Lollar Pickups Blog

Welcome to the Lollar Pickups Blog, where we share in-depth information and stories about the pickups we build.

Best Selling Lollar P-90 Style Pickups

This article is third in a series of discussions about best selling Lollar pickups. This session will feature our best selling Lollar P-90 style pickups.

Lollar P-90 Pickups:

The Lollar P-90 is really the “flagship” Lollar pickup, and is often considered “the” pickup that began to draw customers’ attention to Lollar pickups.

Lollar P90 soapbar sets are a strong favorite.
Lollar P90 soapbar sets are a strong favorite.

Our best selling P-90 is the standard wind soapbar style pickup. In fact, we sell over twice as many of this particular model of P-90 than all of our other p-90 pickups combined. That includes all of the other soapbar and dogear models that make up our entire list of P-90 stock models.

Many of the builders we work with install the Lollar standard wind P-90 soapbar sets. Some of these builders include Collings, Godin, Heritage, and National Resophonic.

In fact, as an historical tidbit, it was National Resophonic that was the first established guitar builder that purchased a small run of Lollar P-90 soapbar pickups for use in one of their electric instruments. Since that original purchase in 2002, the Lollar P-90 soapbar has continued to be original equipment on the National Resophonic “Resoelectric” guitar.

For more specific information on our standard P-90 follow this link to Lollar P-90 pickups. And, as we’ve mentioned before, there is really no “wrong” answer when making your individual pickup choice. Each model of Lollar pickups has its own unique advantages. Our best advice is to decide what you’d like to accomplish for the specific project or instrument you are working on, and then base your decision on what’s right for you.

Next week’s discussion about best selling Lollar pickups will focus on best selling Lollar humbuckers.

Best Selling Lollar Tele Style Pickups

This is the second blog in a series of discussions about best selling Lollar pickups.  Today we’ll cover our best selling Lollar tele pickups.

Lollar Tele Pickups:

A discussion of Lollar tele style pickups is a bit more accurate if we talk about favorite combinations of necks and bridges.  The reason for this is because our customers often like to “mix and match” our different tele style pickups.

The Lollar Special T Series set is one of our most popular tele style sets.
The Lollar Special T Series set is one of our most popular tele style sets.

Our best selling stock Lollar tele bridge is the Lollar Special T Series® bridge. We sell more of these bridges than any of our others.  There are 2 favorite combinations that include this choice for the bridge position.

The first combination is the Lollar Special T Series bridge plus Lollar Special T Series neck.  In other words, simply a Lollar Special T Series set.  A second popular combination is the Lollar Special T Series bridge plus the Lollar Vintage T Series® neck.  

It is generally a “tie” when it comes to which of these stock combinations is more popular.  Some months we sell more straight Lollar Special T Series sets, and some months we sell more combination sets consisting of the Lollar Special T bridge plus the Lollar Vintage T neck. 

In our previous blog about best selling Lollar strat style pickups, we mentioned the popularity of the Lollar “Dirty Blonde” strat set which is a combination set consisting of the Lollar Special S bridge and Lollar Blonde neck and middle.  It is interesting to point out that there is a similar pattern with teles.  The combination tele style set made up of the Lollar Special T bridge plus Lollar Vintage T neck is also popular for one of the same reasons that make the Dirty Blonde set so popular: That is, Nash Guitars.

This combination set consists of the Lollar Special T Series bridge and the Lollar Vintage T Series neck.  It is another very popular choice.
This combination set consists of the Lollar Special T Series bridge and the Lollar Vintage T Series neck. It is another very popular choice.

If you wanted to order what you hear in a Nash tele style guitar equipped with Lollars, you would want to order the Lollar Special T Series bridge and the Lollar Vintage T Series neck. For more detail on this Nash style combination for tele, take a look at the previous posting about Lollar Pickups and Nash Guitars.

One last question that is worth addressing: What is the most popular choice to go along with the Lollar Charlie Christian neck for telecaster?  Answer (which you may have already guessed): The Lollar Special T Series bridge. 

And again a reminder, these are current purchasing trends.  Ultimately there is no “wrong” answer.  It still all boils down to your personal preference and what tone you are seeking for the particular project or instrument.  As you know, we sell a variety of Lollar tele style pickups.  Each of them has its own unique characteristics and advantages.  For more details and sound clips, follow this link to read more specific information about each of the various Lollar tele style pickups.

Next week we will look at best selling Lollar P-90 style pickups.

Best Selling Lollar Strat Style Pickups

Customers frequently ask us what our best-selling stock Lollar pickups are. In fact, this is one of our most frequently asked questions. Usually something to the effect of, “So what seems to be the most popular?” And, “What do most players order?”

So we thought it made sense to share that with you. For the next few blog postings we will talk a little about some of our top selling pickups. We will start with the Lollar Strat-style pickups.

The Lollar Sixty-Four (formerly called Vintage Blackface®) pickups for Strat are our most popular stock Strat pickup. Many players find the Sixty-Four set to be one of our most versatile. Clear and articulate when played clean, while at the same time offering a warmth and punchiness that make the Lollar Sixty-Four set a favorite.

