Tone Specific Pickups

1959 Blues Strat® Pickup Set - Best Stratocaster Pickups for Blues.

Tone Specific Pickups

1959 Blues Strat® Pickup Set - Best Stratocaster Pickups for Blues.

Description
Specs
Design Process

Save Big On Demo Sets @ Sweetwater.com

ORDERING UPDATE: Wait Times

Our pickups are made by hand using slow and meticulous proprietary processes. Our unique QC testing protocol is both labor intensive and time consuming. The current wait time on new orders is about 2 months.

We don't take short-cuts and we can't accommodate rush orders. The mission here is to make a pro-level product that will perform at the highest level, not just in the immediate future but for the lifetime of your instrument. You'll appreciate our attention to detail upon striking your first note. Upon installing these in your guitar, you'll notice enhanced feel, increased dynamics and more sustain. Our pro clients say the response of these pickups are unrivaled by any modern or vintage alternative.

Wait times have continued to increase over the past few years as more people hear our work. The quickest way to get a set of our pickups is to add your name to the wait list by placing your order today.

Scroll down this page to see testimonials and hear recordings from our pro clientele.

Tonal Details:
- Pickups are Designed with Increased Dynamic Range.
- You'll Notice Increased Harmonic Content being Captured by these Pickups.
- Pickups are made to sound a little fatter than early vintage pickups, without losing clarity
- Bridge pickup is stronger to cut the mix and drive the amp without losing the “Straty-ness”
- Middle is RWRP to eliminate hum in positions 2 & 4
- Neck Pickup “stays together” & won't not get muddy when overdriven.
- They clean up well by rolling off volume without losing clarity or fatness.
Vintage Tone for Modern Times.

The 1959 Blues Strat set was inspired by a couple of amazing sets from the late 1950’s. This is the period of time in which they switched from the more twangy grade III Alnico magnets to grade V Alnico's. This change delivered a fatter and tighter bottom-end while also increasing the overall dynamic range.

We used these late-50's Strat's as a tonal starting point. Using special materials along with our proprietary techniques, we've added enhanced dynamics and increased sustain. These attributes will allow you to hear previously hidden harmonics from your guitar. These are tonal differences that you'll immediately notice.

These are the Best Strat Pickups for Bluesy tone. Many Blues players own this set but many other guitarists have added warmth and dynamics to their Strat with these incredible pickups. If your Strat is lacking, then regardless of your style you should install these to wake that old Strat up. You can't get tone like this any other way.

Sound is something you hear and tone is something you feel. Great Tone has the ability to move you & the audience too. Anyone that understands this concept will love this set of pickups. Our painstaking design and testing process has yielded pickups that that sound great with tube amps, pedals, solid state amps, digital devices and even software.

Pro Guitarists tell us they are very tube-like in their response. We have a hard time making these quickly enough because many pros are putting these in all of their main guitars including their vintage guitars.

There is a reason you almost never see these pop up for sale on the used market. Most self-respecting guitarist would rather cut off their hands than part with their Tone Specific Pickups. If you are like most of our customers, you'll order multiple sets upon hearing these.

Stage Worthy

Life as a Professional Guitarist is filled with ups and downs. All gigs and tours end eventually, this reality makes every performance an audition. Top Pros know this & this is why they suffer over every detail.

You've spent a lifetime finding the right instrument, don't come up short with stock or average sounding pickups. Top Pros realize that an amplifiers circuitry actually starts in your guitar, precisely at the location of your pickups. Anything less than the best in your guitar will make your tone less than it should be.

From Nashville to LA, Austin to NYC, Brazil to Japan top touring Pros load up all of their main gigging guitars with Tone Specific Pickups. After hearing these pickups, you'll feel the same. Just take a listen.....

LIVE ON STAGE

Studio Ready

In this era of technology, everyone seems to have a home recording studio. As a result, the session scene has never been more competitive. If you want to make it these days, then you need to make every note count. Top Session Players understand this & choose Tone Specific to equip all of their main studio guitars.

Your next session date might be in a real studio. The producer might ask you to just bring your guitar, when you show up they might have you plug into a modeler or computer rig. If you show up with average pickups, you might not get a second chance. Our pickups are optimized to work well with vintage style amps as well as modern modeling digital devices. This is why serious session guitarists use Tone Specific Pickups.

