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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!
The Good & The Bad
Between you, me and the fence post, I'm more an engineer then i am a salesman, so to scratch that itch - I’m compelled to not only write up the unavoidable "hey, this pickup great! Play Rock or Blues?! This one’s for you!", but for the sake of balance, it’s only fair that i get to write up what they're not great at too (and because this section isn't "up front" - i get to be a bit more technical about it too! Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to explain what all those lovely buzz words actually mean eh?)
Remember too - whilst I’m writing this stuff about Axesrus pickups, its true of every pickup ever made. Even if you’re not buying ours, this stuff is handy! It’s all true! all pickups have characteristics that make them good or bad... there are no perfect pickups!
So, here we go - Bourbon City - "A pickup for guitar music" - if thats not set the hook, i dont know what will! Gutsy and biting, begging to be pushed, and capable of retaining enough headroom that you dont turn into a wall of "mush" when things get hot and heavy. Heres the hows, whens and whys!.
42 AWG Coils
The Good - When we speak about "vintage" humbuckers - the main, defining variable that we're really speaking about, is the wire gauge - and that HAS to be 42 AWG (American wire gauge) - generally speaking, you'll only see it (on a humbucker) being wound to between 7 and 8.5Kohm, and, tonally, it's what makes vintage humbuckers (and pretty much every guitar we've ever heard!) sound the way they do, its what’s responsible for producing that signal that’s "roomy" and "open”, yet distinctly powerful. It allows for a very high resonant peak, with a narrower Q factor, which gives you the "snap" and "twang" and it’s that perception of space, with a focus on the higher frequencies that makes the guitar feel uncompressed and breathy, but without feeling weak.
The Bad – This gets a little complicated, so, if you don’t fancy reading? “42 AWG is vital, but it costs a lot” – if you want to know more? Keep going!
Hard facts? 42 AWG wire costs an absolute fortune... but, it’s kind of essential.
42 AWG wire is, nowadays, almost entirely obsolete. It’s a wire gauge based in the imperial system (American, remember) - it has a diameter of 0.0635mm, and it’s what was used on nearly every pickup in the 50s and 60s, especially if they were made in the USA.
However, as the world became a smaller place, most "real world" applications for "very thin motor wire" (which is what pickup coil wire really is), switched over to the metric system, where wire isn't sorted by gauge, its simply measured in millimetres (sometimes, incorrectly called SWG (even by myself - but there is some reason for that! More in a second) - so, if your winding, say, a tiny motor for an RC car? You might use 0.06mm wire - and your little cars going to go exactly the same as if you'd used "proper" 42 AWG (0.0635mm) - it doesn't matter. (There will actually be some difference in the motors performance I imagine, but I doubt anyone’s testing for it)
So, with the rest of the world using 0.06mm wire, "true" 42 AWG, essentially, became extinct, except in one industry. Pickups! Gibson® and Fender® and a raft of US based pickup manufacturers kept the home fires burning, and stuck with what they'd always been using. (so 42 AWG is only ever available in Plain enamel and Formvar... never in "enamelled" or "Polysol" (there are even some questions regarding Gibson® T tops in the 60s with their "42 AWG Polysol", because they certainly don’t behave like 42 AWG!)
And, as oft happens when you’re dealing with, essentially, a lack of demand for a product, the price slowly, but steadily, creeps up. AWG wire, is expensive as a result, and metric wire, which is used in every other industry, has become dirt cheap! But why does that matter? Why didn't guitars switch over to the cheaper wire?
Well... they did! 99.9% of "cheap" pickups actually ARE wound with metric wire! And here’s where we hit "the problem"
THE PROBLEM
If we were still dealing with little motors - everyone would have switched over. They're not daft! But were dealing with audio signal generation with guitars - and, without making this sound more grandiose then I have to - we have a pretty good frame of reference as to "what a good guitar should sound like" - its every piece of music ever recorded from 1950 up to the modern day. Think about it - every famous guitarist? Every band you've got on your play list? Every one of those "genre defining musicians", has probably, been using a guitar fitted with a pickup wound using AWG (as you get into the modern day, it becomes a little murkier... but, you get the idea!) - they get to the point where they're making a record, they get a couple of quid in their back pocket? They're going out and using a top shelf guitar! They're turning up in the studio with a Fender® or a Gibson® (again, I generalise, but on the whole? It’s true!)
And, as such, the characteristics you only get with 42 AWG (that head room, that brightness, that "snap", the way it hits the amp) is ingrained in our brains, probably before you ever even pick up a guitar, but certainly after you've been playing for a few years - and as soon as you change the "recipe"? As soon as you start using a wire gauge that marginally thinner? A pickup is no longer the same - it’s not producing the signal in the same way, and we taste it! Ultimately, to get a tone that you’re going to recognise as being exceptional? You've got to use 42 AWG.
