Any good pickup related stories?

[copperheadroads]

great thread
My mind is blank

[jmaf]

I thought I could play faster if I filed all my frets down. So I proceded by using a bench grinder. As I finished the amazing work of art I thought the pickups looked weird with them poles sticking out so I ground those down too. Then I recalled that in the movie Crossroads Steve Vai's guitar only had one pickup so I threw out the other two. My guitar was a piece of shit after my fix and I don't know if this qualifies as a good pickup related story.

PS. I found this guitar thrown in a basement the other day and took pictures of it to show my former bandmates. Note the amazing electrical work and it was even protected by the AAA. If you note the other sticker, you'll realise this axe also survived the siege of the Alamo.

[David Schwab]

I thought I could play faster if I filed all my frets down. So I proceded by using a bench grinder.

I never liked the fretless wonder Les Paul Custom too much, but I played jazz bassist Jeff Berlin's Dean bass, and he had the frets ground down really low! It was almost a fretless. He said he likes them that way. They were big wide frets, so it felt better than I would have expected. So I went home and leveled the frets on one of my basses lower... but not that low!

[Duncan113]

I picked up this girl once, in San Francisco. She turned out to be a guy named Dwayne.

[Steve Conner]

That must have been a real dwain in the ass.

But anyway, back on topic...

[Possum]

David is still breaking-in, we expect he'll sound different in 3 weeks.

OK, back on track; The M3 Stuart, formally Light Tank M3, was an American light tank of World War II and supplied to British and Commonwealth forces under lend-lease prior to the entry of the U.S. into the war—and used thereafter by U.S. and Allied forces until the end of the war.
The name General Stuart or Stuart given by the British comes from the American Civil War Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and was used for both the M3 and the derivative M5 Light Tank. In British service, it also had the unofficial nickname of Honey after a tank driver remarked "She's a honey". To the United States Army, the tanks were officially known only as "Light Tank M3" and "Light Tank M5". Now what I WANT TO KNOW is why did British troops name a tank after an American Confederate General, was it meant as an insult, or what? Its really bothering me.....

[Sam Lee Guy]

Where to start?
Names have been omitted to protect the innocent.
A few years ago I had a Strat to fix. Turned out the owner had nicked the outer windings fitting yet more copper shielding. This thing was shielded to smithereens. After removing a few turns from the original 50's pickup I plugged it in to test it and it sounded not great to say the least but the guitarist made it sound fantastic. It really is in the fingers (or at least the amp and the fingers)! Presumably the same thing happened again because in the end the 50's pickups were replaced with newer ones (not by me).

On another occasion I got a message that there was an emergency at a guitarist's house. I arrived to find an ambulance backed up to one of the doors and the worst thoughts went through my head because some musicians don't look after their health too well. Anyway, I approached the ambulance to find the guitarist with two paramedics, trying to manoeuvre a large sofa on a medical trolley through the door!
The emergency was that a guitar had fallen over, hit the knobs and cracked the pickguard and it had to be fixed for a gig that evening.

Finally, A guitarist was putting together several refinished and bitser Strats for a tour so he could leave his good ones at home and I supplied pickups and some other parts for them, some original, some not. The word came back that he was not happy with the sound of newer pickups and wanted me to source some more originals. Of course, the ones sent back to me were the originals, proving that sometimes old spare pickups were replaced for a good reason, or maybe the problem was just that he knew some of them weren't original causing him to look for the less good sounding ones?

[Steve Conner]

Possum, I'm not sure of the reason why, or what it has to do with pickups, but the British named all of the tanks that they got from the Americans after Confederate generals. There was also a Patton, a Grant, a Lee (like the Dukes of Hazzard's car) and most famously a Sherman.

[jonson]

A guy brought me a Ricky John Lennon copy a few years ago. Fitted with 3 toaster pickups and he said the middle one had stopped working. He said he'd just bought it and allthough it was ok at first and he had contacted the seller who said it was working when it was sent it wasn't now so would I take a look. On removing the cover I found a nice shiney never been wound bobbin and nothing else. It was just a dummy and I know Possum say's they change over a period of time but this bugger had dissapeared completely.

[Jim Shine]

I thought of another. 15 or so years ago I bought a 50's Danelectro U2 at a yard sale for $5. I snagged it and run with with my $5 bill to the owner and the and the old timer says "We tried it out on the amp (it was gone before I arrived) and I couldn't get any sound out of it." I take it home and it was buzzing, but no sound of the guitar. I crack it open and the entire guitar was rewired with bread ties! They even tried to change the leads on the pickups to the bread ties! Luckily all the parts were intact and I was able to open the pickup and attach proper wires. I have seen lamp wire used quite a bit, but never seen bread ties.

[soundguruman]

I think it's the wood, rather than the pickup that makes a guitar sound better

[big_teee]

Please Stick with the Stories!
I have enjoyed them so far!
T

[Possum]

This will make you guys cry....... I got up one afternoon and my buddy calls me and says "Hey Dave, there's a 1959 Les Paul in the paper for $250." So, I said "bullshit." He, said no, for real, and gave me the phone number. So, I called it and an old man answers the phone, and told me, sorry he'd sold it earlier that morning and yes it was a 1959 Les Paul he'd owned as original owner. $250......

[the great waldo]

Merry xmas all.

I had a customer bring a tokai strat to me brought from ebay complaining that the pickups were not sounding right. I plugged the guitar into an amp and it was playing on the middle 4 poles on the pups but not the outer ones and generally sounded odd. I opened the guitar and found the bar magnets on the pups had been removed. Useful pointer to check ebay purchases.

Cheers

Andrew

[David Schwab]

This will make you guys cry....... I got up one afternoon and my buddy calls me and says "Hey Dave, there's a 1959 Les Paul in the paper for $250." So, I said "bullshit." He, said no, for real, and gave me the phone number. So, I called it and an old man answers the phone, and told me, sorry he'd sold it earlier that morning and yes it was a 1959 Les Paul he'd owned as original owner. $250......

That was probably what he paid for it.

I bought an '81 Les Paul for $200 15 years ago.