Guitar Pickups

So, You Want your Guitar Pickups Replaced ?
No Problem, we’ll put them in for you-$35 per pickup labor. We’ll add any pickups that you want! We’ve got them-all-Bartolini, EMG, Lollar, DiMarzio, Fender, Duncan, Bare Knuckle, TV Jones, Fishman, Frahlin and many more including our own Simulated Retro Vintage Style (SRV) pickup. Whatever you want or we can suggest something!

What is a Guitar Pickup?
Guitar pickups are simply microphones (transducers for you,”educated players”) that “pick up” or “sense” the vibrations of the strings of your electric guitar. They convert the vibrations into sound that can be boosted with an amplifier. The “quality” of the sound produced depends on how well they are made.

The reason we have more than one guitar “Pickup Manufacturer” is because each one claims to be able to do it better. Some do and some don’t.

How Does it Work?
A guitar pickup contains one or more magnets inserted into a bobbin. The bobbin is made of magnetic poles, cutout paper stand-offs and wound with conductive wire. The device is able to transform the mechanical energy (string vibrations over each magnetic pole-piece) into electrical energy. The energy goes through the selector switch, the volume control then out to your amp. A guitar amp transforms the electrical energy back into mechanical energy and sends the newly transformed signal through your speaker as sound waves.

Ceramic Pickups
Ceramic pickups are sometimes marginalized by some alnico users. However, ceramic magnets are just as important for tone-seekers as any alnico magnet version . Metal, prog-rock, hard-rock, blues and other players will often choose the DiMarzio Super Distortion for example.

Just about all of EMG‘s active pickups utilize high-output ceramic magnets in the circuit. Ceramic magnet pickups provide a great punchy bass response, loud solid mid-range, and a very hot output. The next step up would be active. So play your ceramic pickups with pride and don’t be swayed by anyone else.

Design, build, repair, customize
We not only sell guitars, but we also design them, build them, repair, customize, modify and test them. Instead of traveling from store to store looking for just the right combination of features for your ideal guitar pickup replacement, it makes sense to let the experts take all of your favorite features of all of your favorite custom guitar and combine them all into the instrument that you’ve always dreamed of having. Always ready to perform guitar repairs, guitar builds and modifications. Simply put, it’s the best place for a serious guitarist to buy or have their instrument setup and repaired.

At Haywire Custom Guitars Inc. we combine the best technology from the past mixed down and tempered with quality parts, knowledge, experience, skill and innovative custom guitar building techniques of the present. We then condense and distill it into a pure guitar. We believe that there is always room at the top for a great playing, great feeling, high quality, reasonably priced guitar for all professional guitarists around the world.

SRV Pickups
Our own proprietary SRV ceramic pickups (Simulated Vintage Retro) provide excellent mid-range and punchy bass notes with noiseless clarity and a great signal to your amp. SRV’s deliver vintage tone, optimum output, balanced string response, and microphonic suppression. They’re specially voiced select custom guitar pickups that deliver masterful tone, overdrive, clarity, dynamics, transparency, versatility & a balanced tonal response. These come standard with our guitars and loaded bodies at no extra charge. So, you get to try a free set of some of the best sounding pickups you’ll ever experience available only at Haywire Custom Guitars in a re-build or new build. They are brighter, punchier and more focused compared to other single coils. The top end is smooth, and bottom end a perfect match. Excellent on funk, disco, soul, and R&B tracks, these SRV single-coil pickups are ideal. You will love them for soloing. They have been used successfully by players for their power, tone, and clear gritty response on guitars for the last 25 years. Try them!
Our value to guitar players World-wide is that we use the best parts from the best makers. We’re not beholden to a particular company and stuck having to use their parts. We simply use everyone’s pickups. And that is the best news for guitar players. So, whatever your parts need, let us know, and we’ll use it in your guitar! If you need it, we’ll get it.
Any pickups you require, we’ll use for you. At Haywire Custom Shop we always want to help you be your best.
We hear you! “We’re Musicians working for Musicians”. Let us work for you!
We’ll use any brand pickups that you need to help you get the sound you’re looking for!

Your guitar pickups are similar to microphones…..
with subtle differences and some are made to be snugged right up to the strings where they will perform much better. When we adjust and install your guitar pickups, we set them close, so they will hear better, and will also hear a great deal more. Your guitar pickups placed farther away will cause a volume drop. Some of our customers/players use: Dimarzio, Duncans, Bareknuckle and others with their humbuckers bearing huge magnets. They are more powerful but in what way?

Heavy pickups need to stand off from the strings for magnetic and vibration resistance reasons. But the biggest reason is NOISE. Big fat heavy pickups are noisy. Guitar strings get pulled out of tune when they sense too much magnetic force in their orbit. A big fat heavy magnetic humbuckers will exert a lot of downward pull.

Magnetics
Why? Simply because it hampers string sustain and bends the strings by pulling downward on the strings. A downward pull on an in tune string equals, “out of tune” strings. Do you want to be in tune? Would you like more sustain or less? If you’d like more sustain then use low windings in your guitar pickups or one with a weaker ceramic magnet rather than an Alnico-2, 3 4 or 5.

Just because the magnet is weak doesn’t mean you have a wimpy pickup. It just means you have to handle it differently. Simply raise your guitar pickups all the way up (not so far that the strings bang the top of the pole piece) just below the strings where it can hear everything. You want an accurate reproduction of the sound.

Think Like A Singer
What I’m suggesting is akin to a singer standing close up to the microphone versus singing 2 feet away. You want to be heard Right? Why sing so far away? Same with a good, well made low power guitar pickups for your guitar. Get them CLOSE!

The even pole piece pickups are generally preferable to the staggered pole. Your guitar will be heard much better.

Staggered or Not
Many players select staggered guitar pickups simply for aesthetic reasons. This is great as long as you’re just doing photo sessions and not really playing the guitar. Do you know when to apply the use of a set of staggered pickups? That is why you’re here! The reason to use that kind of pole stagger is when the radius of the neck is especially deep. The necks in the 1940’s and 1950’s required these because the radius was really curved.

A well set up guitar has a string radius matching the radius of it’s particular fret board. At an extreme 7.25 Radius the pole pieces on the D and G strings were are far away they can not be heard very well (have you heard this somewhere before?). To solve the problem back then, a few of the poles were extended to be able to reach just under the strings to BE HEARD. Thus the staggered pole pickup was born. YAAAAY!

It doesn’t mean however that you need to run out and get a set. Most fret boards these days have a radius of 12″ and higher. Today, there is no need for the staggered profile set on newer guitars now otherwise-some of your strings will not be heard. Am I repeating myself? Good, you need to know this.

The important take away is get the right power for your guitar pickups. get the right pole piece setup and set your pickups at the proper height. Then get back with me and let me know how much better your guitar sounds.