Oil City pickups in US Vintage Guitar Magazine

OilCityPickups · July 2015

My good old Oil Blitz spirit humbuckers will be featured (among other industry leading PAF type pickups) in the October edition of the US Vintage Guitar magazine. We are giving away a pair to subscribers, and the mag will feature our first US glossy advertising

:-)

We have been selling more and more in the US, so thought it was about time we were formally introduced! The issue featuring the 'PAF Party' will be made available free in e form, so any of you who want to check out an interesting mag for nowt ... heads up! it features a lot more than just the usual vintage suspects ... there have been interesting features on 'superstrats', pedal shootouts, pointy metal guitars ... and all sorts.

Worth a look ... as I say ... for nowt

;-)

Ash and the 'Oily Team'

Elwood · July 2015

Congratulations! It's excellent to see your hard work paying off.

Any idea when the October edition will be available?

TTony · July 2015

Congrats Mr Ash.

Chuffola · July 2015

Excellent news. Fingers crossed for a British Invasion type thing.

GuyBoden · July 2015

Well done they're great pickups.

rpr · July 2015

Very cool-you could put up a link when it appears...

Have you considered sending a couple of Doug and Pat- they're always keen to promote small pickup builders both sides of the pond.

stonevibe · July 2015

Nice one fella!

OilCityPickups · July 2015

Elwood said:

Congratulations! It's excellent to see your hard work paying off.

Any idea when the October edition will be available?

I think it ships physically at the end of August ... but I will keep you all posted. We are excited as so often we see Brit makers losing out to the US equivalents for little more reason than the kudos of a 'US made' label. Well we have some of the very finest and most innovative winders in the world based here, and it's about time we flew the flag proudly the other side of the pond.

Jaden · July 2015

sweet ! nice one mate

OilCityPickups · July 2015

Jaden said:

sweet ! nice one mate

Gotta show em some real Brit quality haven't we

;-)

Jez6345789 · July 2015

Nice one go team OCP

axisus · July 2015

Well done!

Evilmags · July 2015

But how do the pickup covers match those on a 58 Les Paul? This seems to be something playing on the minds of our cork sniffing oriented brethren. (Some "journalist" in Guitarist even goes on about this FFS).

Nice one. Oil City are the best value out there IMHO.

OilCityPickups · July 2015

Evilmags said:

But how do the pickup covers match those on a 58 Les Paul? This seems to be something playing on the minds of our cork sniffing oriented brethren. (Some "journalist" in Guitarist even goes on about this FFS).

Nice one. Oil City are the best value out there IMHO.

The authenticity kick is total bollocks in my opinion ... if the pickup sounds right ... who gives a stuff?

Evilmags · July 2015

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Evilmags said:

But how do the pickup covers match those on a 58 Les Paul? This seems to be something playing on the minds of our cork sniffing oriented brethren. (Some "journalist" in Guitarist even goes on about this FFS).

Nice one. Oil City are the best value out there IMHO.

The authenticity kick is total bollocks in my opinion ... if the pickup sounds right ... who gives a stuff?

Somebody seems to. Not me, that's for sure. Trainspotting at its worst. The Les Paul Forum suffers from it amongst other places. Who notices anyway? I like to go to gigs to enjoy myself, not dissect the performance, equipment and pout of the guitar player.

OilCityPickups · July 2015

There are no 'right' features for a PAF ... from one week to another Gibson used different magnets, varied the wind pattern due to crap, aging machinery, and grabbed whatever was in the parts bin to keep the orders flowing out the door.

Today we are able to produce more consistent, higher quality pickups, with more variety, and totally tailored to the players wants. I will happily nail my colours to the mast, and say that some pickup manufacturers simply pedal bullshit to a gullible public. Butyrate bobbins and the 'right' shape cover don't make a pickup worth £300 a set. It's wire and a couple of magnets guys ... get real.

You can quote me

:-)

That'll put a truck load of cats among a Trafalgar Square of pigeons

;-)

ThorpyFX · July 2015

Congratulations, really great look to that advert. I hope you get traction, you deserve to.

OilCityPickups · July 2015

thorpy6 said:

Congratulations, really great look to that advert. I hope you get traction, you deserve to.