So, 0.06mm wire? Isn't as "hot" ohm for ohm (it’s not inducing as strong a signal, its normally operating at a higher resonant peak frequency and the Q factor is generally wider - 0.06mm wire sounds more rounded, smoother, less defined, brighter... its fine, honestly! It still sounds like a guitar - but it doesn't flick those weird switches in your brain that make you sit up and go "THAT is the tone I’ve heard coming out *famous guitarist*s fingers!"
This is further confused, because a lot of manufacturers (of both pickups, and wire itself!) will “round” their measurements into AWG – so its incredibly common to see 0.06mm wire passed off as 42 AWG (I’ve even seen instances where the pickup manufacturer has realised something is wrong, and they’ve invented “42.5 AWG” to explain away 0.06mm!)
All because of that 0.0035mm... If you've ever wondered what the difference between "good for the money" and "actually good" pickups is? Why there exists £15 pickups that sound pretty good, and £250 pickups that bring a tear to your eye? That’s it... 0.0035mm!
So, obviously, we use 42 AWG, but it comes at a cost... and that cost is, primarily, financial!
Tonally, 42 AWG too, doesn't have much "internal compression" - so if you’re looking for a humbucker that’s a bit "chewier", with a bit more punch and a little less definition? Aiming for more metal than rock? That head room, and that "spank" probably isn't what you’re looking for, but, equally, i wager you've not read this far into a write up about a vintage humbuckers wire gauge if you’re looking for a humbucker for tech metal. If you have (and fair play to you if so!) - you’re after 43 AWG! That’s where the chewy/gutsy stuff lives! Model 24!
Alnico 2 Magnet
The Good - Whilst i'm not the biggest believer in magnets making a huge amount of difference when it comes to humbuckers, i will concede that they do make a difference (give "how the sounds change" here, if you fancy learning a little more on the topic), so, with that in mind, in this humbucker, Alnico 2... works! Its slightly weaker, which buys you back a little extra warmth in the low end, which counter points beautifully against the blistering snap that is the top end.
Ultimately too, just like the 42 AWG debate? Pickups are a prime example of "play the hits"... and all the hits? In this style? Used Alnico 2s!
The Bad - There isn't really a great deal wrong with any choice of Alnico to be honest, purely because most of the "heavy lifting" with a pickups tone, is being done by the coils - but, i will say, Alnico 2, adding that extra few dBV of low end, right in the fundemental range, can, in some situations, be a slightly "over warm", especially when your dealing with a slightly hotter vintage humbucker (where the coils are producing a little more low end!)
I cant, hand on heart, say its ever bothered me (we woudln't have been making the Bourbons for 15 years, almost entirely unchanged, if it did!), but if your looking for a pickup right on the ragged edge of "what a vintage humbucker can do" - Alnico 2 might not be for you.
As much as i hate "naming" famous guitarists (because it implies this pickup has something to do with "the name", and it doesn't... not at all!), sometimes its a little unavoidable - think of Eddie Van Halen or Santana - they were both using fairly normal, vintage humbuckers, but they used much stronger magnets, which sucked out a little of the lows, and gave them a slightly more biting, brittle tone - if thats the thing your after, the Bourbons are a great jumping off point, but, really? I'd be reaching out and saying "Craig? any chance of a Bourbon with an Alnico 8? Or a Ceramic?"
But yeah, as standard? Alnico 2s great! Covers alot of ground, its got shades of "nice" without detracting from the definition
and bite that you want when driving an amp that bit harder. Dont muck about with it just for the sake of it, but, equally, if you know what you like, i'm open to magnet swaps! (saves me having to make 15 different product pages just for different magnets!)
Avoiding speaking in extremes (and failing)
The... thing - This one is not really got anything to do with good or bad, so i'll break away from that format whilst I’m closing this out.
With humbuckers, especially with vintage humbuckers, like the Bourbon or the Classic 50s or the True 50s - there’s a temptation to really speak in these huge, overflowing terms (something, admittedly, I’ve probably failed to avoid in my own write up!), so i'll say this.
VINTAGE HUMBUCKERS ALL SOUND PRETTY SIMILAR!
Now, when I say that, what i really mean is "All vintage humbuckers, wound using 42 AWG Plain enamel, using 6 fillister head pole screws, and 6 3/16" slugs, with a resistance of between 7k and 8.5k, inducing between 4.5 and 5.5H, sound pretty similar" (you knew it wouldn't be that simple right?!)
