I have been involved with music and musicians for 40 years. Since becoming disabled, I have found, I love to build and work on guitars. It gives me a real sense of accomplishment to see and hear them being played. I have always felt there needed to be a "high quality affordable alternative to the big boys in the pickup industry". After several years of trial and error I feel I have come up with just that. A stunning high quality pickup for the working musician. All of the Harpmaster Series pickups will be under 100.00. We will make 5 different types of pickups for a Stratocaster, 3 different types of Humbucker pickups, 3 types of P90 pickups and 2 types of Telecaster pickups.
AJL Custom Harpmaster Series Pickups have been designed with quality of sound first, we will use only the highest quality materials to accomplish this. Our pickups are scatter wound on a precision CNC machine, with laser cut base plates and bobbins. The pole pieces in our Strat and Tele style single coils are are beveled for a nice smooth feel and appearance with cloth covered vintage style pull back wire for our leads . Our Humbucker pickups will be available with high polished nickle or gold covers, and our open coils with black or Zebra bobbins. We use high quality enamel coated wire, prescision cut magnets, and maple shims in our humbucker pickups to insure a true vintage style construction. All our pickups are fully wax potted to alleviate all feedback and squeel. The Harpmaster Series Pickups will fill the void where a working musician is looking to upgrade the pickups in their guitar, and want the highest quality sound on a limited budget.
It is no easy task to bring this project to market, but with your help I am sure it will make it. We need the funding for packaging and advertising, as well as production costs. www.ajlcustomshop.com
We have produced several test sets of pickups that we put into the hands of musicians for testing and reviews. here are some of the reviews.
"I have to say, these are some really nice pickups and certainly among the most versatile humbuckers i have ever played. the cleans are lush and full, the overdriven sounds are singing with sustain, and despite the great warmth and body the pickups display, they maintain good note definition and chord clarity in every application. they have a bit more range and sparkle than the Agile al-3x00 pickups i'm used to... leaning more towards a gibson 57 classic or a duncan "screamin demon" with that ability to be FULL and BASSY sounding without getting muddy. they also have a nice mellow midrange hump which lets you push your rock tones out front without spiking any eardrums. honestly i think if you snuck this set into one of Billy Gibbons' old Pauls he might not even notice the difference. really nice job on these".
Listen Here http://soundcloud.com/theylive716
Tony:
Spent last night and today testing your pups. Probably gettting to the video this weekend.
"First thoughts: I loaded the Jimi Experience Strat set into my friends 95 American Standard. I have a 96 American Standard with two RioGrande Tallboys and a standard middle pup, that most people consider the grail. I hate to admit it, but the experience pups are better".
The video does not do them justice. They are among the best strat pups I have heard
AJL Custom Harpmaster Alnico V clips Review by Adam Randal
"I put this into my AL-2000 swapping out from my SD 59's.
I honestly like these better. The low end is definitely there, but not overwhelming, and they are definitely full without the boomyness and loss of clarity in some pickups."
"Essentially, these are the ideal Les Paul/rock tone. The cleans were a lot more chimey than other humbuckers I've played. In some settings, they were almost Gretsch-like. Very easily, they cleaned up to a smooth envelope of sound that kind of made me want to go "Aaahhh." The neck and bridge combo was very articulate, but still had a nice warmth to it, and the bridge pickup was more glassy than overbearing twang from some."
"But then...WOW! The bridge pickup overdriven.. THIS is what a bridge pickup is supposed to do. The mids and punch that I love and often miss in a humbucker. Don't be mistaken, these are VERY much humbucker. They're just really really good humbuckers."
Think what you will- these are all my opinions. But I'm usually right.
In the clips I play clean chords and lead going from bridge to middle to neck.
Then the same idea with different licks going from neck to middle to bridge.
Clips recorded with UX2 and podfarm on the "AC Tweed" setting.
http://soundcloud.com/adam-randall/demo
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