SESSION PLAYERS USE THESE IN VINTAGE STRATS.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You are a Genius. These things make a solid state amp sound like it has Tubes in it. They have this 3-D thing going on. I’ve tried every important pickup upgrade since 1983 & the pickups are the best by far. I want these in all of my guitars.”

-Mark Whitfield, Legendary Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Man you are a Genius. I put your Deluxe pickups in my #2 Gibson & your 59 Blues Strat's in #2 Strat and now both those guitars sound better than any vintage guitar. Now I need to get more sets for my #1 guitars."

- Will Crosby, Legendary Guitarist (BB King, Aretha Franklin, Mavis Stables)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I love your pickups. I put them in my guitar and it is exactly what I was looking for. We play old honky tonk and Western swing, so I have to cover a lot of ground between twang and warm arch top tones. The bridge pickup is the first one that has made me happy other than my vintage bridge pickup. The whole set has that great 50’s sound and feel. I don’t use any pedals and the combo sounds awesome plugged straight into my Princeton. Keep doing what you do!"

-Sam Platts, Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Hey Maestro, the pickups sound amazing. There’s more depth to these than the stock pickups for sure. There’s a boat load of sustain too.”

-Will Brahm, Virtuoso Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I can't thank you enough for my pickup set. They are an answer to a prayer that I could create the perfect guitar. I spent a great deal of money for a Strandberg only to find the sound was not up to par. Now, it is fabulous. Thanks Again & God Bless You."

-Stephen Lalonde, Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“It's like plugging into a nice Studio Tube Compressor...you hear every nuance of every note. Tone Specific pickups are more dynamic sounding, I'd say they're organic sounding. With other pickups you don’t get that. They sound very fat but very clear. When you hit it harder you hear the dynamics you want to hear. I’ve been trying for years and with other pickups you don’t get that. They sound like vintage pickups”

-Leo Amuedo, Virtuoso Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Something about the way they feel when you play...the way they make you play & respond to you guitar is so important because it's inspiring & let you play better. They are the most sensitive pickups I've ever played...the best!"

-Marty Pelto, Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“They sound amazing. A big improvement over the other pickups I had. I use them in my #1 guitar for gigs and sessions.”

-Aaron Lebos, Jazz Recording Artist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Fascinating recording the Les Paul Gold Top with the 57/61 Deluxe PAF's and comparing to my other Les Paul with stock pickups! At higher gain levels the Tone Specific's has great definition. There are harmonics coming out of the amp in the room I’m not used to with when using the Tone Specific's & it translate's beautifully when recorded! Interesting!!”

Doug Rappoport, Session & Touring Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Amazing pickups. They really capture the harmonics of each instrument. I use them in as many of my builds as possible.”

-Stephen Marchione, Legendary Luthier

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I wanted to thank you again for making these great pickups. At first I thought it was a subtle change, but the more I play, the more I can’t STOP playing! These things are sounding better every day. Anyhow, I am totally in love with these! I now own 2 sets & I can't get enough. I just bought another set for my brother."

-Mark Malin, Amp Builder

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“I’ve had over 8 different sets of pickups in my guitar…I can honestly say without a doubt…these are the best sounding pickups I have ever heard... Well done gentleman…thanks for ending my tone search.”

-Benjamin Fargen, Legendary Amp Builder

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“I noticed the difference right away. I’ve tried every pickup you can imagine and the these pickups exceed everything else. Hands down the best pickups on the market. Just pure tone…the only pickups I’ll ever use”

-Lefty Ferguson, Nashville Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“It sounds like the have Tubes in them...almost three dimensional. They just sound really sweet. I don’t how they do it but they even feel sweet. Just like vintage pickups but with more sustain and less noise. They are just amazing”

-Mike Gallaher, Legendary Guitarist - Joe Cocker, Leon Russell

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You guys are Geniuses. I can’t put my guitar down...the response is very Tube like..very 3-D sounding. I just played a gig with the Tone Specific’s and I got so many compliments. It’s really amazing what you guys are doing over there. You've made all other pickups obsolete."