I hear fabulous things about your pedals ... Jonathan and I talk lol

chrisv · July 2015

I'm one of several guilty parties who has written about pickup cover shapes in the pages of UK guitar mags in the past. For me, it's simple: I just prefer the look of original PAF covers and accurate visual replicas thereof. It's purely an aesthetic preference; to me, the 'right' covers look classier in a vintage-style instrument. The difference is subtle (http://www.skatterbranepickups.com/f-a-q/standard_humbucker_covers/) but having a preference either way whilst acknowledging that it makes a negligible difference is perfectly acceptable, no?

chrisv · July 2015

And... @TheGuitarWeasel please drop me a line if you fancy some press on this side of the pond

OilCityPickups · July 2015

chrisv said: I'm one of several guilty parties who has written about pickup cover shapes in the pages of UK guitar mags in the past. For me, it's simple: I just prefer the look of original PAF covers and accurate visual replicas thereof. It's purely an aesthetic preference; to me, the 'right' covers look classier in a vintage-style instrument. The difference is subtle (http://www.skatterbranepickups.com/f-a-q/standard_humbucker_covers/) but having a preference either way whilst acknowledging that it makes a negligible difference is perfectly acceptable, no?

I find difficulty in justifying features on a pickup that ridiculously inflate the price but make not just negligible difference to the sound ... but none at all. People are of course free to chose the covers they want for their pickups ... and I am happy to supply uncovered units so that those for whom it matters can fit what they like. My pickups are suited to those who want to play their instruments rather than boast about the labels or the shape of their cover.

As a repairman starting in the seventies, I have handled more 'genuine' PAFs than most, and I love the characteristic sound that goes with some examples (some were crap and in my opinion justifiably binned) but there is so much mystique woven, and bollocks talked about this one design that I think it is about time pickup makers started telling it like it is ... rather than like how they (for their profit margins) and some of the buying public would like it to be.

Press is always good ;-)

chrisv · July 2015

@TheGuitarWeasel I don't think having preference for vintage aesthetics and being a 'player' have to be mutually exclusive but yes, there is a great deal of cobblers and myth around. I wrote something for the mag last month along similar lines; the idea that all vintage PAFs have 'the sound' is the same as the notion that all 1950s Fenders were lightweight tone machines. There are bad-sounding PAFs and I've played a '55 Strat that was like a ship's anchor. Similarly, I once owned an amazing '73 Tele Custom that was barely 7lbs and sounded amazing. Received wisdom is usually a little more black and white than the reality :-)

Evilmags · July 2015

Just for the sake of clarity what are the factors that do change sound. Magnet type and size, wire type, bobbin size and baseplate material/thickness seem obvious as does wind pattern. I can´t imagine their being much difference between modern plastics and old plastics/cellulose ect in bobbin material but I may be wrong. There are so many bullshit merchants out there.

OilCityPickups · July 2015

Natural selection and Larry Dimarzio have worked wonders for the PAF: In the mid to late seventies so many of the bad sounding PAFs were ripped out and binned (sadly some good sounding ones too) to be replaced with the Super Distortion ... that the breed has had it's gene pool neatened up.

I've played some absolute stinkers of 50s PAFs ... but they seem to be rarer these days (perhaps all sat in a Japanese vault and treated like blue chip investments rather than instruments ... probably the best place for em to be honest).

I had a 1975 Tele that was one of the best Fenders I've played bar none ... and a little while ago worked on a 58 Strat that couldn't hold a candle to a top end Squier ... the world is many shades of gray ... but definately not 50 lol

OilCityPickups · July 2015

Evilmags said:

Just for the sake of clarity what are the factors that do change sound. Magnet type and size, wire type, bobbin size and baseplate material/thickness seem obvious as does wind pattern. I can´t imagine their being much difference between modern plastics and old plastics/cellulose ect in bobbin material but I may be wrong. There are so many bullshit merchants out there.

After a lot of testing ... the main factors are turns, tension, and absolute wire diameter. This is closely followed by bobbin profile and winding pattern. Next would be potting level or un potted. There is a great deal of hornswaggle talked about keeper bar material and 'drilled oversize' v tapped base plates ... bobbin material makes no difference at all.

What people should realise, is that essentially the PAF was a machine wound, mass produced pickup ... simply hitting a great formula (sometimes) by chance.

It is no magical thing that the average PAF has 5000 turns on each bobbin ... it was meant to be the quiet but similar sounding replacement for the P90 ... which has 10,000 on one bobbin. They simply split the total wire load in two and hoped it would sound the same. It didn't, but that was a happy accident.

SKATTERBRANE · July 2015

The picture used from my site depicts a Gibson cover and 3 of my formerly used standard covers. I no longer offer the "standard cover" choice. I only put my PAF replica covers on my pickups these days. If you click the picture of the covers on the link below, it will enlarge for you: http://www.skatterbranepickups.com/accessories/

OilCityPickups · July 2015

Welcome @SCATTERBRANE hope you stick around to add your input to this extremely lively and fun forum.

As a winder myself I find the customer feedback and goodwill created by being a regular contributor is great.

Ash

Oil City Pickups/ASL Pickups UK

SKATTERBRANE · July 2015

Thank you

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Oil City pickups in US Vintage Guitar Magazine

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