Main Description

Bourbon City - The Home of Tone

We've been making the Bourbons for over 10 years at this point (as of 2023!) - and, honestly, it remains one of our favourites.

Working in the "vintage" realm, but just a shade spicier then something "very vintage" (like the True 50s) offering up a tighter low end, and slightly more bite in the highs, they're absolutely begging to be driven hard, though a big, british amp, something thats really going to rattle the windows.

As with most vintage humbuckers (be they spicy, be they a little tamer) - they absolutely excel at the classics. Rock, Blues, Country, Pop, as long as your not working in the extremes (Modern Metal and Classic Jazz!) the Bourbon City will do it with ease, and it'll do it with just a bit more grit and aggression then most. In short, guitar music, where the guitar sounds like a guitar? But you've got a little bit of distortion going on? As unimaginative as that may sound, its really what the Bourbons excel at!

And one of the characteristics that make these "hotter vintage" humbuckers, is the head room you retain along with that extra heat. That space? That breahing room? Coupled with the ability to "go a bit" under gain? Its a match made in heaven frankly, giving a wonderful, slightly sleazy tone thats got just the right amount of note seperation without becoming over defined.

Be warned though, whilst that extra "zip" in the highs is fantastic under a bit of gain, it can be a little too rasping if your on the cleaner end of the spectrum. Its not without its uses! That "country twang" lurks in there, and, honestly, most folk plaing "on clean" aren't really all that clean - theres always a little bit of grit in a guitar tone - but if your aiming for "ultra clean" - the bourbons will be just a touch too brittle in the highs. Classic 50s or True 50s would be my suggestion in those instances.

And in the same breath, modern metal - where your putting so much gain on the guitar signal, its got that huge compressed tone - wont work with the Bourbons (or any vintage pickup!) - its got too much shape, to much character in the highs. The note seperation will always ring through, and it'll sound a bit odd. One to avoid if your a dyed in the wool metal head.

Beyond that though, i'd struggle to really call the Bourbons anything but fantastic - they're a brilliant "guitar music" pickup! Nothing too clean, nothing too heavy, but for a wide range of different styles? Absolutely great!

Gibson®, Epiphone®, Stratocaster® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Gibson Musical Instruments Corporation. Axesrus® has no affiliation with FMIC

Sound Clips

Should be just below!

Customisation

Once upon a time, we used to make all of our humbuckers “entirely customisable” – you could get any of our humbuckers in the traditional setup, with 6 screws and 6 slug poles, you could get them in 12 slug with a H gate cover and a pink foil top plate, you could get them with 12 hex poles and an oversized ceramic magnet… you get the idea. The options were endless – it was great!

However – it did throw up a weird “quirk” with humbuckers. In short, “Pole choice matters”, and, to put that into real terms, a humbucker built with 12 screw poles, sounds different to one built with 12 slugs, or to a traditional 6 and 6 setup.

So, before we get any further, go into this eye open.

A 12 screw version of any humbucker will sound different to a “normal” version – it contains less iron within the coil, that reduces the inductance, which pushes the resonant peak to a higher frequency. This pickup will come across as slightly brighter, and slightly less powerful.

And, inversely to that, a 12 slug humbucker contains more iron, which increases the inductance, pushes the resonant peak lower, and makes the pickup feel darker and more powerful.

So, the reason we stopped “ultimate customisation” is this. Part of the skill of designing humbuckers (and selling them!), is knowing EXACTLY what they do, how they do it, and being able to guide people to buy the right pickup for their needs. And, ultimately, when you start changing things about a humbucker, like, swapping the magnets, or changing poles, you are changing what a pickup does, and, very quickly, you get to the point where the pickup isn’t behaving the same, and, eventually, that put pay to the idea of “this pickup can be anything you want it to be” (at least with humbuckers!) because, seemingly cosmetic changes were changing the tone.

However, having said that? I do appreciate that, at a certain point, form does overtake function, and if you’ve got your heart set on a 12 screw pole humbucker, and you want it to be 8K, Alnico 2, so on and so forth… me sitting say “well, its not going to sound the same!” probably makes absolutely no difference.

So, to close out the worst sales pitch I’ve ever done – if you want a Bourbon city with 12 screw poles, or a Classic with 12 slug, so it looks all modern and fancy, and you can live with the idea that its not going to sound the same as the traditional set you’ve got in your Les Paul… crack on! With my blessing.

Is this Wide Range?

