The ShadowMusic Web Community

Hi
I have seen these Renovatio 50's pickups for sale on ebay over the last few weeks!!
I was wondering if anyone has tried them yet?? They are made in England and appear to have a good spec: hand wound,Black vulcanised fibre bobbins, heavy formvar magnetic wire, alnico 5 staggered magnets, vintage cloth hook-up wire.

Any feed back appreciated
Regards chris

Hi Chris,
That's a new name to me. I guess it depends what the electrical specs of them are too. Can't really tell until you've tried them. At least they've started right with the Alnico magnets.

Regards, Tony.

Hi Tony
They seem very reasonably priced too at 120quid

regards Chris

Aaaaah, they'll be going for old 'handmade' trick then. I find that makers like Wilkinson & GFS produce perfectly good Alnico pickups at less than half that price. Careful not to go chasing pipedreams, while seeking 'that sound'. Hank didn't have all our choices back in 1959, he had to put up with the Fender he got.

Tony.

Hi Tony

I like to keep an eye out on new products!! and buy them while they're still affordable!! but your quite right marketting jargon and price arn't always a reflection of quality !! I recently fitted a set of tonerider rocksong pickups to my gordon smith anniversary model and they totally transformed the sound way better than the original faulty handwound pickups that were in there!! wonder if the vintage tonerider single coils any good

regards Chris

Hi Chris,
We can be quite fickle on this site. With our hearing, obviously not a 100% anymore, like when we were younger, it is probably not as easy as we thought to distinguish fine sonic differences. Like you, a mate of mine is always trying out & changing the pickups on his Strats & Teles, but often ends up with the originals back in again. My belief is that if you have a decent set of Alnicos that are not in any way 'overwound', say between 5 - 6 K, you will get a vintage-style sound. I bought a very nice Epiphone Les Paul in the '90s, which looked gorgeous & felt great to play. The sound it made, however was not quite what you would call Toneful. I changed the Epi humbuckers (about 12-13K) to some Wilkinson Vintage humbuckers (about 8K)
& magic ! It really did sound like a proper Gibson Les Paul. It is now quite toneful & in the right ballpark. Choosing pickups is a very personal thing & particularly for your own personal guitar, which may be slightly different to the next man's, although they appear identical on the surface.
I have Fender CS '54s on my two main Strats, but they both sound slightly different. I have Fender 57-62 vintage in my Mex Classic Player & that's great too. I have in my Squier 'Biffy Clyro' Strat, the original Squier Alnico III/V mixed pickups, & they work brilliantly for me too. Am I easy to please; I don't know, but if I am happy about my sound, then that's all that matters to me.
Regards, Tony.

Interesting that you find the split magnet setup works for you; I find the top three strings pretty thin - batch variation, maybe?
Looking at the Wilkinson Alnico Vs now - very affordable, and some good demo vids out there. If I go for it I'll report back.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RENOVATIO-50s-Pic ... 4834c4b66f

the description looks as if these are of far eastern manufacture
look at the grammar

Hi

On closer inspection it would appear that way

regards chris