And to boil that down to something that'll actually fit on the sticker for your hard case - "All GOOD vintage humbuckers sound pretty similar"
So, when i say "The Bourbon City is a snorting, bucking bronco of a humbucker, with a blistering top end and a warm, sultry low" or a classic 50 is "has full, rich bass frequencies, with a crystalline shimmer that'll make you openly weep at the first chord"... it’s true... but what i actually mean, is getting lost under the "flowery language" that, frankly, I’m using to make a sale (we've all got to eat right?!). The Bourbons are more lively, they're going to be that bit hotter, that bit more badly behaved, that bit happier being pushed - but, really? It’s not as grand a departure as the language implies - vintage humbuckers are all, electrically/tonally/musically, doing pretty similar things. There’s certainly some variation within the specs, which translates into differences tonally, but please, to appease the engineer in me, don’t get sucked in by the spiel! The differences exist, but they're pretty small, not quite beneath consideration, but definitely not worth losing sleep over.
If over aggrandising is the curse of guitars is , it’s at Necronomicon levels with pickups, we all speak in these insanely over the top terms, and i honestly wish we didn't have to, but, it’s the world we live in (and I'll stop when everyone else does! Deal?), so consider this little write up some soothing for my soul if nothing else.
A Bourbon city is hotter than a classic 50, which is hotter than a True 50, but they're all more than capable of doing an absolutely amazing job at country, blues and rock guitar music... or pop, or free form acid jazz... or anything that’s not a complete wall at saturation to the point of square wave distortion. The differences are there, but, really? It’s all a case of "the hotter a pickup becomes, the more low end its producing, and the harder its hitting the amp" - and even then, that sentence is riddled with inaccuracy - but it’s a nice rule of thumb with vintage humbuckers, and does strip away this tendency to speak in extremes - the bigger the resistance, the warmer the pickup, and the harder it will drive an amp... but never to the point where it’s an unrecognisable departure from the "next one down"
A Bourbons not going to blow the windows out of their frames any more than a Classic 50s will, but in that final 2% of "Guitar I love" vs. "In the ballpark" ? All those flowery words, whilst a bit over the top, are actually helping shove you in the right direction. Sure a Classic 50s will do hard rock, sure it'll have all the characteristics you'd expect, but i tell you now, the Bourbon will do it better if you’re chasing specifics.
So, as much as a kop out as it may sound, and as much as i cringe writing up the flowery stuff... put a bit of stock in it! It’s not, strictly speaking, true, but it does give you a bit more "artistic guidance" in choosing pickups, and, ultimately, if your umming and arring between a Bourbon and a Classic 50s? They're both great, they both do the same jobs; they're only slightly different, don’t over think it! They'll both treat you very well in when used in similar situations.
Remember though, this is only true when we're speaking "good vintage pickups" - as soon as we break away from 42 AWG, wound between 7 and 8.5K? (Or your comparing a cheap pickup wound with 0.06mm wire to something wound with 42 AWG!) We see much bigger departures in signal generation, different shapes to the pickups "EQ"... where these extremes in language actually do become "much more true to real life"
It almost makes the language we use to describe the differences between one "good" vintage model and the next laughable - if i can say a Bourbon City has a rich, strong, thumping low end with a fire character, how do i describe the Hot Iron, at 14.5K of 43 AWG? it’s packing more bass in the trunk then a boy racers Vauxhall Corsa!
I suppose, ultimately, what I’m saying is "know what you’re looking at" - if it’s a vintage pickup, and I’m speaking about "huge bass and blistering aggression", it’s all relative to vintage pickups, so it’s not all that angry or bassy at all. If I’m talking about high output humbuckers having a "tight defined low end", again, relative to high output gear, it’s got more control over its low end then most heavy gear, but it’s still going to be pretty bottom heavy.
Matched Set?
The Bourbon is a humbucker that covers an awful lot of ground - so this might get a little long winded, so, to keep it brief, there aren't many pickups we make that you couldn't match with them, but, i'll try to keep this a little more focused, so if your mixing and matching, your going to really get the best out of the set.
That classic combination of a 5H/8.2K/alnico 2, mounted to a standard humbucker base, is capable of working in a Strat®, a Tele®, A Les Paul®, an SG®... prety much anywhere you'd find a humbucker, this is going to fit, and electrically, its going to play well with most pickup specs too, so, the first thing to remember - dont fear the Bourbon! Its about as easy going as it gets when it comes to humbuckers.
However, its certainly got "a style" - its wide reaching,(and i'd probably have an easier time writng the list of things that DONT work with them!) but lets keep that "this is a sleazy, spicy, vintage humbucker" in mind when we're talking matched sets.
Humbuckers
Bourbon City - Traditionally, Humbucker guitars have "truly matched sets" - and, frankly, i think it works best. So, obviously, if your fitting a Bourbon City in the neck, having one in the bridge is going to give you "the full experience" - and thats a very traditional setup, very focused on blues and rock, the bridge will be capable of chords and lead work without feeling too specialist - a good, normal, versitile setup!