Another top selling Lollar stock Strat set is a combination set we refer to as our “Special Blonde” set. The Lollar Special Blonde Strat set is a mixture of Lollar Vintage Blonde® Strat pickups in the neck and the middle positions, and the Lollar Special S Series® strat pickup in the bridge position. This combination gives many players the “best of both worlds.” The Lollar Vintage Blonde® neck and middle offer a bit more sparkle, chime, and top end bloom. At the same time, the slightly higher output Lollar Special S Series® bridge is just a bit darker and rounder than our other Strat style bridges. In most cases this helps lessen that typical Strat “ice pick” bridge sound.

The Lollar Special Blonde Strat set is interesting for yet another reason: Nash Guitars. Basically, if you wanted to order what you hear in a Nash Strat, you would want to order a Lollar Special Blonde Strat set. For more detail on the Nash Strat set, take a look at this previous Lollar Blog posting about Lollar pickups and Nash guitars.

One last point to make about best-selling Lollar Strat pickups: flat pole versus staggered pole pieces. When customers ask for our recommendation we strongly recommend flat pole pieces. For more detail on why we recommend the flat poles, follow this link to read an article about flat-pole versus staggered-pole pickups. Generally speaking, about 10% of the Strats we sell are staggered pole sets. In other words, about 90% of the time our customers prefer flat pole Strat pickups. Next week we’ll talk about best selling Lollar Tele style pickups.

Temperature and Guitar Pickup DC Resistance

This is a follow-up to our previous Blog entitled, “How Important is Guitar Pickup DC Resistance?” 

We decided to further demonstrate an important property of guitar pickup DC resistance.  That is, how temperature can affect the DC resistance reading on the SAME pickup.

So we did a simple experiment for you.  This will help demonstrate the point.   

We took the SAME pickup, a 2009 Lollar Vintage T Series bridge, and placed it in three different temerature settings and photographed the results.  As you will see, the same pickup will have different Ohm meter readings when the pickup’s temperature changes.

Here goes:

Setting Number 1 – Room Temperature

This particular Lollar Vintage T Series bridge reads a little over 7.1K at 68 degrees fahrenheit.
This particular Lollar Vintage T Series bridge reads a little over 7.1K at 68 degrees fahrenheit.

Here you will find our stock Lollar Vintage T Series bridge (one of our most popular, by the way).  The DC resistance is taken at room temperature, as indicated by the thermometer.

Setting Number 2 – Warm

This same Lollar Vintage T Series bridge has a reading of almost 7.9K after it has been warmed up for about an hour.
This same Lollar Vintage T Series bridge has a reading of almost 7.9K after it has been warmed up for about an hour.

This next photo shows a higher DC resistance reading, taken on the very same Lollar T Series bridge pickup.  We let this pickup sit at the warming station for about an hour.  (We warm all of the pickups at the warming station before they are immersed in the molten wax at the potting station.)

Setting Number 3 – Cold

Now this same Lollar Vintage T Series bridge has a reading of just under 6.4K - it has been sitting in the refrigerator.
Now this same Lollar Vintage T Series bridge has a reading of just under 6.4K – it has been sitting in the refrigerator.

This final photo shows how a colder temperature affects the DC resistance.  We let the same Lollar Vintage T Series bridge pickup sit in the refrigerator for about an hour. You can see how lowering the temperature of the pickup also lowers the DC resistance reading.

How Important is Guitar Pickup DC Resistance?

There is quite a bit of misunderstanding about the use of DC resistance as a measurement of a guitar pickup’s output.  DC resistance (kΩ) is a handy but rough measure of a pickup’s output.  It is most useful for making general comparisons, but not taken much beyond that.

We say this because there are a number of variables that can affect DC resistance.  In fact, two of these factors can actually change the DC resistance reading on the SAME guitar pickup.

Temperature, specifically, will do this.  The very same pickup will have a higher DC resistance reading when the pickup is warmer, and a lower DC resistance reading when the pickup is cooler.  For example,  if the pickup has been sitting in a sunny window, the dc resistance will read higher.  If you took that same pickup and stored it in your basement / practice room and it was cooler in temp, the DC resistance would read lower.

The dc resistance will also read lower once the pickup has been installed into your guitar.

Another factor is variation of copper wire.  Although it’s manufactured to rigorous specs, variation exists between spools of copper wire—including spools made by the same manufacturer and from the same lot number.  A microscopic size variance that’s still within specs can affect DC resistance.

Equipment calibration can vary between ohm meters and can also change if your battery is low.

We get phone calls from customers who have questions about the DC resistance their new guitar pickup is showing – at that moment – and the DC resistance values that we publish on our web site. They want to know if there is something “wrong” with the new pickup.

We tell them that unless they are taking that reading at exactly the same temperature as we did here in the shop, their pickup will read slightly differently.  More often than not, they will have just received the pickup, pulled it out of the box, and tested it moments after it has just been sitting in either a very cold or a very hot delivery truck.  

Another thing to keep in mind is that the DC resistance values we publish are midpoints.  The testing was done on average size production runs.  Each of the pickups in those runs had a different reading.  The values we publish are the midpoints of those groups of readings.

Follow this link to see a full listing of Lollar Pickups DC resistance.

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