Welcome back Gearheads! Today I’ve got a fantastic set of pickups from another somewhat under the radar winder for you all to check out. I first came across Fatpups Pickups upon a recommendation from fellow guitarist and YouTube demo’er Mike “Roknfnrol” when I had inquired about a great set of replacement pickups for my Telecaster. A few months ago I had the idea to get the pieces together for a fun and killer “parts” Tele and happened to buy a body that had a set of Lollar pickups in it. While I do think Lollar makes great pickups, they just weren’t speaking well in this guitar. It’s a very light Ash body from Guitar Mill (who is Mario Martin Custom Guitars and supplies the bodies for Danocaster) and a maple Musikraft neck. All in all, really good pieces to make a killer guitar. Mike recommended Fatpups’ Black Guard set as a great marriage in that kind of guitar and man was he right. All the twang, spank and clarity I was looking for was instantly present and at the same time, the warmth you’d like to expect from an old guitar was absolutely there. Extremely happening set of pickups!
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Handcrafted in the USA
Tone tested, built to last, and made from the finest materials available. Every guitar pickup is individually handcrafted and scatter wound with the utmost attention to detail. Completely committed to quality, incredible guitar tone, and most importantly your satisfaction!
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Fatpups is Chris Larsen, a self described tinkerer and lover of all things music and gear… a familiar spirit indeed! Chris is churning out some pretty amazing, handmade pickups at extremely affordable prices. Again, much like Gemini Pickups from a previous Gearheads Feature… there are some really amazing smaller builders out there making fantastic sets of pickups that don’t get anywhere near the crazy money some of the boutique builders are asking, and to be completely honest they are every bit as great and musical.
“I’m Chris and I love guitars. I got my first guitar 25 years ago when I was 13 and I’ve been hooked ever since. As a kid I started tinkering with them right away and I even got in trouble for completely disassembling my Uncle’s Strat!
After working many different jobs over the years ranging from guitar teacher to electronics manufacturing one thing has remained the same - I have not lost my passion for amazing guitar tone, and I never will!”
The Blackguard Tele set comes equipped with scatter wound heavy build magnet wire and alnico 3 magnets which provide a remarkably clear tone with a balanced frequency response. They have a lower overall output than alnico 5, and the bass tone is leaner and tighter than alnico 2. The near absence of cobalt in alnico 3 causes it to have less magnetic pull, impeding string vibration the least, allowing the player to articulate every subtle nuance of their playing style.
Neck Covers - Raw covers will have scratches because they are not plated and unpolished. Chrome, Gold, and Nickel plated covers are polished and will not have scratches on their tops. All covers are made in the USA from pure nickel silver for the best tone.
Bridge String - Choose either a black string or a white string to be wrapped around the bridge pickup. Black was common for '50s era pickups and white was used in the '60s.
3-Wire Mod - The neck pickup will come equipped with a third wire (a dedicated ground wire for the metal cover) giving you the option to use a 4-way switch with both pickups in series.
Aged Poles - With this option the alnico rod magnets are patinaed which gives the pickups an aged look.
I found this set of Black Guard pickups to really wake up my parts Tele, in a variety of situations and gain structures. They work well with gain, fuzz pedals and wet effects like reverb and delay. I did have Chris send me his favorite treble bleed capacitor to use with these pickups and I’m super happy with the range of tone and EQ across the guitar’s volume knob. These pickups offer all the vintage, woody and expressive tone you’d want out of an old set of vintage Telecaster pickups without ANY of the “Ice Pick” we all try to avoid. They’re balanced and individual notes and chords feel great under your fingers.
In the video demo below, I used only the parts Tele with the Black Guard set into both a Komet 29 and vintage ‘76 Marsahll 50w JMP amplifier. You can really hear the snarl and snap this guitar now has… very addictive.
I will add one small anecdote - at times I do feel the guitar has a touch too much compression, almost as if the notes dip when you dig in. It’s a cool effect and while that may work for certain tasks and musical environments, I did look for solutions and it’s most definitely coming from the brass saddles on the guitar. I’m planning on replacing them at some point with steel saddles to firm up the whole fit and feel, upon which I’ll come back to this feature and share those experiences with you all! Again, the guitar sounds great and I could imagine if you were running a cleaner, more high headroom rig you’d really appreciate those brass saddles and the compression they yield.
Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Fatpups Pickups Black Guard Set. If you’d like to learn more about Fatpups are up to, please do check out these sites for more information.
https://www.ebay.com/str/fatpups
Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!