Model 24 - There will be situations where you want "more" from your bridge pickup, and whilst the Bourbon is a great option in its own right, you do, occasionally, find situations where your treading the fine lne between Rock and Metal - and in those situations, the Model 24 makes an ideal companion pickup for a Bourbon neck - its more rounded, more muscullar, a little more capable, a little happier whendistorted and has more natural compresion - HOWEVER - its not my first choice for a neck pickup, so, if your considering a M24 bridge, the Bourbon works great to give you a smoother, sweeter counter point to what is, really, quite an aggressive, expressive humbucker.
Telecaster®
With the "Humbucker Neck" Telecaster® being a pretty popular modification nowadays, i'll keep this one as "to the point" as i can, but i do have to get bogged down a little into the science side of it.
Most Tele® models will, 99% of the time, have a single coil in the bridge, and that single coil will most defnately want 250k pots.
Fitting a humbucker in the neck slot, means you'll probably want 500k pots (to retain top end from the humbucker)
Further more, single coils, traditionally, dont induce the same strength signal as humbuckers - in simple terms, they're not as loud - so, whilst we can account for 500k vs. 250k pots (a 470k resistor wired in parallel with the single coil will sort it! Like this loom.) - we've still got to work with the pickups inductance/volume - and to do that, you've got to have slightly hotter bridge pickups in this setup - trying to match an out and out vintage bridge pickup with ANY humbucker, is going to leave you very disappointed when you hear how weak the bridge pickup is compared to the neck!
These, however, are safe bets for all vintage humbuckers, and work well with the Bourbon City.
Yorkshire Jack - Great little pickup - what i'd call a "modern tone" for a Telecaster (which means 1990s onward) - its not as twangy as you'd hear from a 50s/60s affair, but its much happier under a little gain or distortion. It feels, weirdly, like a Humbucker - its a big more "spiky", with that twang you'd expect, but its in the ball park of humbuckers like the Bourbon, which means its going to play well on the same amp settings, and, frankly, it'll even do a decent job on 500k pots thanks to its higher industance! Cant go wrong with a Yorkshire Jack/Bourbon Combo for me.
T90 - If the Yorkshire Jack is humbucker adjacent, the T90 is a P90 in sheeps clothing - its HUGE, wound up with 42 AWG, inducing up around 6H, its a fantastic pickup. It retains alot of the headroom you'd expect from 42 AWG, its got a very throaty "twang" rather then the slightly waspish "brrrrring" you get with "very vintage" pickups, and again, its perfectly at home on 500ks. Big and Muscullar, but happier on cleans/slightly dirty because its much roomier then the YJ, and that lack of compression does guide you more towards cleans with a touh of diirt more then "chain saw" distortion.
A WARNING - remember, when your working with Humbucker Neck Tele® guitars - unless you can find an ingenius way of coil splitting the humbucker when the switch is in "neck + bridge in parallel" - your going to get an awful lot of phase cancellation (with one coil from the humbucker wiping out the bridge pickup - most never bother to fix it, and accept that pos 2 is "something weird", but...) to get it to work "properly" you're going to need to do something very clever with the wiring!
Stratocaster®
Strings Ransom - originally designed as the companion pickup, specifically for the Bourbon in HSS and HSH guitars! Built around Alnico 2 poles rather then the traditional alnico 5s, giving them a more rounded, slightly dirty feel, with a stronger bass and not as much "snap" as a traditional Strat®, a little chewier, a little grubbier, a little more forgiving if you throw them about. Great for, pretty much, everything you'd expect from the Bourbon City frankly.
And the pickups we pair with the BC on the HSS assembly!
Texas Blues - Much more traditional, much more "this is what a Strat should sound like" - raw and rasping and raunchy, plenty of snap, backed up with alot of body. A great option if your wanting "Gibson and Fender" in the same guitar. Pairing with a Bourbon wont give you as much of a "dedicated blues rocker" but they'll give you alot of versitility.
TB754S - A bit left field, and whilst they'll work, i cant think that a SSH and HSH guitar really NEEDS a TB754 myself - they're a fairly specialist pickup, wound "as hot as you can go" with 42 AWG, so they're bit and biting and roomy, but also, quite dark and brooding - a Strat pickup without the razor blades. Not for me personally, atleast in a reverse HSS or HSH, but, never have it said i'm the best judge of taste!
A WARNING - just like on the Tele, you want to be finding a way to coil split the humbucker whenever its "on" with a single coil, otherwise, the 3 coils will phase cancel out, and it'll sound like you've got a bridge single coil in pos 2. Thankfully, plenty of ways to do that, even with standard 5 way switches! If in doubt, get in touch and i'll talk you through it. (obviously, "tech support within reason" - i'm not here to fix your guitar, i'm here to support Axesrus parts)
Bode Plots
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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).
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