Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everyone,

New to the forum, thought I'd say hello from wet and windy Cornwall, UK.

Here's my last completed build - sapele body with maple/mahogany inlay, maple/mahogany/maple neck, Gotoh hardware and Tonerider pickup...

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Custom Handmade Guitars Handcrafted Cornwall England Web Design Helston Cornwall

Welcome, Matt. Nice work! How do you like/what are your impressions of the Tonerider pickup?

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Nice job, Matt!
Is that a neck through, with a back cap?
Great shape!

Hi Mike,

For a "budget" pickup, I was very impressed with the Tonerider and I'd probably use them again without hesitation. The Generator has a nice fat tone, lots of bite, not too trebly. It never sounded muddy and for a high output pickup (16k I think on the bridge) it cleaned up nicely as well. I've switched to Kent Armstrongs now, but I want to try the Rocksongs at some point.






Thanks Alan, it's actually just a regular set-neck. I used some of the scrap from profiling the neck, made an inlay and recessed into the top of the body...





(Sorry for the poor picture picture)

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Custom Handmade Guitars Handcrafted Cornwall England Web Design Helston Cornwall

I've seen the Rocksongs and wondered about them, who makes them and what they're like.
But i can't get over the name. Sounds amateurish. Same thing with SD's Basslines pickups for bass. The silkscreened "Basslines" logo looks tacky. There are other pickups out there without the logo to choose from.
I did my last assembly with good quality parts and Seymour Duncans. The guitar sounds great, but for what i do they're too expensive. For my first scratch build i used GFS, and am very happy with them. They look and sound good, and I'll probably be using them again in the future.

Edited to add: Did some research. I see the rocksongs are Toneriders as well. My bad. There is another pickup out there(saw them on Musicians Friend, i think) that i'm confusing them with. On closer inspection, i believe they were Rockfield. Don't know the quality, but,again, hate the silkscreened logo.)

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Sorry, yes Tonerider Rocksongs... and I agree with you on the name. However, they seem to be doing well for themselves. They're made in China... but wait! They're not nasty, cheap Chinese-made pickups. The owner is a Scottish guy who lives out there with his wife and he uses American and German (I think) parts to make the pickups. If you go to their site; http://www.tonerider.com, they have a lot of praise from various musicians and guitar builders who have switched to their pickups.

In addition to Tonerider and GFS, there's also Irongear - who's Hot Slag pickup I was originally going to go for on this guitar. Irongear are a UK based company who, I believe, are on the same sort of level as GFS.

I've read some very good reviews all round for these three "budget" pickup brands... and no silkscreened logos to be seen (yet)!

As for Rockfield, I have no idea what their pickups are like, but don't BC Rich use them?

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Custom Handmade Guitars Handcrafted Cornwall England Web Design Helston Cornwall

I think you are correct, on some of their lower and mid line instruments.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.