-Cali Freeman, Session Guitarist in NYC

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I freaked out when a first heard the Tone Specific's...very musical pickups...your can actually hear them bloom."

-Andrew Kumar, Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I was knocked out by your pickups! Plugged straight in, it sounds like it was going through a top shelf tube compressor—only better.

I’m the luthier/owner of Stonetree Custom Guitars for over 20 years now. My goal is to craft a “brand new old guitar”. Not reliced but something that feels and sounds like an old guitar, but reliable, with some modern enhancements. I have relied on a couple of the biggest boutique pickup makers for the most part, but your pickups are a game changer. I have built guitars for many pros including 5 for Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel and 4 for Joe Bonamassa.

-Scott Platts, Luthier

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“These pickups respond just like vintage pickups. What makes them better than vintage pickups is that each set is consistent. You don’t don’t get that with vintage pickups…some are great & some are duds. The Tone Specific’s always sound amazing. There's nothing else like these on the market.”

-Dan Courtenay, Vintage Guitar Expert/Buyer in NYC

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"They sound better than the other pickups I've used. I'll be using them in my future builds"

-Ken McKay, Luthier

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“The sustain is really amazing. They’re really easy on the hands...they just feel

right. They are so dynamic...I just love them.”

-Mike Machado, Blues Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Just like vintage pickups only better. They have this dynamic thing going on kind of like a great tube amp. I imagine this is what new vintage pickups sounded like back in the 50's & 60's"

-Dani Robinson, Blues Guitarist (Performs Jimi parts w/Billy Cox Experience)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You are a Tone Wizard. My guitar has never sounded or felt so good. They respond to my playing in such an incredible way. It's just like playing an incredible tube amp. These pickups are so much better than everything else out there.”

-Breck Phillip, Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“They bloom just like a vintage tube amplifier. There are just really vintage sounding pickups. Super warm, dynamic & they sustain forever. They just agree with all of my amps. There's nothing else like them. I put them in all of my guitars, even my vintage guitars.

-Ford Thurston, Guitarist for Randy Houser based in Nashville, TN

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Very present, warm & fat. Big improvement over thin sounding stock pickups. They just sound huge”

-Alexander Flock, Session Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“They sound great & complement each other very well. They play just like butter & sustain forever. Other pickups seem very stiff compared to these.”

-Rob Phillips, Guitarist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“These are the quintessential sounding P.A.F. style pickups. They give you all of that warmth, bloom & sustain you’d expect in a vintage pickups without being overly wound.”

-Jay Leonard, Session & Touring Pro

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“These pickups sound absolutely fantastic. Perfectly matched and more versatile than my vintage pickups”.

-Steve Ouimette, Session Guitarist - Alice Cooper, Guitar Hero, Public Enemy

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Tone Specific always delivers a masterpiece. These responsive pickups catch the essence of my guitars & enables the musician to create the sounds he wants”

-Vincent Cleroux, Luthier

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Super warm & articulate with great sustain. The best pickups you can get”

-Pete Mroz, Nashville Musician

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Your pickups sound superb….they sound great in every guitar I’ve put them in…lots of sustain…clear”

-Dean Gordon, Guitar Builder

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Tone Specific makes the best pickups. The sustain and warmth is incredible. They are very dynamic, very tubey. They destroy all other pickups. They go in all of my guitars. It's kind of like plugging into and old Neve console”

-Mike Severson, Guitarist for Robert Glasper, Phillip Bailey (Earth, Wind & Fire)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Your pickups are killer. I've played a lot of guitar in my life but these pickups are the best I've played. I know you've worked hard at your craft but you should be very proud. You deserve all the kudos you get. Thank you very much".

-Lightnin Willie, Blues Recording Artist

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How to Buy/Pricing

Strat Pickups cost $497 - Made by hand right here in the USA - Due to overwhelming demand, the current wait is about 2 months. To order click the "Add to Cart" at the top of the page.

The demand from Professional Guitarists & Luthiers is about enough to sustain us but we really enjoy sharing our creations with the general public. If you are willing to be patient, then we will be happy to make a set for you.

