NOTE: This is Part One of a two-part blog post. Go To Part Two.
We get enough questions about Gibson pole spacing versus Fender pole spacing that it’s worthwhile writing about here in the Lollar blog.
The best way to proceed is to review the most common questions.
But first, we’ll start with some basics…..like, what do you mean by Gibson spacing and Fender spacing?
That terminology is actually referring to the physical spacing between the pole pieces. This roughly corresponds to the distance between the strings themselves, but not entirely. (More on that point later). In general terms, the spacing between pole pieces is slightly wider on Fender style pickups, and slightly narrower on Gibson style pickups. The overall difference – when you measure from the centers of the 2 outside pole pieces – is roughly 2 to 3 millimeters. In other words, if you measure from the center of the high E pole piece to the center of the Low E pole piece, a Gibson spaced pickup will measure right around 50 millimeters. A pickup with Fender spacing will measure between 52 and 53 millimeters, depending on the pickup.
This is the fifth article in our series about best selling Lollar pickups. In this article we’ll talk about some of our best selling items that can’t be classified among the main categories of pickups like strat, tele, and humbucker style pickups.
Lollar Jazzmaster Pickups:
Lollar Jazzmaster style pickups are a consistent favorite. Overall the Lollar Jazzmaster style pickups have a nicely detailed treble and a bit more midrange and bass when compared to a strat style single coil. They also have a very responsive dynamic range.
As you may already know, the size and shape of a pickup coil affect the quality of the tone it will produce. For example, the Jazzmaster coil is very short (1/8″) but very wide. This gives it more surface area and allows the pickup to sense the vibrations of a longer length of the strings. This is part of why they have their own unique tone qualities. To read even more about the unique properties of our Jazzmaster pickups, follow this link to an earlier Lollar pickups blog about Jazzmaster pickups and the Jazzmaster guitar.
This is the fourth article in a series about best selling Lollar pickups. In this post we will talk a little about best selling Lollar Imperial® humbuckers, plus give you an overview of the three full sized, stock humbucking pickups that we build. For this discussion we’ll stick to our full sized humbuckers only.
We build three general categories of Lollar Imperial® humbuckers. They are categorized based on their output levels, using the standard wind Imperial as the “baseline” or point of reference. The three categories are the Lollar Imperial (considered our standard wind), the Low Wind Imperial, and the High Wind Imperial.
As the name implies, the Lollar Low Wind Imperial is a slightly lower output pickup as compared to our standard wind Imperial. Our High Wind Imperial is a slightly higher output pickup as compared to our standard wind Imperial. For detailed descriptions and sound clips of the three different full sized humbuckers we build, follow this link to read about Lollar Imperial® humbuckers.
On a side note, this is a good opportunity to clarify the word “wind” as used in the names Low Wind and High Wind. This word refers to the amount of copper wire that is wrapped – or wound – around the humbucker bobbins to form a “coil.” The wire is wrapped around and around the bobbin, literally thousands of times to make each coil. The number of times the wire is wrapped around the bobbin is called the “turn count.” The turn count is the number of times the copper wire is “wound” around the bobbin. The term Low Wind refers to the fact that there are fewer times the copper wire is wound around the bobbin to make a coil. The term High Wind refers to the fact that there are more times the copper wire is wound around the bobbin to make a coil.
A favorite: standard Lollar Imperial humbuckers, with nickel covers and traditional single conductor leads.
Getting back to best selling Lollar humbuckers: Our standard Lollar Imperial is our best selling humbucker – by far. We sell roughly 50% more Lollar standard Imperials than Low Wind and High Wind Imperials combined.
Each of our humbucker models is available in eight different “finishes.” These include nickel, chrome, gold, aged, heavy aged, double-black, zebra, and reverse zebra. In addition, each of these is available in your choice of either the traditional Gibson style single conductor lead wire or 4-conductor lead wire. So in other words, you have 16 different choices of standard Lollar Imperial sets to choose from.
Among all of these choices, our nickel covered single conductor Lollar Imperial sets are the top sellers. The second most popular Imperials are (again) our nickel covered Imperial sets, but with 4-conductor leads. Our third best selling full sized humbucker is our Low Wind Imperial neck, with nickel cover and single conductor lead wire. This item is popular for two reasons. First, our Low Wind nickel single conductor sets are popular with archtop players. Second, our Low Wind nickel single conductor necks are great for tele applications. The Low Wind Imperial neck (usually nickel, single conductor) is frequently combined with the Lollar Special Tele bridge.
