Bill L. Joins Lace

[kevinT]

I don't know if you folks heard but hear is a tidbit of industry news.

Bill Lawrence Joins Lace Music - Premier Guitar

[Possum]

....

Seems like a perfect fit, their pickups are very similar...

[salvarsan]

I don't know if you folks heard but hear is a tidbit of industry news.

Bill Lawrence Joins Lace Music - Premier Guitar

Sinecure plus health care benefits, from the sound of it.

Good. Bill could use a break.

-drh

[RedHouse]

I don't know if you folks heard but hear is a tidbit of industry news.

Bill Lawrence Joins Lace Music - Premier Guitar

Looks like he needs the healthcare benefits...hey No disrespect intended but the whole Gibson/Lawrence pickups of the 70/80's IMHO were not noteworthy as history is currently putting them down as.
(much like the EH Big Muff Fuzz is curently taking top marks, but back in the day was #2 or #3)

I would say good luck to the man, he looks in poor health in that picture and I do wish him well.

The whole Lawrence/Gibson thing, was like lots of smoke, friction, but no light. His Blade pickups were very popular in the late 70's early 80's with the Hair-bands, but didn't hold up well to the "tone folks" of that day or this.
(back then, I had hair, but I was a tone phreak)

I recall vividly the Bill Lawrence pickups "back in the day" they were different with the blade thing and the epoxy potting and all, I really wasn't into his "tone" and can't say to this day that I am.

No disrespect intended, he certainly was a pioneer and all that, but IMHO his tone wasn't allways what the players of the day wanted or needed which is a theme currently upheld by winders today.

I bought a brand new 1978 Gibson SG (back in '78) that had those "Lawrence" epoxy potted pickups in it from the (Gibson/Norlin) factory. They were horrible, simply horrible.

Here is a pic of me back "in the day" (1978) with those horrible Bill Lawrence/Gibson epoxy potted pickups:
(peace was a big deal back then, we didn't have a clue about what was comming)



God bless the man and all that, but I absolutely YANKED those pickups out of my guitar (and installed DiMarzio's) back in 1978 there were very few choices for a working musician...VERY...few)[/I]

(sorry if I offended anyone)

People talk alot now-a-days (90's/2000's) about pickups, but truth-be-told back in the day there were very few to be had.

[Possum]

...

Lawrence pickups are an acquired taste. There were definitely some flops, the Gibson Marauder, the S-1 to mention a few. I was a big fan of Bill's years ago and still have the strat pickups of his I used, unfortunately you really need pedals for most of that stuff to get any kind of gritty tone. Coco Montoya uses his stuff, and I think Bill's double blade strat pickups preceded Barden's work. Bill is a genius no doubt about that, but the major market share of pickup sales is traditional stuff for the most part. Musicians in some ways are very conservative

[LtKojak]

I bought a brand new 1978 Gibson SG (back in '78) that had those "Lawrence" epoxy potted pickups in it from the (Gibson/Norlin) factory. They were horrible, simply horrible.

God bless the man and all that, but I absolutely YANKED those pickups out of my guitar (and installed DiMarzio's) back in 1978 there were very few choices for a working musician...VERY...few)[/I]

Yeah... back then you had only two choices:

1. Rock
2. Hard place

Thank God for Seymour Duncan!

[David Schwab]

I was a big fan of Bill's years ago and still have the strat pickups of his I used, unfortunately you really need pedals for most of that stuff to get any kind of gritty tone.

The L-250 Strat sized humbucker are great pickups! Well the originals were. The "fake" ones his former partner puts out don't sound as good. But people are always raving about his newer stacked pickups.

The larger humbuckers were voiced like single coils. Really bright pickups. I had a weird one I never saw before back when I worked at American Showster. It looked like an EMG, with the closed cover. It had the glassiest top end I ever heard from a humbucker. I had it in my lucite longhorn I made, which was a very bassy sounding guitar. I really liked it, until one day one coil went dead. Since the whole thing was encapsulated in polyester resin, there was no way to fix it. I recently disassembled the whole thing.

I have two old L-250s in my Tele. In this photo I also had the bridge L-250T, but it was one of the newer ones and was very thin sounding.



I still think the L-6S and L9-S Ripper are cool instruments.

[ShannonH]

oh yeah...

, but the major market share of pickup sales is traditional stuff for the most part. Musicians in some ways are very conservative

For all this hoo ha about finding one's own tone, I think you hit the nail on the head. Most guitarists get all slobbery about sounding like their guitar hero, but can's easily define what they like. Ugh. Bassists are more likely to be adventurous with their tone than a guitar player.

Sorry, that was a tirade.....

[David Schwab]

For all this hoo ha about finding one's own tone, I think you hit the nail on the head. Most guitarists get all slobbery about sounding like their guitar hero, but can's easily define what they like. Ugh. Bassists are more likely to be adventurous with their tone than a guitar player.

Sorry, that was a tirade.....

I agree 100%. But now even bassist are getting in a rut... I see too many Jazz basses as if that's the only thing made. And then they post on forums asking how to make it either sound like a Jazz bass from some old recording, which is often a P bass, or they want different pickups to get a different tone... so why did they buy the Jazz bass?

[RedHouse]

For all this hoo ha about finding one's own tone, I think you hit the nail on the head. Most guitarists get all slobbery about sounding like their guitar hero, but can's easily define what they like. Ugh. Bassists are more likely to be adventurous with their tone than a guitar player.

Sorry, that was a tirade.....

While I agree with that, and I'm not sticking up for the narrow minded amoung us, I must say there is a lot more pressure (mostly peer) on a guitar player than others to "sound" like someone else when comming up the ladder. Even a vocalist gets more slack from critique about sound. Although in saying that, it appears the trend is again shifting in the late 90's and 2000's where is now cool again to have your own sound.

For instance doing bar-gig's, playing covers old and new more listeners in the room can tell the difference if a guitar player is doing say "Aint Talkin 'Bout Love" but his guitar is sounding like "Gimmie Three Steps" even if he plays it note for note. While at the same time a Bass player can get away with the bass tone of either of those songs doing the other and most listeners wouldn't even make a comment.

[mkat]

I agree 100%. But now even bassist are getting in a rut... I see too many Jazz basses as if that's the only thing made. And then they post on forums asking how to make it either sound like a Jazz bass from some old recording, which is often a P bass, or they want different pickups to get a different tone... so why did they buy the Jazz bass?

I agree. Some cannot see past j basses (or p basses for that matter), which is a really sad scenario (not meaning they should shaft them, I have a few myself). It's unbelievable actually, especially when they get caught up in the hype and start talking "vintage" (what does that mean, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, ... LOL) without knowing what it is for example - most haven't even played a bass made before the 70's. You see so many different types of jb pickups, but still no one is satisfied. Then start the comparisons, different players, different setups...LOL