Our building process takes a little longer than most pickup winders and we have rigorous testing that is performed on all pickups before they ship. This includes sound test. The goal is to make pickups that will not only inspire you when you get them but also 20 or 30 years down the road. Our goal is for these to be the last pickups you have to install in your guitar. We work hard & in a mindful way to make the perfect pickup, this is why you rarely see our pickups for sale on the used market.

Players with good ears seem to hear the difference right away. In fact, just about every pro we've dealt with has ordered multiple sets altering hearing how these pickups transform the feel & the tone of their instrument. We are sure you will appreciate the attention to detail when you hear your new pickups.

Sound is something you hear. Tone is something you feel. Great Tone has the ability to move you & the audience too. When you are able to grasp this concept, then you've arrived & we can't wait to make you an amazing set of pickups.

Want To Skip the Wait? Click Here to Contact a Dealer
SPECS

Our pickups are Handwound one at a time. Using several unique processes and the finest materials, we are able to create Amazing Vintage Voiced Pickups. We slightly tweak the voicing of these Vintage Style Pickups to nail a desired tone.

Sound is something you hear. Tone is something you feel. If you've realized this, then you've arrived & we can't wait to make the last set of pickups you'll ever need for your best guitars. The feel of a pickup is much more relevant than this specs, pro's understand this & Joe Cocker's former guitarist explains this phenomenon in the video below.

Misconceptions About Specs

Internet Chat Rooms are full of amateurs that rant about topics they don't understand. One of their favorite topics to discuss is guitar pickups. These folks spend hours upon hours discussing magnets and Ohm readings of pickups as if they were an appropriate indicator of tone. This is a ridiculous line of thinking. Just imagine if people assumed the wattage and speaker size of an amp where the only indicators of final tone. Obviously there is more to it than that.

If you are serious about tone, you'd be wise not to fall victim to this amateur way of thinking.

Serious Tone Chasers and Professional guitars know that the most important aspects of guitar tone are the voicing, the dynamics, the harmonic content. Most pickups made these days are stiff, lack dynamics & harmonic content. Lackluster tone may work for guys that judge tone with their multimeter, but for real musicians that use their ears, nothing but the best will do. This is where we come in...

We've spared no expense in making the most dynamic and touch-sensitive pickups ever made. We've voiced them a few different ways to match playing styles and/or balance out the inherent tone of your guitar. We also created the "Deluxe" series which covers just about any style & will work great with just about any wood combination. This is the series that most pros use for their #1 guitar.

Magnets

All of our pickups are equipped with Alnico Magnets. We use different types of magnets for the various styles. For some designs we use more than one type of magnet. We have a special process that makes these modern Alnico's sound very vintage. During beta testing, many of the top Pro's we work with could not tell the difference between their vintage pickups and our freshly-wound gems.

Wire

All of our pickups are made with coated magnet Wire that are of Vintage Specs. The style of pickup and desired tone will dictate which type of wire is used.

Potting

All of our pickups are potted to avoid unwanted feedback or the hated squeal. We use several different vintage based potting methods. The style of pickup and desired tone will dictate which type of potting materials and potting methods we use. Some pickups that really need to breathe are very lightly potted, while other in other pickups we employ different methods to help achieve certain tone and functionalities.

Bobbins, Covers & Other Materials

We use vintage style bobbins and metal cover materials as well as other materials. Vintage pickups sound great for a reason and we try to recreate our pickups to be as historically correct as possible. We have made various improvements in an effort to eliminate the dreaded pickup failure assoiciated with the pickups from the vintage era.

Ohm Readings

We don't disclose Ohm reading for several reasons. The most important reason is that an Ohm reading will tell you very little about the tone of the pickup. The tone of a pickup is partially determined by the collective materials along with the various techniques employed by the builder of the pickup.

The other reason we don't disclose Ohm reading is due to the fact that over time, and even from batch to batch, the composition of materials can slightly change. We buy large quantities of everything but when we open a new batch of anything, we have to go back to the drawing board. The tweaks are typically very minor. The important thing is the tone stays the same as the result of our constant attention to tone. Any pickup winder that has rigid specs on a pickup design is very likely to make pickups that sound different from one another even though they have the same name and basic measured specs. We go the extra mile to ensure the tone of our pickups is consistent from batch to batch and year to year.

