Guitar Nerd Report: This pickup. This is the pickup that got me interested in pickups again. Originally a hole-filler until a Seymour Duncan Cool Rails arrived, I didn’t pay too much attention to it until my Mesa/Boogie Road King amp arrived. When I heard this pickup through the Boogie’s clean channels, it was lurve. The Duncan order was cancelled, and Perry never got his pickup back. While keeping the pickup, I still didn’t have much of a use for it other than noodling around at sound checks. My dirty channels were gained way too high for a single coil, and I wasn’t using many clean sounds in what I was doing.
With the advent of my new lower-gain amp rig, a font of tonal possibilities has sprung from this humble thingy, a result of Perry’s early meddling in the dark arts of pickup design. I’m not even sure if anyone knows how many windings are on it, or what strength the magnets are. It just has its own magic, hence me calling it “The Juju”. It’s the basis for a heap of my new tones, and has enabled me to explore some funky new territory as a player. Good medicine, this one.