Frequently Asked Questions

The main difference between these two sets is the use of a different Alnico grade and a slightly different winding style. Largely the ’57s are designed to be a faithful ’50s inspired set to suit Maple fingerboard equipped Strats (although having recently installed them in a Rosewood equipped Strat they sound pretty sweet there too! Confusing, eh?!) whilst the ID:Chris Buck originals suit both Rosewood and Maple.

Tonally the difference is that the ’57s are a tiny bit darker sounding (to offset the added rightness of a maple ‘board) and a little softer in tone whilst the CB originals are a little punchier. Our advice would be that if you are looking to do a faithful ’50s Strat project or want a slightly darker tone, we’d go for the ’57s, for everything else the CB originals would be our go to choice. You can see and hear more though in a direct comparison video we filmed with the man himself …

If your guitar features a type of pickup that we do not currently offer a new version of, for example ‘Guild Dual-Coil Humbuckers’, ‘Gretsch Filtertrons’ and many more, we offer a rewind/upgrade service for these types of pickups. This typically means deconstructing the pickup and rebuilding it from the ground up with improved components and our own unique handwound sound quality.

We will usually install an improved magnet, offer a more refined and less tone-robbing (many pickups are coated in a thick, glue-like epoxy) wax potting process and replace modern plastic wiring with braided cloth hook-up wire where appropriate. We have rewound and upgraded countless pickup designs and have always found there to be a significant improvement in presence and tone following the upgrade. If you have a pickup which is obscure or are not sure if it can be upgraded, please contact us to see how we can improve its tone. Typical pickups we can improve the tone of: Filtertron pickups, Guild, Jaguar, Jazzmaster and many more. Basically if it is a single coil with Alnico magnets or is a pickup design largely based on metal parts it can usually be upgraded.

If a pickup is rusty or made from largely plastic and ceramic parts then those are usually not upgrade-able. Please feel free to send us a .jpg of your pickup for our opinion on what we can do for you.

Yes. We can repair a multitude of pickup designs from Strat single coils to humbuckers and beyond. Sometimes a faulty pickup can be extremely easy for us to repair and can be down to a simple-to-fix problem and at other times the pickup will need to undergo full diagnosis before finding that rewinding is the only option to restore it to its former glory. As a result, whilst our typical charges are £40 for a single coil design and £60 for a dual coil design, it can sometimes be much less and, on the rare occasion, a little more dependent on the ease of the solution.

We will always inform you of the price of a repair before undertaking the work and following a full diagnostics test. In addition, we love working on, repairing and/or upgrading obscure pickup designs as they can sometimes be the inspiration for new pickup designs so feel free to challenge us with your relics from the past!