Which pickups have Keith Richards and Ron Wood used?
Keith Richards and Ron Wood used our stock Gatton T-Style pickups on the 2nd half of the Steel Wheels tour in 1989. They were purchased thru Alan Rogan who tech’ed for Pete Townshend for a long time as well as having done work with Keith and Ron. Your readers may not know, but the Techs are the unsung hero’s behind the artists. Many tech’s are good guitarists in their own right but also tasked to ensure that the artists’ equipment is primed and ready for each show and the rigors of the road. Talk about your pressure jobs! There is an interesting YouTube video from 2007 on Alan your readers may like to see .
It may be also interesting to know that our company has never solicited or entered into a paid endorsement deal with any artist. We are pleased when artists tell us they use our gear and of course humbled by the same fact. We never ask them to use our gear exclusively. Most of them simply allow us to say that we have worked together. . Some artists prefer not to be recognized as users for concern about other endorsement deals etc. Both preferences are OK, and we respect and thank them greatly for lending us their good names. It is a great testimony to our pickups to simply know that they have used or still use them to create their music.
We speak to so many vintage guitar fans who will always tell us that their vintage PAF or Fender pickup from the 50′s stands heads above the rest when it comes to tone. Is there any truth to those statements? Does JBE do research on different magnet types (ceramic and alnico), wire material, etc.? What are some of the discoveries you’ve made on the quest for tone?
This is a highly subjective debate and one in which no one is right or wrong. So yes, there is truth to the statement, but whose truth are we talking about? Along the quest for tone we believe that:
Vintage tone is subjective and different for everyone who prizes it. While we may agree on the basics, the actual nuances of tone are in the “ears” of the beholder. It is different for everyone and colored by experiences of the music of the time and even the world we lived in then. The perception of Vintage sound was also shaped by the amps and other state-of-the-day equipment. Lets not forget that vintage single coil pickups were also noisy and many remain so today. So , if we apply hum-cancellation to them, can we still claim them to be Vintage? Clearly not by definition. JBE does not seek to recreate vintage tone. There is already other manufacturers who do this to varying degrees of “vintage-ness” . Our goal is to produce high fidelity pickups that deliver performance and that brings out everything good Tele, Strat, Les Paul, or custom guitars have to offer, with Tone, Punch, and Responsiveness that allows every musician to express themselves in the best way they are able. At the same time, the pickup is designed for the guitar and seeks to maintain the character of the instrument.
We do of course continue to research materials and new pickup variants that accurately reflect the character of the instruments in which our pickups are installed. We have found that there are many misconceptions about materials and which are best. For now at least, we are focused on continuing to offer pickups that are suited for all styles of music, are highly responsive in the hands of good musicians, and offer hi-fidelity tone and punch. Our J-Style and P-Style Bass pickups for example deliver the J and P Bass experience but with a tonality that articulates the JBE sound but without noise or hum. JBE pickups have their own distinctive “tone, power, punch, and response” (these are user descriptions, not ours) that make them different among all the choices out there. We will use whatever materials are necessary to produce the sounds desired by our customers without relying solely on Ceramic, Alnico, or vintage materials simply because they are vintage. To be sure, JBE pickups are not for everyone. But they are highly sought after by many musicians who demand performance and tone.
Thank you for your time, Frank!
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