What is this thing called, love? Sort of a NGD

[wzpgsr]

A luthier friend of mine built this guitar for me several years ago. Chambered mahogany body w/ maple cap, mahogany neck, 24.75" scale, Tele hardware. It's a weird but awesome beast. We originally outfitted it with a Vintage Vibe CC Rider in the neck and a matching P90 in the bridge. It always sounded great—with flats, very thunky...as thunky as any thunky hollowbody I've ever heard. It always looked a little strange to me because the original pickups were different sizes, which was my own dumb fault—I should have opted for the same pickup design in each slot.



I was in the mood for a change and stumbled across a set of pre-owned, but never-installed, Ronin foilbuckers, so in they went. I also moved from TI 12 flats to 11 pure nickel rounds—it's a very different guitar now. Still getting used to it—with all coil tap switching options there's a lot of useable sound here. A lot more versatile now. And looks worlds better than it did before.

Here is the new hotness:

[gitman]

From what I've heard so far these pickups have a truly unique tone - they were prohibitively expensive though .... let's hear it !

[wzpgsr]

From what I've heard so far these pickups have a truly unique tone - they were prohibitively expensive though .... let's hear it !

Unique is apt: hi-fi sounding when in humbucking mode—maybe even a little off-putting at first, because they are extremely articulate...almost "microphonic"...reminiscent of plugging straight into a console with no amp sim. I've been playing this guitar exclusively since I got it back from the shop—can't put it down—and I am starting to get the hang of tweaking the tone and volume knob and adapting the guitar to different amps. Today was all tweed, all day long. I also switched to round wounds on this guitar so I am also adjusting to that change. It's a completely different instrument now—not sure if it's necessarily "better," but definitely different in a great way. I had the pickups wired with a three-way toggle for each pickup, so you can select which single coil you want active on each pickup, or run each in humbucking mode, or run one single and one humbucking, etc. Lots of options. It's kind of like having 4 pickups at your disposal. I'll try to record something soon.

[citizenk74]

Foil pickups have their distinctive charms. Congratulations, and play it in good health!

[Jimmy blue note]

That IS a huge transformation! A little reminiscent of the thought behind a jazzmaster, which I came across a couple years ago when someone brought a vintage one into the shop to be worked on. I remember my thought at the time "Amazing! Why aren't these things more popular?".
Good luck with that. Even a string type change. You ARE going for something new. Have you ever tried roller wounds? They're LaBella strings and they're round wound strings that have had the windings compressed to give some of the qualities of flats.
Looks like that guitar's going to serve you well for a very long time! And you're going to make some serious music with it.