me now, I have been building semi-hollow-body guitars because they have a more “open” sound. They are also perfectly suited to solid-body guitars. The ability to switch from series to parallel operation is absolutely fantastic. In series mode, the speaker delivers a whole spectrum of sounds that puts a big smile on your face. But switching to parallel mode brings you right back to the true character of a single-coil, with the invaluable advantage that there is no hum!!! Of course, you can use noise gates, but as we all know, even the best ones can cut off the initial attack of the note. In my opinion, that essentially disqualifies a noise gate as a solution for a true single-coil. With these pickups, even with a strong overdrive, rolling the volume down almost all the way transforms the tone into a saturated, “wire-like” clean. But hit the strings harder and the lions sleeping somewhere inside the guitar body suddenly wake up. Of course, this will only work if you use what is commonly known as a Tone Bleed — a resistor and capacitor connected in parallel across the volume pot, between the input and output of the guitar signal. Guitarists who play through tube amps at high power and fairly high volume, however, don’t always like this way of cutting the low end, because the tubes themselves seem to compensate for this effect. Another advantage of these pickups is that they can be used with both 250kΩ and 500kΩ pots. Naturally, each pot value gives you a different sound, so you have to try them in your own guitar and see which works better for you.
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quality is definitely top-tier. And a big plus for the service as well - everything taken care of from A to Z, great communication and complete professionalism.
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heavier rock styles and fluid lead playing, I use the bridge pickup, which sounds very good, and with the switch we can make it brighter and more aggressive. After the first tests following the modifications, the guitar took on a whole new dimension. I’m very happy with the result and I highly recommend APG pickups. Mr. Andrzej is a very friendly person with extensive knowledge of both guitar tone and guitar construction, which means that you can learn a lot simply by talking to him. Highly recommended. Zdzisław Sołowiej
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ith the option at the time to switch the operating mode of the bridge pickup. Back then, I was installing pickups from companies such as BKP, Lollar, Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Kinman, Q-tuner and others — basically the absolute top of the standard and custom guitar market. I even had Kinmans and a set of BKP BlackDogs in one of my own guitars, which cost me a small fortune. So, once I had finished putting the client’s guitar together, I plugged it into an amp — and I simply couldn’t put the guitar down. Not because I had built some kind of masterpiece (it was a normal guitar, built with heart and to the best of my ability), but the sound coming from the speaker completely caught me off guard. The amount of harmonics coming from the speaker made me decide to get in touch with the person who designed these pickups. That’s how our collaboration began, and it continues to this day. I should add that APG has gone through further stages of development since then, resulting in other pickups that now power my guitars as well as those of other players. He’s a lifelong seeker of the Holy Grail, just like me. Obviously, the companies I mentioned above also make fantastic pickups. But with them, I don’t have the possibility of discussing the pickup parameters directly with Andrzej and having them tailored in such detail to a specific guitar and the client’s requirements. I think this is the most important thing — it saves us money when searching for the right pickup for our “axe”. The fact that Andrzej Poliakow used to build guitars himself (and has returned to that profession in recent years) means we can discuss all the parameters of the guitar in relation to the pickups. Sometimes you have to convince a client that their vision for the construction of the guitar will not work well for the sound they want to achieve, and that is also part of our job — to explain it properly. I’m very happy to have the possibilities I mentioned above, because the client ends up with a guitar configured specifically for them. And then they have years of playing ahead of them — playing a guitar like that can completely disrupt your daily routine 🙂 because it’s hard to put it down. And the wives get angry 🙂 But what can you do — the guitar is the greatest love, and no woman can replace it. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of the guitar that started our friendship... which is a shame. But I’ll post photos of other guitars I’ve built with APG pickups! Cheers! 🙂
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. I tested many different pickups, and there was always some kind of compromise — more glassy and wiry split tones at the expense of the humbucker sound, great humbuckers whose individual coils sounded completely characterless or had a very low output. Not to mention having to take the winding and polarity of every coil into account to make sure as many of the possible combinations as possible would remain hum-free in the final setup. I had almost given up on the idea of achieving what I wanted. But while looking for interesting solutions and new pickup technologies, I came across APG pickups. Based on the description on the website, the Stratobucker Dual Tone set, with a noiseless Stratobucker single-coil in the middle position, seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I had just picked up my guitar after having these pickups installed, and when I plugged it into a tube amp, my jaw dropped. The Dual Tone pickups in single-coil mode sound exactly the way I would expect good Stratocaster single-coils to sound, especially in positions 2 and 4 combined with the middle single-coil. The HB mode also completely meets my expectations. It delivers a convincing humbucker character even though the pickups are in a single-coil format. In this mode, you get a warmer tone and higher output; you lose some of the typical glass and wiriness of a single-coil, but the pickups remain clear and articulate, just as a good humbucker should be. The output is somewhat higher, but not enough to require you to immediately change your amp settings. With the right electronic configuration, in addition to S-S-S and H-S-H sounds, you can also get both outer humbuckers working together — in the style of Gibson-type H-H or superstrat configurations — or an S-S combination similar to a Telecaster. It’s also worth mentioning that all pickup combinations remain hum-free in every mode! By installing these pickups in a superstrat-style guitar, I ended up with an instrument that allows me to play virtually any kind of material without compromise. Maybe with the exception of the most extreme metal — but with the right gear, who knows? 😉 I wholeheartedly recommend them!
