Kuz

They are modeled after the Custom Bucker pickups in Gibson's Custom Shop guitars. I have a Gibson Custom Shop 335 and a Custom Core with 225 Pickups. They are nearly identical, both sets use A3 magnets. Edwin Wilson came from the Gibson Custom Shop to oversee/engineer the Custom Core line for Heritage, so he brought the Custom Bucker humbucker model with him. The 225s are a vintage PAF clone, the HRWs are much hotter. The 225s and HRWs are completely different animals. I liked the HRWs in my Golden Eagle Jazz box, but I didn't like them in solid body 150s or Semi-hollow 535/555 guitars.

The 225 Humbuckers and HRWs are night & day and completely different. The 225s use A3s and the HRWs use (I believe I am correct) A5s. I have a set of aged 225 Humbuckers that came out of my 150 CC. PM me if you are interest in buying them.

There is no adjusting at the venue that you can't do on the fly, that is the beauty of it. If you call up a patch with overdrive, chorus, & delay; if you want the delay off, then just step on the button where the delay is looped to the Boss and it is off. Same with the other pedals, just step on the board and turn them on and off. But the basic patch with 1-8 pedals on or off as you like can come on. If the delay is too long or the OD has too much gain, then reach down to the pedal and adjust the physical pedal. No menus to surf through like the all digital-sh*t. You are using your ACTUALLY pedals but you can set up patches for songs and still edit the patches by just turning pedal on or off. Regularly, I would add an extra OD to a patch I thought was perfect for the chorus to give it more punch. Or if the two OD pedals I had made for the patch were too much, then I just stomp one off on the Boss. It's just a looper where all your pedals are available in any order and on or off as you choose. All the "editing" on the pedals (level, gain, amount of delay or chorus) you just reach down and do like on a traditional board. You can even use keep the delay length & repeats different on different patches thru midi. I don't really gig my electrics anymore, but I couldn't live without using a Boss M8 or Gigrig G3. Look at the rig round downs of popular touring guitarists. Unless you are only using a couple pedals, everyone is using a looper of some kind to program patches for songs.

In 2005-ish (maybe 2006 or 2007), I picked up at the factory a 150 Goldtop that I custom ordered through a dealer but just wanted to pickup at Heritage. I asked Marv if he would install a poker chip and Gibson LP pickguard that I bought and brought with me on my brand new 150 Goldtop. He said, "We used to install those years ago at Heritage, but due to the lawsuit we don't use/install them anymore". But he was kind enough to do it anyhow, he said to just keep it between us. So now the secret is out.... I think he is safe from litigation.

When I was the Praise Band Director at church for 6 years, every Sunday I used my Boss M8 looper and LOVED it. I could store (on the unit and store to my computer) all my patches for all my songs. Before each Sunday, I would just download the the stored songs (and their patches) to a separate bank and the songs were done. We did a lot of songs weekly (a lot for a Praise Band) 8-11 songs each week and each bank was a song, within in song I had the 4-5 patches I would use. A bank was a one step (up or down) and the patches was one step to control 4-5 pedals all at once... NO MORE TAP DANCING. And mostly importantly, since I saved each song to my computer, the work flow was simple & easy and I didn't have to program each song & it's patches every week. Just download them from the computer and done. We did over 130 songs so having all my songs & patches saved was wonderful. Plus with the Boss M8, it acted like a muli-effects unit BUT you are using your great sounding analog pedals. Personally, I have never heard a mult-effects unit that sound good, give me my analog pedals over digital effect units anyday!

Too late, it's sold off.

Yes, most definitely. The source and the type of Magnet (A2, A3, A4, A5) is 90-95% of the pickup's tone.... BUT.... All A2 magnets are NOT the same. A cheap over sea's magnet is NOT the same as a US sourced, US made to exact specs magnet. Chinese magnets are harsh & brittle sounding and can be all over the place in terms of output. I have paid $80 for a set of USA specific spec'd magnets. I am sure many here will scoff at that, but you get what you pay for...

Boom!! This it the word. Well, said.

I have a Gibby CS '62 335 RI with their Custom Buckers that use A3 magnets for neck & bridge. I have a CS '64 345 RI with their MHS pickups (A3 in the neck, A2 in the bridge). I have also tried to use a number of Peter Florence Custom Voodoo humbuckers (A3 magnets in neck & bridge) in my Heritage 150s over the years. I do understand what he means when he says the neck is pickup is "dark". I personally would not call A3 pickups "dark", but very "sterile, flat, and anemic". The A3s to my ear don't have enough punch. I am an A2 humbucker fan. I had the Parson's Street A3 potted pickups in my Custom Core and took them out because the A3 bridge was under powered (and without any overdrive when played clean, it was kind of bright) and the neck A3 was just SO focused and flat that it had little to no bloom or overtones. But again, this has been my experience with all A3 humbuckers not just the Heritage A3 pickups. I really am just not an A3 fan. A2s all day for me.

Ha, ha,... yes, of course I mean .022 caps.

Here is what I always add/mod to my Heritage guitars (current and in the past); -Throbak Pickups -RS Guitarworks 500K pots and reissue Luxe Bumble Bee 250k caps -Faber locking ABR-1 bridge, Aluminum stoptail with Faber locking stoptail studs -Kluson (or the same looking Grover Deluxe) tuners -Poker chip (rhythm and lead) -Metal pointers under the volume & tone knobs

I got this beauty used from Willcutt's a couple of years ago. Like new, not blemish anywhere. Did I say it came with Throbak P-90s that are just f'ing INCREDIBLE!!! She was under $3K. I think my LP Jr/137 tones are covered. Heritage has lost it's way. No way a Heritage 137 slab guitar (with a stupid tuneamatic & stoptail??? wtf???) should cost over $2500.

Yep, I have Faber locking ABR-1 bridges and locking stoptails on all my Tuneamatic/Stoptail guitars. I hear more sustain (especially with the Aluminum stoptails) and all the hardware is locked down tight, the hardware won't move if you remove the strings. The Faber hardware is superior to any other locking hardware made, both in the materials used and the locking mechanisms.

I would have loved a GM Heritage 150 back in the day, even with EMGs. GREAT CATCH, Brent!!! But there is two things I wished Heritage would have changed on the GM 150; -Gary Moore is a Blues/Rock legend. I wish they would have made his signature in mother of peril inlay on the headstock. -Every GM 150 I have seen and read about are close to 10lbs or more. I wish they would have made them around 8.5lbs like the Custom Core 150s.

Use a thick shoe lace or wrap guitar polishing rag around one side under the pot, then just pull up one side, then the other. They will pop right off.