This article is dedicated to all of our left handed guitar-playing customers. Although most players – right or left handed – will enjoy the technical information in this article because it applies to other questions that come up regarding the orientation of the pickup in the guitar.
In particular, this article will address our most frequently asked question from left handed players:
Continue readingThis the second part of our series about some important considerations for Gibson and Fender pole piece spacing. Part One talked about things to consider for humbuckers. This section will cover things you’ll want to know when setting up instruments with single coil pickups.
First, to review – the main focus of this series is to understand that there is a slight difference in the pole piece spacing between typical Gibson style pickups and Fender style pickups. By “pole piece spacing” we mean the amount of space in between the pole pieces of the pickups. This roughly relates to the spacing in between the strings of the guitar, but not entirely. More on this point later.
Continue readingNOTE: This is Part One of a two-part blog post. Go To Part Two.
We get enough questions about Gibson pole spacing versus Fender pole spacing that it’s worthwhile writing about here in the Lollar blog.
The best way to proceed is to review the most common questions.
But first, we’ll start with some basics…..like, what do you mean by Gibson spacing and Fender spacing?
That terminology is actually referring to the physical spacing between the pole pieces. This roughly corresponds to the distance between the strings themselves, but not entirely. (More on that point later). In general terms, the spacing between pole pieces is slightly wider on Fender style pickups, and slightly narrower on Gibson style pickups. The overall difference – when you measure from the centers of the 2 outside pole pieces – is roughly 2 to 3 millimeters. In other words, if you measure from the center of the high E pole piece to the center of the Low E pole piece, a Gibson spaced pickup will measure right around 50 millimeters. A pickup with Fender spacing will measure between 52 and 53 millimeters, depending on the pickup.
Continue readingThis is the fifth article in our series about best selling Lollar pickups. In this article we’ll talk about some of our best selling items that can’t be classified among the main categories of pickups like strat, tele, and humbucker style pickups.
Lollar Jazzmaster style pickups are a consistent favorite. Overall the Lollar Jazzmaster style pickups have a nicely detailed treble and a bit more midrange and bass when compared to a strat style single coil. They also have a very responsive dynamic range.
As you may already know, the size and shape of a pickup coil affect the quality of the tone it will produce. For example, the Jazzmaster coil is very short (1/8″) but very wide. This gives it more surface area and allows the pickup to sense the vibrations of a longer length of the strings. This is part of why they have their own unique tone qualities. To read even more about the unique properties of our Jazzmaster pickups, follow this link to an earlier Lollar pickups blog about Jazzmaster pickups and the Jazzmaster guitar.
Continue readingThis is the fourth article in a series about best selling Lollar pickups. In this post we will talk a little about best selling Lollar Imperial® humbuckers, plus give you an overview of the three full sized, stock humbucking pickups that we build. For this discussion we’ll stick to our full sized humbuckers only.
We build three general categories of Lollar Imperial® humbuckers. They are categorized based on their output levels, using the standard wind Imperial as the “baseline” or point of reference. The three categories are the Lollar Imperial (considered our standard wind), the Low Wind Imperial, and the High Wind Imperial.
As the name implies, the Lollar Low Wind Imperial is a slightly lower output pickup as compared to our standard wind Imperial. Our High Wind Imperial is a slightly higher output pickup as compared to our standard wind Imperial. For detailed descriptions and sound clips of the three different full sized humbuckers we build, follow this link to read about Lollar Imperial® humbuckers.
On a side note, this is a good opportunity to clarify the word “wind” as used in the names Low Wind and High Wind. This word refers to the amount of copper wire that is wrapped – or wound – around the humbucker bobbins to form a “coil.” The wire is wrapped around and around the bobbin, literally thousands of times to make each coil. The number of times the wire is wrapped around the bobbin is called the “turn count.” The turn count is the number of times the copper wire is “wound” around the bobbin. The term Low Wind refers to the fact that there are fewer times the copper wire is wound around the bobbin to make a coil. The term High Wind refers to the fact that there are more times the copper wire is wound around the bobbin to make a coil.
Getting back to best selling Lollar humbuckers: Our standard Lollar Imperial is our best selling humbucker – by far. We sell roughly 50% more Lollar standard Imperials than Low Wind and High Wind Imperials combined.
Each of our humbucker models is available in eight different “finishes.” These include nickel, chrome, gold, aged, heavy aged, double-black, zebra, and reverse zebra. In addition, each of these is available in your choice of either the traditional Gibson style single conductor lead wire or 4-conductor lead wire. So in other words, you have 16 different choices of standard Lollar Imperial sets to choose from.
Among all of these choices, our nickel covered single conductor Lollar Imperial sets are the top sellers. The second most popular Imperials are (again) our nickel covered Imperial sets, but with 4-conductor leads. Our third best selling full sized humbucker is our Low Wind Imperial neck, with nickel cover and single conductor lead wire. This item is popular for two reasons. First, our Low Wind nickel single conductor sets are popular with archtop players. Second, our Low Wind nickel single conductor necks are great for tele applications. The Low Wind Imperial neck (usually nickel, single conductor) is frequently combined with the Lollar Special Tele bridge.
Now, like we have mentioned throughout this series, there really is no “wrong” answer. All of our pickups have their own advantages. The best approach is to know what your specific goals are, and then make your selection based on what you’d like to accomplish for the particular project or guitar you are working on.
Next week’s discussion will be about a few other popular “miscellaneous” items.