Radioshop Guild LB1 Rewind Upgrade Service

£160.00

Our celebrated Guild LB1 Rewind Upgrade Service for a pair of your existing pickups

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Description

At last something for all you Guild fanatics (you can count us in that bracket)! For many of us, a purchase of a modern Guild electric guitar is a wonderful experience. The build quality of the current Starfires, Jetstars, et al is something to behold – the guitars are beautifully put together and a joy to play. That is, until plugging in and finding that there are a couple of issues with standard issue LB1 pickups!

For some reason Guild studied some erroneous pickups they had on their shelves when recreating their LB1 pickups in the Fender owned era and this issue has continued into the present day too. This was something we discovered way back in 2013 when we bought our Starfire IV. It was a beautiful guitar and sounded fantastic acoustically, but plugged in it wasn’t quite right. The outputs of the pickups weren’t spot on and a massive imbalance from the Neck to the Bridge pickup existed. We couldn’t resist seeing if we could improve upon this and as you can see in the video down below (which is a bit old now, we must say!) upon opening up a pair of LB1s one can find lots to improve on.

Our Guild LB1 Rewind Service offers a complete stripping and then rebuilding of your existing pair of Guild LB1 Pickups to really get your Guild singing.

First is to strip the pickup of its heavy, tone robbing wax. The LB1s are absolutely caked in the stuff and it’s not gentle wax at all. A blanket over your tone is the best way to describe it!

Second is to rewind the output but this time with our revered hand winding technique. While we’re at it, lets get those outputs right. We were fortunate to gain access to an original 1965 Starfire IV to study back in 2013 when we started this process and every aspect of the winding is copied to ape that guitar exactly. With 6.7k at the Bridge Position and 6.5k at the Neck, the LB1s really sing and have wonderful balance.

The last step is to upgrade the Alnico Magnet for a further tonal improvement before reassembling the pickup and getting your set back to you for easy reinstallation in your Guild guitar of choice.

Far from being just an output imbalance correction service, our customers have found that our LB1 Rewind service takes a fairly sterile sounding set (all that heavy wax really does muffle the tones on offer) and totally transforms the sound. The best way to describe it is that a great set of LB1s sounds like an amazing halfway house between Gibson PAFs and Gretsch Filtertrons. The twang and presence is there if you want it but it also wields a beautiful bluesy bite which is a serious amount of fun to play. Our current workshop squeeze, a Guild Starfire III ST now nails everything from Beatles cleans to Byrdsy folk-rock aswell as offering hard rock and blues tones to die for.

How it works

  1. You purchase our Guild Rewind Service which will reserve your place in our build queue (price is for the pair)
  2. You will receive a confirmation email giving instructions on how to send your set to us
  3. You remove your LB1 pair from your Guild (they feature a handy solder tab at the bottom of the pickup) and send them to us
  4. We rebuild your LB1 pair of pickups to a 1965 Starfire spec (you can choose a slightly boosted bridge pickup output if desired)
  5. We send your set back to you (the shipping cost added to the purchase covers this)
  6. You reinstall them
  7. You set the pickup height to 3/32″ on both sides
  8. Play, enjoy, repeat …

Specification

  • A Rewind Service for your Pair of Guild LB1 Pickups to nail that classic Guild sound
  • Pickup stripped of heavy tone robbing wax, rewound and Alnico magnet upgraded
  • A choice of Vintage ’65 Starfire Matched Output (6.7k Bridge, 6.5k Neck) or Boosted Bridge (6.9k)
  • A choice of Wax Potting with more tonally sympathetic wax (recommended for fully hollow bodies or for high gain situations) or Unpotted (most tone retained and recommended for Starfire IVs, Semi Hollow and Solid bodies)
  • Guild LB1s feature a handy solder tab at the bottom of the pickup so are simple to uninstall (no through the f hole headaches!)

Please Note

  • You are purchasing a Rewind Service for your existing Pair of Guild LB1 Pickups (this listing does not include a set of Guild LB1 Pickups)
  • This service is not currently offered for one pickup only and a balanced set by us is recommended for the best performance

See More on our Guild LB1 Rewind Service

 

Delivery By default all of our pickups are shipped with Royal Mail who we find to be excellent both within the UK and Internationally. Their rates enable us to offer prices that are very reasonable for our customers and the timeframe is great for the vast majority of countries. We find that, once despatched, Royal Mail tend to take 1 working day within the UK, 2/3 working days within the EU, 4/5 working days to North America and Worldwide. These are guidelines and of course some countries differ and the level of ‘officiousness’ in customs departments differs massively worldwide. If ordering from a country which is notorious for taking a while to process imported goods (we can think of a few!) please build this into your expectation on the timeframe after despatch. How long will it take to make? As a small pickup maker handmaking within an extremely busy workshop we expect to complete all pickups sets within 16-20 working days (Relic’ed orders 5 days longer). We sometimes work quicker than those timeframes and we’ll always endeavour to finish your pickups as quick as we are able to of course. We can sometimes process a rush order if you have an upcoming, important concert or perhaps if you are buying for a relative’s birthday etc - feel free to message and we’ll always see what we can do.