To avoid any confusion, or having this information buried in a wall of text, i figured i'd put it in its own little sub section here.

This pickup LOOKS like a wide range humbucker, in that both styles of pickup have a 3x3 pole configuration, and a cover is mandatory as a result, but be aware, this is an entirely normal humbucker. Its the regular size and shape that you'd find in most guitars that proport to use humbuckers.

True "wide range" humbuckers (or, atleast, wide range size humbuckers, are much bigger, and are specifically for a very small stable of Fender® guitars - this pickup is not designed for those guitars (namely, the Telecaster® Deluxe, Custom® and Starcaster®.

We do, however, make a Bourbon City in that size - available here.

Setup

500k pots work perfectly (thats what was used on the recordings for reference) and a 0.022 or a 0.047 cap on the tone will see you absolutely fine - you can try a 300k tone pot if you like, but i've never felt it made much of a difference myself.

Covers, as always, mute what top end "snap" there is ever so slightly - i actually prefer the Bourbons without a cover, because, whilst a cover is great for smoothing out that jaggy highs and snappy rough edges, this is a humbucker thats happiest when its being pushed that shade harder then a "proper" vintage humbucker - it wants to be angry, it wants to be driven, and that extra snap? That extra defnition you get with an uncovered pickup, really plays into that.

Obviously, form does sometimes overtake function, so I wont call anyone for wanting a cover fitting, but just go in eyes open, a cover will smooth out the definition, just a touch. I certainly wouldn't be approaching covers with any sort of fear with the Bourbons though- if anything, they'll smooth out a litle of that top end fizz and make them a slightly nicer clean pickup, at the cost of that note seperation and zip that makes them world class at light to medium gain work.

Warranty & Returns

In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to write this section up, and, I really wish I didn’t have to, but, if I’m being honest and transparent about how pickups work, for better or worse, it’s probably worth being honest and open your rights as a consumer too, and maybe give a little insight into how we actually build pickups.

How we do it

Pickups, at our end of things – are “Custom made” – I cannot stress this enough. When you click the “Add To Cart” button, there is no pickup on the shelf, no bucket of pre-terminated bobbins or half complete pickups. It is made, entirely, from scratch using the parts we have available.

This means, if you order a Bourbon city, or a Hot Iron, or a Texas Blue, it is wound FOR YOU. It is being built to the specifications you have stipulated in the drop-down menus, even the most “normal” design, is still, essentially, built to order.

That entails our pickers collecting the parts from stores, delivering them to the winders, who then get the copper on there, and then the wound coils going to the techs to solder, terminate, test, polish, wax pot, clean, retest… you get the idea.

This is all done “in house” and, obviously, there is a queue, which is first in first out, so pickups will NEVER be shipped same day. Realistically, it takes about 2 weeks, but we do get busier at the beginning/end and middle of the month, so that can have a knock on effect.

And this is all being done, by hand, on a VERY small scale. At maximum, we can produce about 6 pickups a day.

It works wonderfully frankly, because we can make, pretty much, anything you can dream up, and keeping it small scale, means we have an exceptionally high attention to detail with each pickup sold.

Returns

So we have an item, when all is said and done, that didn’t exist until you purchased it, that has cost a lot of man hours to actually manufacture, and has been manufactured to your exact specifications.

As such, pickups come under the remit of “custom work” as laid out under the our terms and conditions, and as outlined in the UK governments distance selling regulations.

This means, in short, pickups are none returnable, and none refundable.
I understand, in this day and age, that may seem quite the hard-nosed approach, but, sadly, there’s no wiggle room in this. Once a pickup is wound, there’s no going back. It belongs to you. There is no “I’ll test it to see if I like it” or “I’ll return it if I don’t like the colour!”.

Warranty

All Axesrus pickups come with a “relaxed lifetime” warranty as far as I’m concerned. I’m never going to ask you to register the purchase, stop offering support 12 months after purchase or limit support to the initial customer in the case of second-hand stuff. We are incredibly proud of the pickups we produce, and I’ll help out wherever I can.

However, its worth laying out what I’d consider “realistic” expectations as to what we will cover as part of a warranty.

Repairs and replacements
Whilst we will not accept pickups as return for refund under any circumstances, we reserve the right to repair or replace any pickup that develops a manufacturing fault within a reasonable time frame.