Now, like we have mentioned throughout this series, there really is no “wrong” answer. All of our pickups have their own advantages. The best approach is to know what your specific goals are, and then make your selection based on what you’d like to accomplish for the particular project or guitar you are working on.
Next week’s discussion will be about a few other popular “miscellaneous” items.
This article is third in a series of discussions about best selling Lollar pickups. This session will feature our best selling Lollar P-90 style pickups.
Lollar P-90 Pickups:
The Lollar P-90 is really the “flagship” Lollar pickup, and is often considered “the” pickup that began to draw customers’ attention to Lollar pickups.
Lollar P90 soapbar sets are a strong favorite.
Our best selling P-90 is the standard wind soapbar style pickup. In fact, we sell over twice as many of this particular model of P-90 than all of our other p-90 pickups combined. That includes all of the other soapbar and dogear models that make up our entire list of P-90 stock models.
Many of the builders we work with install the Lollar standard wind P-90 soapbar sets. Some of these builders include Collings, Godin, Heritage, and National Resophonic.
In fact, as an historical tidbit, it was National Resophonic that was the first established guitar builder that purchased a small run of Lollar P-90 soapbar pickups for use in one of their electric instruments. Since that original purchase in 2002, the Lollar P-90 soapbar has continued to be original equipment on the National Resophonic “Resoelectric” guitar.
For more specific information on our standard P-90 follow this link to Lollar P-90 pickups. And, as we’ve mentioned before, there is really no “wrong” answer when making your individual pickup choice. Each model of Lollar pickups has its own unique advantages. Our best advice is to decide what you’d like to accomplish for the specific project or instrument you are working on, and then base your decision on what’s right for you.
Next week’s discussion about best selling Lollar pickups will focus on best selling Lollar humbuckers.
This is the second blog in a series of discussions about best selling Lollar pickups. Today we’ll cover our best selling Lollar tele pickups.
Lollar Tele Pickups:
A discussion of Lollar tele style pickups is a bit more accurate if we talk about favorite combinations of necks and bridges. The reason for this is because our customers often like to “mix and match” our different tele style pickups.
The Lollar Special T Series set is one of our most popular tele style sets.
Our best selling stock Lollar tele bridge is the Lollar Special T Series® bridge. We sell more of these bridges than any of our others. There are 2 favorite combinations that include this choice for the bridge position.
The first combination is the Lollar Special T Series bridge plus Lollar Special T Series neck. In other words, simply a Lollar Special T Series set. A second popular combination is the Lollar Special T Series bridge plus the Lollar Vintage T Series® neck.
It is generally a “tie” when it comes to which of these stock combinations is more popular. Some months we sell more straight Lollar Special T Series sets, and some months we sell more combination sets consisting of the Lollar Special T bridge plus the Lollar Vintage T neck.
In our previous blog about best selling Lollar strat style pickups, we mentioned the popularity of the Lollar “Dirty Blonde” strat set which is a combination set consisting of the Lollar Special S bridge and Lollar Blonde neck and middle. It is interesting to point out that there is a similar pattern with teles. The combination tele style set made up of the Lollar Special T bridge plus Lollar Vintage T neck is also popular for one of the same reasons that make the Dirty Blonde set so popular: That is, Nash Guitars.
This combination set consists of the Lollar Special T Series bridge and the Lollar Vintage T Series neck. It is another very popular choice.
If you wanted to order what you hear in a Nash tele style guitar equipped with Lollars, you would want to order the Lollar Special T Series bridge and the Lollar Vintage T Series neck. For more detail on this Nash style combination for tele, take a look at the previous posting about Lollar Pickups and Nash Guitars.
One last question that is worth addressing: What is the most popular choice to go along with the Lollar Charlie Christian neck for telecaster? Answer (which you may have already guessed): The Lollar Special T Series bridge.
And again a reminder, these are current purchasing trends. Ultimately there is no “wrong” answer. It still all boils down to your personal preference and what tone you are seeking for the particular project or instrument. As you know, we sell a variety of Lollar tele style pickups. Each of them has its own unique characteristics and advantages. For more details and sound clips, follow this link to read more specific information about each of the various Lollar tele style pickups.
Next week we will look at best selling Lollar P-90 style pickups.