Bottom line, sound is something you hear. Tone is something you feel and the reading on a multimeter has no place in a legitimate conversation about tone.

Stage Worthy

Life as a Professional Guitarist is filled with ups and downs. All gigs and tours end eventually, this reality makes every performance an audition. Top Pros know this & this is why they suffer over every detail.

You've spent a lifetime finding the right instrument, don't come up short with stock or average sounding pickups. Top Pros realize that an amplifiers circuitry actually starts in your guitar, precisely at the location of your pickups. Anything less than the best in your guitar will make your tone less than it should be.

From Nashville to LA, Austin to NYC, Brazil to Japan top touring Pros load up all of their main gigging guitars with Tone Specific Pickups. After hearing these pickups, you'll feel the same. Just take a listen.....

LIVE ON STAGE

Studio Ready

In this era of technology, everyone seems to have a home recording studio. As a result, the session scene has never been more competitive. If you want to make it these days, then you need to make every note count. Top Session Players understand this & choose Tone Specific to equip all of their main studio guitars.

Your next session date might be in a real studio. The producer might ask you to just bring your guitar, when you show up they might have you plug into a modeler or computer rig. If you show up with average pickups, you might not get a second chance. Our pickups are optimized to work well with vintage style amps as well as modern modeling digital devices. This is why serious session guitarists use Tone Specific Pickups.

RECORDING SESSION

Luthier Approved

Pro Guitarists & Luthiers have a few things in common. They both work in very competitive fields & the both want their instruments to sound as good as possible.

Luthiers spend years perfecting their craft & many hours testing various hardware and components to get the best out of their instruments. We are honored that so many top luthiers and guitar builders choose to use Tone Specific Pickups. Stephen Marchione discusses his approach to crafting some of the worlds finest guitars in the video below.

BUILDING A MASTERPIECE - STEPHEN MARCHIONE

Huge Tone. Huge Sweet Spot.

Our pickups are designed to sound great in the guitar in which they are installed. Whether you like to put them closer to the strings our further away, your tone will remain dynamic, warm and touch-sensitive. These pickups let the sounds in your head shine through the speaker with sweet tone and singing sustain.

They make a good guitar sound great and a great guitar sound amazing. More than a few top pro's have reported a huge improvement by dropping these into their vintage guitars.

Touch-Sensitive.

A set of pickups that capture every nuance of your playing style is rare find these days. Most pickups are made by big corporations in factories. Our pickups are made by guitar players for other guitar players. We care about your tone.

These pickups are designed to musically respond to you. They are directly between you and your amp and interact in a very musical way. You can produce an endless amount of tone by changing your pick-attack and picking location. Adjusting your volume and tone knobs opens up all kinds of doors in exploring the tonal pallet of these pickups. There is no need for tricky wiring gimmicks when you have a set of pickups of this caliber.

You Have to Hear It to Believe it

The love for our pickups by Professional Guitarists has been well documented. Until you hear and feel these pickups for yourself, you'll never really understand why serious guitarists use our pickups in all of their main guitars.

The amount of dynamic range you can cover just by moving your guitars volume knob or by hitting the strings hard or softly is amazing. This is what separates our pickups from all others. It's a real game changer for serious tone connoisseurs and pro guitarists.

If you want to really understand the dynamic range & harmonic content of our pickups, you need to take a moment to listen to the video's below.

Unlock Dynamic Tone w/ Your Picking Hand

Clean to Dirty w/ Your Guitars Volume Knob

Add Warmth & Retain Clarity when Rolling Back Tone Knob.

Certified Organic.

Our Pickups are made by hand, one at a time, right here in the U.S.A. Our goal is to make the most Dynamic, Warm & Sweetest sounding pickups in the world.

Now every Guitarist can experience the joy of having vintage voiced pickups tailored for their preferred tonal style without breaking the bank. Unlike the rest of the herd of boutique winders that just wrap wire around a bobbin to achieve a certain Ohm reading, we've taken painstaking path to tonal perfection. We welcome you to join us on this path. If you are thinking about Great Jazzy Tones………….Think Tone Specific!

Shop Tour
The Difference - Amazing Tone

When comparing our pickups to other pickups, the great players hear the difference right away. It seems the better the player, the more excited they get after hearing our pickups in their guitar.

