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     Angeltone musical instrument pickups grew out of one man's obsession -  Why don't I sound like my favorite guitar players?

         No matter how hard or how much I practiced, or how much equipment I bought, I never seemed to sound
    quite as good as the musicians did that I heard on my records. I practiced until I couldn't even touch my strings
    anymore, I bought the same models of guitars and amplifiers that they used, the same effects, and even the
    strings that they used... and nothing helped. For some reason my records always seemed to have a power,
    tone and expressiveness on them that I could never dream of finding for myself, no matter how hard I tried.

        One day, I was at my local music store (as usual), and one of the salesmen jokingly asked me if I ever tried
    making my own pickups. He said he had some dead pickups that he had found in an old guitar case, and if I
    could get them to work again I could keep them. I took them home, studied them, and experimented with them,
    and one day I heard it... the singing, expressive tone I was searching for for so long.

        Enter Angeltone Musical Instruments...

        When you order an Angeltone musical instrument pickup, we don't simply reach for a premade pickup in a
    box, hand it to you, and try to convince you how wonderful you will sound. We believe that your pickup is your
    guitar's (and your) voice, so each of our pickups is made one at a time to order only after learning exactly what
    you have to work with now and what you would like to sound like.

        Angeltone musical instrument pickups are individually hand machined, hand assembled and hand wound
    pickups made in the USA with all of the sound, detail and power of an original vintage pickup and with no
    compromises in quality, materials or tone. In fact, each of our single coil pickups is made 'the way they used
    to', with real Forbon (vulcanized fiber) bobbin parts, Alnico magnets, 1950's style Formvar insulated coil wire
    or plain enamel wire (depending on the model), and period correct hookup wire.

        For example, each of our 1950's Strat style guitar pickups (like the 5S7 shown below) has the correct grade
    and style of magnets for each model with corner chamfers hand ground into the magnets for a real 'vintage
    look', real nitrocellulose lacquer sealed parts, Formvar insulated coil wire, cloth covered 'pushback' style
    hookup wire, and wax potting in our own proprietary mixture for structural strength and microphonics
    suppression. Each of our pickups is then signed and serial numbered by the winder, tested for quality and
    tone through a variety of vintage amplifiers, boxed with a datasheet listing the pickup's actual measured
    specifications, and only after that are the pickups shipped to you.

       Why do we do it? It's simple. We believe that the only way to achieve that great sound heard on so many old recordings is to make our pickups as accurately to the original
  specs as possible. We're so obsessive about it that we hand machine all of own bobbin parts for our single coil pickups ourselves, still use nitrocellulose instead of modern
  waterbased lacquers,
and even hand wind our pickups using a coil winding machine that we made ourselves. In fact, we don't use 'modern' cast plastic bobbins or ceramic
  magnets if the original pickups weren't made that way, because we believe that changing the way a pickup is constructed in any way can drastically change the pickup's tone.
  Basically, we do it because we believe that the pickup is the guitar's (and your) voice. Anyone can build a great looking guitar with all the right parts, but putting 'modern' pickups
  in a reliced guitar doesn't quite make it sound or play like a fifty year old original would. After all, isn't your instrument's tone just as important to you as the way it looks?

About the photo at top... this is my favorite 'pickup testin' guitar and amp.
This is my 1987? US '57 RI paired with a 1953 5B3 'octal tube' Fender Deluxe amp,
the same model and year amp Carl Perkins recorded all his Sun rockabilly hits with.
Good enough for Carl, good enough for me.


Want to hear some big vintage tone?
Click on the photo of the 5S7 above to hear this model's soundclips.
 
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       By the way, our pickups are also available in either 'vintage correct' same coil winding direction and magnetic polarity or 'RW/RP' with one pickup reverse wound/reverse
   
magnetic polarity for hum suppression at no extra cost - please specify when ordering. Also, each Angeltone musical instrument pickup is covered under a limited lifetime
    warranty covering its materials and workmanship to the original purchaser. Please click on the
Legal Stuff link in the menu at the top of this page for details.

       'Custom ordered' pickups are also available with your choice of parts and coil windings at extra cost. We also can make pickups for left handed instruments with correct
    magnetic staggering for your application. If you are interested in 'total
custom' pickups, please click on the Pickup Info link above for some reference reading on this subject
    and email us for more details.


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