Joe bonamassas pickups (Page 1 of 2)

Are you talking about the song "Had to Cry Today" or the album overall?  Overall, on the album there are a bunch of different guitars, hence different pickups being used.  Let us know the song and maybe we can help get you going in the right direction.

Check the CD jacket as well, he lists some of the stuff he uses song to song.

Wood

id almost imagine...(like on the deluxe strat and that old sun burst strat) that he's left em stock, he left the clapton strat totally stock with the lacesensores, as for the Gigliotti Guitars, they custom make there guitars with a few different pickups, I BELIEVE he may use Duncans in one of the teles im not sure, but gigliotti also uses Lindy Fralin Pickups which are arguebly some of the best pickups ever made for fender style guitars im curious if he has those in that gigliotti strat, they also use Bill Lawrence and Voodoo pickups, all three companys make handwired pickups and they all do it better than fender lol,

also keep in mind he has the tone pot to the middle pickup wired to the bridge so he can roll of the highs on his strats (kind of a Jeff beck trick) makes it fatter like a humbucker (beck rolls his almost all the way off and cranks the treble on his amps, a marshall dsl50 nowdays to be exact)

HONESTLY tho, his pickups are not the secret to his tone.

right now im running my marshall with a low amount of gain, running a drivetrain II with every knob offset about 12 o clock ( how Joe shows his set up in the instructional) and on top of that im running the boost side of a carl martin Hot drive n boost mk2, i have a bossDD3 being shipped as we speak, im getting some serious bonamassa tones right now tho, (not all his tones) sticking delay and the vox wah gettings pretty creamy as well, im not sure if thats exactly how he was running his setup at the time but when i jam next to ANDY live songs you can feel alot of the same characteristics with those two pedals as you can on the album (i wouldnt say dead on or anything, i dont have enough money to setup 4 heads with 2 cabs) not yet anyways lol, but im getting some entresting tones..

Wow... wait a second, Joe actually comes here!?
Ehh omg, it would be so awesome to say hello !!
Omg how often does he come?

You want to see something really cool.....click below

and yes, it is the man himself

http://boardserver.superstats.com/read. … ebonamassa

its from the old board

hey guys, im new to this website, but ive been a fan of Joe's for a while now.  I was wondering what you guys thought of the Fender Texas Specials(since you guys wer talkin about blues pickups and such).  They are very popular i know...but i love the snap in them.  I dont like them becuase of the SRV sound(i am a huge Stevie fan as well), i just really dig that kinda tone out of a strat.  I really recommond checking out the Fender '62 American Flame Top Strat, there specially ordered to guitar centers only, Fender made about 100 of them and thats it, they go for 1399, well worth it though, its a beautiful finish and a really killer tone...just thought id post my thoughts...sned me some feedback!
Conner

Suhr makes his own pickups and puts them in his guitars, I have a set of V60LP in my '65 Relic Stratocaster that are phenominal.  Great bell and chime, and he has a machine that scatterwinds the pickups exactly the same way each time so you can expect the same pickups each time.

I don't like the Texas Specials, they are very midrange honky and aren't really characteristic of a traditional Strat sound.  I'd have to say if I could tell the guitar resonated well and it had Texas Specials in it, I'd rip those pickups out as fast as possible and throw in Shur or Kinman pickups.  There are a bunch of other companies making great pickups like the ones Joe mentioned, I just have no experience with them in my guitars.  There are a ton of great companies and all it really is a matter of is finding the right pickups for the guitar.  Different guitars are going to react somewhat differently to pickups (or pickups to guitars).  Also not a fan of Fender's older Noiseless pickups, they were noiseless but also gutless.  I haven't played the newer ones since they were "redesigned".

I have had great experience with the Fender CS 50s (I think "Fat 50s") style pickups that I have in my Cunetto Relic, also the pickups in the Eric Johnson Stratocasters are nice (very nice bell and chimey and with some bite when you want it, really useful bridge pickup (tone pot is wired to it)).  Try out the Suhr pickups and also Kinman makes some great pickups as well.  I'll even go to say that I dig the older Gold Lace Sensor, not really a natural Strat sound but they still sound good.

Anyway here's some other names to check out...

  ·  Bill Lawrence
  ·  Buck Cannon/Don Mare
  ·  Haeussel Pickups
  ·  Joe Barden
  ·  Lollar Guitars
  ·  Manlius Guitar
  ·  O.C. Duff Pickups
  ·  Peter Florance/VooDoo Pickups
  ·  Rio Grande Pickups
  ·  Stephen Designs Pickups
  ·  WCR Pickups

The biggest problem about pickups is you can’t test drive them.  Guitar stores never have what you’re looking to get.  You have to ask people and make your own decisions.  Between my Strat and Les Paul I’ve tried the Duncan Hotrails (by far the best PU), the Duncan Pearly Gates, the Duncan JB, the Duncan Distortion, and the Zakk Wylde EMG set.

So don’t be surprised if you get a PU and don’t like it.  But when you find the right one man its awesome.

EDIT: had an after thought here as well.  And sorry if this was covered already, but another huge thing to address would be an amp.  Cause PU's only do so much, its the amp thats key.
I was helping this one guy pick out pedals, pickups, cords, etc just to find out he was playing through a 12 watt amp haha.  WTF??