This is why you rarely see a used set of our pickups for sale on an auction site. This is the same reason so many pro's equipped all of their guitars with our pickups. Many of these guys even ditch their vintage pickups in favor of our pickups.

Sound is something you hear. Tone is something you feel. This knowledge drives everything we do. If you realize this, then you've arrived & you'll be blown away by our work. Marty5150 explains this phenomenon in the video below.

Demand for our pickups from Pro Players & Luthiers/Builders is enough to sustain us as a company. In an effort to reduce stress we've considered only taking orders from Pro's & Luthiers but a big part of the joy of comes from sharing great tone with the next wave of Pro's & other appreciative tone seekers from all around the globe.

A lot of companies offer more models than you can imagine. We think it is counter-productive to have more than handful of different flavors for each type of pickup. At some point some of the models are going to start sounding the same. Our pickup designs all sound different and are voiced in a way to help solve real-world musical problems.

If you are trying to sell a million sets of pickups a year, then it probably makes sense to have dozens models. Our focus is on making musical pickups that will agree with your musical vision for many years to come.

Some players have an idea of what their guitar needs to sound it’s best, others need a little help in deciding. To help you make an informed decision we’ve posted video’s that show the different models pickups being played by the same guitarist using one amp. This will help you hear the differences between the models.

Tonal Perfection is the Goal.

If you are like most Guitarists, then your Pickup Drawer is probably full. This is due to many failed attempts over the years to nail your desired tone. At some point in time, you probably came to the uneasy realization that “Close enough would have to be good enough”. Not having the perfect pickups for your style can be extremely frustrating. This frustration can limit your ability to create the tones and the music you’ve been hearing in your head.

Here at Tone Specific Guitar Pickups we feel your pain. We too have spent much of our lives chasing tones. In our quest for perfect tone our Pickup Drawers filled up too. Many of our friends had the same issue too. Fed up with over-hyped guitar pickups, we decided to take matters into our own hands.

The Art of Tone Perfected

We took the time to learn and master the art of hand-winding fantastic guitar pickups. This included working with top Professional Guitarists along with legendary luthiers, pickup winders and amp builders. To get it just right we had to really understand each part of the chain of tone and how each part interacted with the other parts. Taking this extra step enabled us to create pickups that sound great with vintage tube amps, modern tube amps, pedals, solid state amps, digital devices and even software.

During the learning process, we dumped our pickup drawers and started to reverse-engineering everything. There were some original vintage electric guitar pickups from the 50’s and 60’s as well as dozens of sets from the most prolific boutique winders. We learned the secrets of the stellar vintage guitar pickups and how to replicate them down to every tonal detail and nuance.

Tone over Hype.

During our research, the boutique pickups for the most part fell way short of the hype. Fearful of repeating the same mistakes of other winders, we took the time to find out why some of those pickups were so lifeless. There are few boutique winders doing some very special work, but what we've found is most of the big names are just wrapping wire around magnets as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Better Than Vintage?

That's what our customers are saying. It humbling but that was always the goal. Being just average was never a consideration. Our challenge was to build a line of incredible sounding Hand wound Electric Guitar Pickups made right here in the USA. These Hand Wound Guitar Pickups would at least need to have tone on par with the best guitar pickups ever made from the vintage era with enhanced dynamic and modern reliability. Now that’s a noble idea! An idea that sounds great on paper, but how do you get there? The answers were found in our study of the original vintage pickups from the 50’s & 60’s. Contrary to popular belief, not all of the Vintage Guitar Pickups were great, but there were a few very special examples. We dissected these special pickups and unlocked their secrets. We put this knowledge to use in every set we make.

After we identified what made certain guitar pickups great, we had to figure out how to replicate this greatness. It was a very difficult process that took years to master. Sometimes it seemed like a road without an end. Our conviction never softened and we continued to push forward. After we figured out how to make guitar pickups tonally equal to the best pickups vintage pickups, our work still wasn’t finished…

Dialed-In Tone

Now the guitar pickups had to be dialed to nail Specific Tones. Some of the tonal answers were easy because of the special designs we uncovered in our study of vintage pickups. Most tonal solutions were quite elusive and required a serious amount of trial and error. In the end, with the help of our friends and Beta testers, we got there!

