Local Music Gear Feature Story
Written By: Jac Harrison
Vintage reproduction, vintage vibe, classic tone, and
antiquity are just a few of the names that guitar pickup manufacturers use to
describe the tone of their product(s) so we (the guitarist) associate them a particular
time era. Some manufacturers will even go as far as to classify a pickup's voice with a
year and/or a particular artist name that had a desirable tone from that time period. These are all wonderful marketing techniques
that are designed to make us (the tone chasers) open our wallets and say “yes
please, I may need that". This is great if you want a particular tone but do
not fully understand how to achieve it, but for the rest of us it is an indication of future disappointment 90% of the time. When I see a manufacturer selling a vintage/classic style pickup, I take it as their way of saying that the product has a certain dynamic response that reacts to the players touch opposed to a modern style pickup that has compressed feel, and less about the overall tone. Anyone can Google the specs for a vintage pickup, buy the raw materials and make one -- but it takes talent to voice the pickup giving it that dynamic response we associate with vintage guitars (pre-1980). As a vintage/classic tone style pickup player, one of things I always focus on when selecting
a pickup is what I am trying to achieve tonally and less about what year do I want to
sound like. If I was replacing pickups in a 1964 Start or a 2014 Chili Custom Guitar, I would want the same in both guitars -- a tone that is unique to me that is built on a platform that allows me to control my tone with dynamic response.
