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Pick-up a signature sound

So what’s this new trend to fit modified pickups all about?

Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2008 by Steve Busby.

I wouldn’t say it has become the norm but there are a lot of guitars you can buy now which come with built-in electronics, so you don’t have to rely on the traditional stomp box or performing custom mods. Parker solid guitars have been fitted with piezos for years, Gibson made the Les Paul recording in the 60s which gave you a phase control (In or Out), Gordon-Smith, Yamaha and others produce guitars with tapped humbuckers, and Fender and Line 6 both have modelling guitars on the market.

I thought I’d take a look at one of the newer entries in this space and give an honest critique.

Perhaps one of most innovative newcomers in this market is Trev Wilkinson, both with his Italia range of guitars (Arbiter) and Vintage Advance Series (JHS). It looks like the re-launch of the Fret King range with JHS has also meant that unusual combinations of pickups and unique ‘roll’ controls can be seen.

With the Italia series, Trev has brought out an affordable range of guitars that includes models with combined acoustic and electric outputs, for example the Mondial Deluxe and Mondial Classic (Acousti-glass) are both extremely credible in piezo and humbucker modes.

They have separate jack sockets marked with stickers (a little cheap) for the ‘acoustic’ and ‘electric’ outputs, as well as separate tone and volume controls (three way EQ for the Deluxe’s piezo) which allow you to find the exact acoustic tone you need. Playing unplugged blues on a mic’d J200, trying hard to bend a set of 12s, and playing these hybrid guitars is a mile apart; they’re really acoustics for electric players and I’m a big fan.

I’ve heard stories of Y cables working and using two cables at the same time. I tried it with two circuit breaker cables into two amps; once it was set up, I could blend or switch off either output, without interfering with volume settings but, if you are thinking of trying this, do make sure you carry some spare PP3s as the piezo is, of course, active!

Both of these guitars can kick out rock guitar solos or go unplugged and anything in-between; they are easier to play and tonally very close, if not identical, to electro-acoustics. Overall, they offer an amazing ‘tonal feast’ of sounds for a great price.

Looking at some of his other feats of design, Trev has also brought out a range of guitars for JHS (Vintage Advance) reminiscent of classic shapes but with delicate twists that make them sonically different, easier to play and, in some cases, just better by design. This range, in my view, is like the Fret King’s little brother.

They all have Trev’s own hardware design which, for the price point, is great value. The push fit tremolo system (where fitted) is solid and stable, and the dual hole tuners ensure non-slip tuning stability even if you’re dive bombing with the whammy.

If the inspiration for the original design (e.g. Telecaster or Les Paul) was a single cut guitar, Trev has put in an extra V cut-out where the top bout meets the neck; this is thumb-sized and allows much better (and more comfortable) access to the top frets.

The pickups available within the range include humbuckers, stacked humbuckers (look like P90s) and single coils. Trev has included a roll control on many in the range which takes the pickups through different manifestations of single coil, P90 and humbucker modes. This seriously adds sonic texture to anything you are doing and as always it’s the mid positions which are the really interesting ones.

I tried the AV2S3 (t-shape) with three single coils in an ‘S-Type’ set-up and got everything from a Broadcaster-like tone through to what sounds like a P90 or mini humbucker, simply by using the roll knob. You can have hours of fun by just plugging into an amp with a little overdrive, finding a unique tone and drifting way.

The AV3H (Small bodied 335 shape) was another superb guitar. I found it fantastically balanced, easy to play and tonally sublime. There’s also a three P90s (stacked humbucker) version, but I tried the more traditional two PAF-like humbucker loaded version. In standard humbucker mode it’s pure BB but roll-off the knob to a single coil, and before you get to the end of the pot’s-throw, you’ve got Eric Clapton’s Strat tones. So now with one guitar you can play both parts of “Riding with the King”.

I also tried the AV6P (S-Type) loaded with three P90s (stacked humbuckers). This too is fitted with the roll control which is great if you want you can have a straight Strat single coil tone or a deluxe humbucker tone. Again the best tones are to be found somewhere in-between.

From the Vintage ICON series I tested the Peter Green inspired Lemondrop V100MRPGM (LP Like); I’ll confess I’ve had this guitar in my own collection for a few years now, so I’m really familiar with its pickups and how to get the best out of them.

The set up of the electrics in the guitar put the pickups out-of-phase with each other with the selector in the middle position. This gives a great version of the sound of the ‘Greeny’ guitar; it’s like a guitar with a head cold; it has a superb ‘nasal quack’, particularly if you have the neck pickup at a slightly lower volume than the bridge– lovely stuff!

In addition, the neck humbucker has been turned around to mimic Peter Green’s ‘mistake’ when reassembling his Gibson. This makes no real difference to the tone achieved and is cosmetically just part of the homage to Peter Green. On its own it is very powerful but even better with a little overdrive for Santana-type vibes.

The (less powerful) bridge pickup really cuts through, but not in a harsh way, to give a more glassy, wiry kind of sound which is great for blues and blues rock. If you back off the wick on this pickup and add a tiny amount of overdrive, it can almost sound Telecaster-esque.

In summing up, I’d have to say that the real advancement of Trev Wilkinson’s guitars, from those classically designed guitars of yester-year, is probably their ability to mimic the original classic tones while, at the same time, incorporating electronic functionality that more than double their sonic capabilities.

The guitars which have inspired this range are at least three times the price although I did hear that the ‘Greeny’ guitar is available for $2million. Most of the guitars in Trev Wilkinson’s collection, excluding the Fret Kings, are available for less than £400.

Ultimately, I believe that playing the guitar is all about the search for that perfect tone. What enables you to find that tone is a combination of factors, like a decent build quality, a good set-up and the instrument’s versatility to let you mix and match sonically until you find your own signature sound.

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