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ucker Vintage Neck, and it sounds great in every switch position. I’m absolutely thrilled with it.
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decided to purchase this set. The result exceeded my expectations — the pickups are fantastic. I also own an original Fender with all its original hardware, but the pickups I bought from Mr. Andrzej are on another level. I’m convinced that anyone interested in purchasing pickups will receive professional advice when speaking with Mr. Andrzej and will be able to work out the right specifications to make the guitar sound the way they envisioned. I wholeheartedly recommend getting in touch with Mr. Andrzej. He is helpful and highly professional, and I also highly recommend APG pickups.
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s perfectly in both solid-body and semi-hollow-body guitars. In semi-hollow instruments, however, I use 250kΩ pots to bring out that desirable “lower midrange” in the tone. The cleans are not overly compressed, which gives you greater clarity. What I mean here is the presence of the guitar in the mix, because many guitarists forget that when playing in a band, they should be one of the members who are not simply standing on stage as placeholders, but actually have a real impact on the overall sound and character of the band. When the Litza pickup is switched to parallel mode, you get a tone straight out of the rhythm & blues world, and it works extremely well alongside single-coils. And by “single-coils”, I also mean APG pickups in a humbucker-in-a-single-coil format. That way, you don’t lose that desirable “glass” in position 2 of the pickup selector. I should point out that for me, position 2 means the bridge and middle pickups together in a Stratocaster. I know it’s numbered the other way around in the USA, but hey — we live in Poland. 🙂 So... for anyone looking for an open-sounding pickup with the ability to switch between parallel and series modes, this is a great choice. Someone here in the reviews described it as being on a world-class level, and that is exactly how I see it. Of course, I’m not taking anything away from other pickup manufacturers — they have an impressive body of work as well — but what I value most is the fact that I can discuss a customer’s requirements directly with Andrzej. That gives us possibilities that other companies may not be able to offer. After all, before finding the pickup we really like — the one that sounds the way we expect in our particular guitar — we often have to buy several different models, install them, and then sell the unwanted pickups second-hand. We simply lose money in the process, because nobody is going to buy them back from us for the same price we paid. As a luthier with 25 years of experience, I recommend all APG pickups, among other things because we can discuss exactly what we want from a pickup directly with Andrzej. I would also add that in situations like this, it is important to tell Andrzej what kind of wood your guitar is made from and what kind of music it is intended for.
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rned out so great that it eventually became a permanent part of the APG lineup. Then I routed a larger cavity at the bridge to fit a Dark Side. And honestly, it sounds absolutely beautiful. I’m very happy with the result. These are yet another set of pickups from APG in my guitars.
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caster, together the guitar and those pickups have endured over 20,000 hours of play in that decade, through the entirety of my music degree, and into my professional life as a musician and busy teacher, that guitar is my no.1, it's my inner voice and the pickup swap to the APGs was an integral part in forming that voice all that time ago. There is nothing they won't do, and convincingly, they are mocking birds. If I need a fat jazz tone, a thin glassy funk sound, a more intimate kind of clean tone where I want lots of definition in a chord, a full on hendrix style neck pickup quacky-ness, it's got it all and none of it sounds inauthentic. The compliments on my tone are constant every week. I'll end with this, and probably the most assuring thing I could say- They made me stop hunting for so much gear! The abundance of satisfaction I get out of just plugging straight in to literally any amp and playing this combo of guitar/pickup is unparalleled, they make even the worst backline amps sound passable, and the best of them sound better than ever. I'm now ordering a replacement for the neck pickup and will continue to give Andrey and his work the highest of praise, a great product, it competes with the best of anything you'll hear, and I can give it at LEAST a 20,000 hour guarantee!
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