the land of strange pickups

In hawking their questionable "copies" of this one -- now apparently unavailable -- Seymour Duncan says one of the most eye-watering STUPID things I've ever read:

...because "looks like, sort of" and "fits in the hole without any effort" are what guitar players want, to Hell with tone and response!! -- and gods know they have PLENTY of cash to burn.


We are, of course, discussing the Gibson ES-150 pickup, a.k.a. the "Charlie Christian."



Note those big heavy plates: cobalt-steel magnets, meaning that the gauss starts off on the cool side, and slowly fades away from there. The pickup weighed two pounds -- hmm, maybe the SD's were almost so chunky...? And space was so tight that there wasn't much copper on the coil. As a kicker, keep in mind those twin magnetic planes running parallel under the strings for a few inches.



As one particularly insightful player puts it,

(The original comment is 4x as long, but I don't want to steal the glory. The whole thread is a good read.)

A similarly insightful post and discussion.

Here is a really good post (but all too brief!!) about the pickup's specs and tone.

And this is a thorough and well-written Vintage Guitar article (2011) about this pickup's huge role in the "electrification" of Gibson.

(By 1941, the ES-150 guitar -- and probably ES-250 -- was using a more "normal" single-coil pickup, looking a bit like a tin-top P-90. (And being bridge-mounted, doesn't it seem like the tone and response would be different, like another guitar entirely? Oh, well; that's the Marketing Department for you...)

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A very few artisans have reproduced the actual assembly -- not cheap, but not crazier than so many "custom shop" humbuckers. Whether you want a hard-core copy or an intelligently-designed "drop-in" size, you MUST at least strongly consider CC Pickups UK, where a single-notch ES150N goes out for £225 (~300 USD).

There is at least one more clever shop that does beautiful repros, which I will put here when I find it again.

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Now, mind you: I am NOT saying that the "CC" sound can't be reproduced flawlessly AND in an HB form-factor AND with Alnico and other modern stuff...

I will address the builders, thusly. If you just want to let the guitar wankers preen about how "radical" they are based on cosmetics, then sell them a dress-up kit, a plastic piece they can stick to any pickup they please, et voila!! At least it's an above-board, honest transaction.

Conversely, if you are actually attempting to sell them That Unique Tone, then avoid the "looks like" decor at every turn unless it is essential to the sound.

And if you shoot for "somewhere in the middle" in humble recognition of modern materials -- and, lets face it, the occasional distasteful realities of the marketplace -- then be as up-front and honest as possible about the limits AND benefits of that compromise.