connector setup includes a circuit board loaded with all the favourite USA grade electronics (Switchcraft jack, Switchcraft switch, CTS potentiometers, Orange drop capacitor). This circuit board simply drops into your Gibson style control layout, then you plug in the connectors we've added to the end of the pickup leads into the circuit board. The humbucker setup comes with default 250k potentiometers, 3 way toggle switch and 0.047uf capacitors.
These are available in both import (long shaft pots, short frame switch), USA (long shaft pots, long frame switch), or right angle (short shaft pots, right angle toggle switch) formats. (ONLY) Gibson Les Pauls will use USA. Epiphones and other import models will use the import format. SGs and similar will use the right angle format. Import models Les Pauls typically use short shaft potentiometers, but we've found through experimentation that due to the nature of the way that the pots are seated at different heights in the cavity, short shaft pots will not work effectively. Long shaft pots are used by shimming the shaft to the correct length with the second nut inside the cavity.
No soldering is required at all, making the installation job take about 10 minutes in total!
These are part of our humbucker sized Stratocaster single coil range. A Strat single coil is encased between a humbucker baseplate and humbucker cover to allow them to be installed in any standard humbucker equipped guitar. There's a tiny bit of treble loss due to the additional metal content in the pickup, but they're otherwise constructed and tonally identical.
The pickup set was created around the fruits of the experiment - the bridge. We were able to wind the bridge to a blisteringly hot 16k DCR! Usually 16k would create an unpleasant, muddy and congested pickup - but these pickups are hand wound meaning that much more extreme winds can be utilised and still sound good (more on hand winding later) We wanted a bit of versatility in this pickup set - so the neck and middle are wound a bit cooler. We clearly couldn't wind them like vintage Strat pickups, because this would create a massive volume and tone difference, which would be completely unusable, but we've found a great compromise. The neck and middle are like hot rodded vintage Strat pickups. Wound with 43 awg to maintain Stratty character, but thin enough to fit the required number of winds on them to meet the bridge in output. They have an incredible chime to them like a vintage style single coil - far more than typically expected from a wind this hot, due to the hand winding. But turn up the dirt and they can also roar - keeping up with the aggression of the bridge pickup.
The bridge is an animal of it's own, and therefore is worthy of it's own paragraph. Built with the maximum number of 44 AWG winds and supplemented with a ferrous baseplate, this pickup has the grunt of a (hot) P90, and the clarity of a Tele bridge. This is truly a unique pickup. We've never heard anything like it before; it really sounds like a P90 and a Tele bridge have had a love child. This will produce absolutely crushing distortion tones and will never muddy up or lose it's single coil character - it's got the grit of a humbucker with the intricacy and nuisance of a single coil.
Specifications (neck/bridge):
Resistance (ohms): 9.7k/16k
Magnets: hand beveled alnico 5 rods
Bridge powered by a copper plated steel baseplate
Spacing: 52mm
Supplied with mounting screws & springs.