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Main Description
Late 50s - Come and ride the tone!
The Late 50s single coils are one of a new range of pickups we're winding, along with the Late 60s, which aim to accurately re-create the pickup from certain notable points from the electric guitars history.
What you're looking at here is a pretty cool design, and one that really captured players imaginations right from the very off, because of some interesting little design ideas that weren't really seen before or since.
The most striking feature on offer here, is the actual height of the bobbins being used - slightly squater then most other single coils, the late 50s are wound up to a fairly weighty 5.8 Kohms in neck, middle and bridge positions, and whilst it might not seem the most suited of winds to give a beautifully warm, rounded tone, the way the coils lay really does give some fantastic results.
Tonally, the pickups are actually much warmer then you'd maybe expect too, a nice tight bottom end, a very chimy, bell like upper register, and a fair pressence in the mid range mean they're actually pretty far removed from some of the razor sharp 50s style pickups we've tried in the past. Think very early Rock & Roll - that sort of fairly thick, textured tone, capable of being delivered over a fairly broad spectrum of gain settings. Very biting, very throaty in the bridge, mellowing to a creamy, also chewy, marshmellowy warmth in the neck positon.
The magnets are, as you'd expect, an Alnico V, heavy bevel as standard to really focus the field of influence, and retain a little more "snap" in the EQ - obviously, all parts of a pickup work in combination to produce the overall tone, but for us, a heavy bevel on an Alnico 5 pole really does help bring out a healthy dose of pick attack, and in turn that goes a long way to really eccenuate your playing.
And keeping firmly with that 50s theme, we've wound these up with 42 AWG heavy build formvar, all by hand, here at Axesrus in the UK, all fed by hand, and wax potted in a 50/50 blend of parafin and bees wax.
Beyond that, its business as usual really - everything is pretty much customisable, huge range of colours on the covers, you can get them built up in right handed, left handed or non staggered, you can pick up a set with a RWRP middle or not, you can buy each pickup individually if you want to mix and match them with different pickups, and if you REALLY know your stuff, you can even stipulate the wind direction and polairy - all you'll ever need to get exactly what you want!
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!
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 or a wiring loom, 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).
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