I won’t put a scale on that time frame, but I will say, its at our discretion. If you’re lucky enough to have some of the VERY early hand wound stuff we made, and we (stupidly) thought we could do it at £20 a pickup, and the coil wires snapped after 10 years? I’m probably not in a position to repair or replace it free of charge, you know? You’ve had your fun; you’ve got your money’s worth!

On the flip side of that – if you’ve bought a £200 humbucker 2 years ago, and it’s developed a fault? You’d better believe Axes is bending over backwards to get it repaired and get you up and running again.

I’ll say this too, we won’t hang you out to dry – if that £20 pickup can be repaired, even if we’re not doing it as part of the warranty, we will offer to repair it at a reasonable price.

Damage vs. Fault
Pickups are delicate creatures I’m afraid. Nature of the beast I suppose, they were never designed, all those years ago, to be “presented” outside of a guitar, so go in knowing this, pickups can be damaged. Either in transit, whilst in storage, or during install.
It is VERY difficult to know how a pickup has developed a fault, so most of the time, we will go into all warranty claims with the mindset that “it’s a manufacturing fault”, frankly, because it keeps everyone happy, avoids any awkward conversations as to “who’s done what” and, normally, repairing damage done during install is the same work as repairing a manufacturing fault either way. Worst case, we might have a delicate email exchange about who’s covering the postage, but that’s about as bad as it gets.

However, we will take this approach only when a pickup, which is showing damage, is only showing minimal damage. I appreciate everyone makes mistakes.

Pickups that have been heavily damaged, have seen heavy wear and tear, or have been intentionally broken in an effort to raise a warranty claim, will see not be repaired, or replaced. Neither free of charge or “for a fee”

Lead times and cancellations
We do publish the lead times on all of our custom build work, and there is very little we can do to decrease the time it takes to actually manufacture this stuff I’m afraid, short of jumping you to the front of the queue (which is never fair, and we won’t do it)

Be aware that once an order is placed, work beings on your build, and as such, you’ve entered into the contract, and there is no backing out. Coils can often be wound within the hour or the order being placed, but they will sit in the work queue due to a back log at terminating/testing/cleaning.
Modifications
There are, occasionally, situations where someone buys a pickup, installs it, plays it for a while, and then might want something a little different down the line. Maybe a different magnet, or a cover fitting, or a new hookup wire fitting.

I am happy to carry out this work, and, normally, regardless of the “time since purchase”, this will be done simply for the cost of parts and postage.

However, the “depth” of these modifications, and if we’re willing/capable of carrying them out, is at the discretion of Axesrus. We’re happy to discuss this on a case-to-case basis, but go in eyes open, that its unlikely to be part of the warranty.

“Warranty with initial purchase”
I’m not a stickler when it comes to this stuff, but I will say, we do have to draw the line somewhere, so, strictly speaking, this “relaxed warranty” is, officially, limited to the original purchaser of the product.

That said, I’m not a robot, nor am I a fool. I’m aware that sometimes, a pickup is moved on relatively quickly, or is bought by a 3rd party for someone else, so, in these cases, lets just be sensible about it. I’ll carry forward a “true” warranty on a pickup for 12 months after the initial purchase, regardless of who is contacting me in regards to any issue.

However, I will need to know who the initial customer was. Even if it’s just their name and a rough date of purchase.

This goes for technical support too – I’ve no problems offering support on Axesrus products, regardless of “time since purchase”, but I will ask for some proof that they are in fact, Axesrus products.

Modifications to second hand parts, will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis too.

Changes in specification/tolerances
Over the years, we’ve had a few “interesting” conversations regarding pickup specifications, especially when it comes to returns and warranty.

The published specs of our pickups, are published with a “within tolerance” subtext, based off of the readings from our testing equipment.

There will, always, be variation between one pickup and the next, and whilst we endeavor to keep those readings within the tolerances stated, they do occasionally wander outside of the 10% we stipulate as “acceptable” – this is usually due to temperature fluctuation, or specification changes outside of our control (wire diameter, alloy composition etc.) – any resulting change in readings based on these factors, will result in an updated technical spec on the website, but, as you can imagine, the first we know about an unforeseen spec change, is when the pickups come off the winder.

We do not consider these “out of spec” accidents to be cause for a warranty claim I’m afraid, and we endeavor to keep on top of them so the information we’re giving you at point of purchase, is as accurate as possible.

Warranty postage
Repairs or replacement postage cost, outside of an initial 14 day period, is at your cost. I appreciate, in some situations, that this is prohibitive (especially when shipping outside of the UK).