DIFFERENT WINDS
While there’s no end to repros of all the classic pickup styles, more and more pickup makers are mixing things up to move forward – Cream T is a good example
Similar shades of the same thing could sum up the worldwide pickup business. That’s no disrespect to all the pickup makers out there, but we’re seeing more and more new designs mixing elements of the classics to produce hybrids or genuinely new voices and textures.
Cream T’s pickups are made in Ormskirk and its Guitar-X (previously Relish) Pickup Swapping system, which is offered on the company’s guitars, means we can listen to new pickups instantly. A couple of new designs arrived and within seconds of unpacking them we were listening to them on a first-generation pickup-swapping Cream T Aurora, our soldering iron safely in the toolbox. We can instantly A/B the new designs against other Guitar-X mounted pickups we have to hand.
The first of the two new designs is the Single Shot set. Like any Guitar-X designs, they need to be humbucking in size, but these are actually true single coils: the bridge pickup has visible AlnicoV magnetic slugs running at a Tele/Stratlike slant; the neck’s run in a straight line across the pickup; and both have a partial nickel-plated cover and fibreboard fronts. They will be available without the Guitar-X mounting frames, too, for anyone who fancies a little single-coil action on their previously humbucking guitar.
“I wanted to start with a traditional single coil, so I followed a Strat pickup in terms of size, magnets and wind and put it on the Aurora and then thought, ‘Wow, that’s way too bright!’” says CreamT’s Richard Whitney. “I was really disappointed, so I thought about putting a resistor in the pickup itself, and that was the idea. It’s pretty close [to a Strat single coil] in terms of the pickup, but obviously you’re listening to it on the set-neck mahogany/maple Aurora.”
“Cream T’s Guitar-X Pickup Swapping system means we can listen to new pickups instantly”
Beefier Banger
The second Sticky Fingers set effectively consists of six-string versions of the five-string pickups Cream T recently developed for its latest Newman by CreamT 5 String guitar. That design started with the desire to make a beefier version of the Banger & Mash humbucker. Outwardly, they have a similar style to the Single Shots with just one row of magnetic Alnico V slugs on view, both the neck facing coils, surrounded with the same partial covers and black fibreboard fronts. The Aurora, like all the Guitar-X equipped Cream T models, has the potential to coil-split any humbucker, and here the split voices those neck-facing visible slug coils.
“So it is a sort of Banger & Mash but one coil – the one you can’t see – is actually lower underneath the fibreboard faceplate,” Richard explained back in issue 514. in terms of the magnet field, that lower coil is only producing around 60 per cent of the one you can see. It’s not like a standard 18k pickup with two equal coils, it’s more like a one-and-a-half-coil pickup! I was really happy with the sound: it’s kind of a raw, clean voice.” Reflecting the high DCR of the six-string set (19.3k at bridge; 13.8k at neck), the pickups use 44 AWG coil wire onthe bridge and 43 AWG on the neck.
The neck Single Shot captures a very characterful single-coil voice. Compared with the Cream T Duchess P-90 it’s much more Fender-y sounding, as opposed to the creamier, more ‘Gibson’ voice of that humbucking-sized P-90. At the bridge it’s bright, hollowed and nicely strident, and with both in play and with hum-cancelling there’s more of the Tele’s wider-sounding mix, very jangly if you want or very clipped and funky. Another voice, instantly, for your guitar: that’s the point.
Using our default Whiskerbucker set as a sonic palette cleanser before we swap in the Sticky Fingers set, it’s like we’ve kicked in a slight thickening boost to the mid/low midrange but still with some rootsy clarity. Our Aurora now sounds like a classic/roots-rock riff machine; the Whiskerbuckers, particularly at the ridge, sound a little thin and bright. Of course, you can mix and match sets or brands. A Gibson Greenybucker sits between the Whiskerbucker and the Sticky Fingers, a little tougher sounding than the former with a little less kick than the Sticky Fingers. This set splits very nicely, too, a little less ‘authentic’ than the Single Shot but not a million miles away.
Aside from being the perfect platform to listen and compare pickups properly, the instant voicing means that unused pickups aren’t sitting in boxes awaiting a guitar. I can’t tell you what a Single Shot or Sticky Fingers set sounds like on a Stratocaster or Les Paul, but on this level playing field of the pickup-swapping Aurora, the only thing you’re changing is the pickup, everything else stays the same.
For pricing and availability go to www.creamtcustomshop.com