How are Bill Lawrence Pickups?

[arielcee]

They are mentioned pretty infrequently.
Being a jazz player who made custom pickups for Wes and Grant would seem to prove him worthy of consideration by some measure.

[Cunamara]

Bill Lawrence pick ups are a little bit fraught with peril in terms of what company you get them from. He has a former business partner who operates under the name "Bill Lawrence USA" and then Bill and his wife Becky set up shop as "Bill Lawrence" and then as "Wilde Pickups." Those are now made by his wife Becky and their daughter. There is a reputation on the Internet of them being rather difficult to do business with but that has not been my experience; I got my pick ups quickly, they were exactly as described and I've been extremely pleased.

I bought one of the L280TN pick ups for my jazz Telecaster, replacing the well regarded Vintage Vibe CC Rider. I have been very, very pleased with it. It is widely adaptable and sounds very good for jazz. In fact, both of my Teles have that pickup in the neck position.

I also have a Strat type partscaster that I put together many years ago using Seymour Duncan pick ups; I was never happy with those (Quarter Pound in the neck position, JBJ in the middle position and DDJ in the bridge position). I've swapped many different pickups in and out of that guitar over the past 30 years, but since going to the Bill Lawrence pickups I think my search is done with that instrument. Now it has an L280N Strat pickup in the neck position, an L90 4.0 in the middle and an L90 6.0 in the bridge. The L280 is not glassy, almost more like politer P90 which for me is good as I really dislike the glassy Strat sound. The L90s don't have that nasal midrange that so many PAF clones end up with, and they resist getting muddy as the tone rolls off. Lawrence pickups are also very responsive to cable capacitance, so there are a lot of tools for tailoring tone. I use a George L's low capacitance cable (16 pF/ft).

I came up with a wiring system for the Strat which is more complicated to describe than it really is, using a stacked 500K/250K volume pot, a 250K neck tone pot and a concentric stacked 500K/500K middle/bridge pot. The neck pickup goes to the 250K pots; the middle and bridge pick up go to the 500K pots and both have their own tone control.

The result is a guitar that is very tonally flexible. Ed Bickertish, Jerry Garcia-ish, Rory Gallagherish, Mark Knopflerish, Bill Frisellish just with pickup selection and a little knob twiddling. My impression with Lawrence pickups is that they are rather neutral, allowing the sound of the guitar to be prominent rather than the sound of the pick up.

Maybe I have just drank the Kool-Aid. But, if so, I've been happier with these pick ups than any others I've put in those guitars. I've never used them in any kind of hollow body guitar, however, and I can't comment on how well they work in that application. Also, they don't do custom pick ups, unlike Pete Biltoft, Kent Armstrong, etc.- they have the models they do and that's it.

[gitman]

I first heard some of Bill's pickups a good 40 years ago, when they were marketed under the name OBL and even then they were widely described as "neutral" sounding, not having the pronounced extras like the then so popular DiMarzio, Duncan, Mighty Mite or Schecter products. They were all dead quiet, you could get them in medium or high output versions and all had 5-conductor wiring (2 leads per coil plus an extra ground). My Lap Steel (mahogany)plank sports a P-90 sized Lawrence pickup and it sounds just fine - played it side by side with an original 1930's Rickenbacker bakelite Lap Steel the other week and besides not giving off any hum it ripped just as good as the high-$ grand daddy.

[Marty Grass]

Bill made a full range of pickups. The ones made by him or his family generally seem well built.

The question is which one suits your taste. I got a guitar with some very hot pickups made by him from a metal player. I removed them. They were excellent in quality but not my cup of tea.

Here is a short bio of him.

https://www.wildepickups.com/pages/bill-lawrence

[Longways to Go]

I have two Bill Lawrence pickups. One fits into an acoustic flat top sound hole, the second is installed on my 1934 L-7 (by previous owner) They are both older pickups -- more than 30 years old.

I think they sound fabulous. The pickups I have aren't really reproducing the sound of the acoustic guitar (at least by today's standards), as much as making a great electric sound with an acoustic guitar. Probably not what everyone is looking for, but I dig them. I think of them as acoustic meets humbucker sound.

[neatomic]

bill lawrence was one of the greatest pickup "scientists" ever!...he was already legendary in the early 60's for his european designs...then came stateside and worked with dan armstrong and his then young son-kent amstrong- in nycs first cutting edge guitar mod shop.....was first to bring back blade pickups (from cc era)...he's behind zoller az pup (used by jimmy raney)....was one of the first to have his own pickup line out, in a time when there were no real "boutique" guitar accessory manufacturers...

later sold out to partner who continued to use lawrence pickups name..causing him woe & so restarted under the name -wilde...a family biz...which was noted for making excellent pickups...the tele guys love them...

he also worked for almost every guitar manufacturer ever..from ampeg to framus to fender to gibson to peavey etc etc

he was always quick to point out that pups should not be based on resistance numbers...(which don't really indicate anything but the measure of wire around a coil) and to look at the inductance figures

he was a true great

rip bl



cheers

[bohemian46]

I have a pair of "Keystone" pickups, handmade by Bill himself, installed in my 2003 Fender Tele Hiway 1...

Luv em.

[medblues]

The SCN (Samarium Cobralt Noiseless) pickups that were the updated noiseless pickups on Fender Strats and Teles were originally designed by Bill Lawrence. His microcoil pickups for teles are excellent.

[neatomic]

The SCN (Samarium Cobralt Noiseless) pickups that were the updated noiseless pickups on Fender Strats and Teles were originally designed by Bill Lawrence. His microcoil pickups for teles are excellent.

he was hired by fender lace...part of the team..they went to the best! why fender/fmic is still doing well! smart!

cheers

[Litterick]

The super-humbucker pickups for the L6-S are something else: ceramic magnets, no pole pieces, high output.

[christianm77]

The SCN (Samarium Cobralt Noiseless) pickups that were the updated noiseless pickups on Fender Strats and Teles were originally designed by Bill Lawrence. His microcoil pickups for teles are excellent.

i have those on my Tele and really like them.

[jads57]

Bill Lawrence now Becky Wylde pickups offer excellent pickups. Especially for noiseless single coils at a low asking price.

[powerwagonjohn]

I have a set of Keystones in my tele as does a friend and we are both very happy with them. Just be sure you buy them from Becky and you will get great pick ups and a even greater price.
Thanks John