APG PICKUPS
Discover a new side of your guitar.
Sometimes, the guitar you already have has more to offer.
APG develops pickups that bring out new possibilities without changing the guitar itself — from classic designs to original solutions for specific guitars and configurations. Every design begins with the instrument itself: how it is built, how it responds and what it needs.
IT STARTED WITH A GUITAR.
APG grew out of a lifelong fascination with guitars, electronics, and what happens when you start experimenting with the source of the sound.
I built my first pickup when I was twelve. There was no plan to start a brand or go into production. Just curiosity – and the need to find out whether I could build something of my own, and what it would sound like.
Over time came a degree in radio electronics, more designs, and increasingly involved work with guitars. In 1985, together with Andrey Rumyantsev, I founded POLARUM GUITARS CUSTOM SHOP.
At a time when access to Western instruments and components was limited, much of what we needed had to be designed and built ourselves. We built guitars, pickups and custom electronic solutions.
A DIFFERENT FIELD. THE SAME WAY OF THINKING.
For many years, I also worked in technology and IT. Working on large, complex projects was a very different world, but the way of thinking stayed the same: when an off-the-shelf solution doesn’t fit, you build your own.
Guitars, however, never really left my life.
In 2008, I decided to return to where it all began and started working with guitars and electronics again. Two years later, APG Pickups was born.
From the beginning, I wanted APG to be about more than making another version of something that already existed. What interests me is the relationship between the guitar, the pickup and the player — and how a small change in one of them can alter the character of the entire instrument.
That is why experimentation, testing and developing original solutions remain at the heart of APG.
APG starts where ready-made answers end.
BEFORE APG
In 1985, POLARUM Guitars Custom Shop was born
— a guitar-making story that continues to this day.