Now every Guitarist can experience the joy of having vintage voiced pickups tailored for their preferred tonal style without paying crazy prices for inconsistent vintage pickups. Unlike the rest of the herd of boutique winders that just wrap wire around a bobbin to achieve a certain Ohm reading, we've taken painstaking path to tonal perfection. We welcome you to join us on this path. If you are thinking about tone……….Think Tone Specific!

You Have to Hear It to Believe it

The love for our pickups by Professional Guitarists has been well documented. Until you hear and feel these pickups for yourself, you'll never really understand why serious guitarists use our pickups in all of their main guitars.

The amount of dynamic range you can cover just by moving your guitars volume knob or by hitting the strings hard or softly is amazing. This is what separates our pickups from all others. It's a real game changer for serious tone connoisseurs and pro guitarists.

If you want to really understand the dynamic range & harmonic content of our pickups, you need to take a moment to listen to the video's below.

Unlock Dynamic Tone w/ Your Picking Hand

Clean to Dirty w/ Your Guitars Volume Knob

Retain Clarity & Add Warmth When Rolling Back Tone Knob.

Misconceptions About Specs

Internet Chat Rooms are full of amateurs that rant about topics they don't understand. One of their favorite topics to discuss is guitar pickups. These folks spend hours upon hours discussing magnets and Ohm readings of pickups as if they were an appropriate indicator of tone. This is a ridiculous line of thinking. Just imagine if people assumed the wattage and speaker size of an amp where the only indicators of final tone. Obviously there is more to it but some people with way too much free time like to pretend to be experts because they know how to turn on a multimeter.

If you are serious about tone, you'd be wise not to fall victim to this amateur way of thinking.

Serious Tone Chasers and Professional guitars know that the most important aspects of guitar tone are the voicing, the dynamics, the harmonic content. Most pickups made these days are stiff, lack dynamics & harmonic content. Lackluster tone may work for guys that judge tone with their multimeter, but for real musicians that use their ears, nothing but the best will do. This is where we come in...

We've spared no expense in making the most dynamic and touch-sensitive pickups ever made. We've voiced them a few different ways to match playing styles and/or balance out the inherent tone of your guitar. We also created the "Deluxe" series which covers just about any style & will work great with just about any wood combination. This is the series that most pros use for their #1 guitar.

Stage Worthy

Life as a Professional Guitarist is filled with ups and downs. All gigs and tours end eventually, this reality makes every performance an audition. Top Pros know this & this is why they suffer over every detail.

You've spent a lifetime finding the right instrument, don't come up short with stock or average sounding pickups. Top Pros realize that an amplifiers circuitry actually starts in your guitar, precisely at the location of your pickups. Anything less than the best in your guitar will make your tone less than it should be.

From Nashville to LA, Austin to NYC, Brazil to Japan top touring Pros load up all of their main gigging guitars with Tone Specific Pickups. After hearing these pickups, you'll feel the same. Just take a listen.....

LIVE ON STAGE

Studio Ready

In this era of technology, everyone seems to have a home recording studio. As a result, the session scene has never been more competitive. If you want to make it these days, then you need to make every note count. Top Session Players understand this & choose Tone Specific to equip all of their main studio guitars.

Your next session date might be in a real studio. The producer might ask you to just bring your guitar, when you show up they might have you plug into a modeler or computer rig. If you show up with average pickups, you might not get a second chance. Our pickups are optimized to work well with vintage style amps as well as modern modeling digital devices. This is why serious session guitarists use Tone Specific Pickups.

RECORDING SESSION

Luthier Approved

Pro Guitarists & Luthiers have a few things in common. They both work in very competitive fields & the both want their instruments to sound as good as possible.

Luthiers spend years perfecting their craft & many hours testing various hardware and components to get the best out of their instruments. We are honored that so many top luthiers and guitar builders choose to use Tone Specific Pickups. Stephen Marchione discusses his approach to crafting some of the worlds finest guitars in the video below.

BUILDING A MASTERPIECE - STEPHEN MARCHIONE

Shop Tour