Heritage for Charlie Christian Pickup?

[Bonenut]

I'm seriously considering purchasing a Lollar Charlie Christian pickup to play vintage jazz and jump blues. I don't want to install it in one of my current Teles or archtops, so I'm thinking of purchasing a suitable newie. I don't want to spend a fortune either. But neither do I want to sell the pup short by buying a piece of junk. A couple of possible guitars come to mind; an ES 125 would be an obvious choice, a Guild T-100 less so.

 

But why not consider getting another Heritage I think. So which guitars, Heritage or other, strike you as being most suitable homes for the new pup?

[yavuz]

Since the original Charlie Chrstian is on an ES 175 ( laminated ), I think H575 could be your best bet.

I love the sound of those pups.

I almost bought ES175CC ( CC is short for Charlie Christian ) at Matt Umanov guitars on Bleecker street in 1994.

I used to live in NY back then.

 

It is a nice sounding pup but it needs a big whole.

A solid top guitar, especially when it is spruce, might crack with that big of a cut.

It is a big heavy pup and the top needs to carry/handle it for years.

So, an H575 with a maple top would be my first bet.

[barrymclark]

Well, if you are thinking ES125 for the CC, then... why not order the H525 custom built with the CC?

 

 

...but, yeah, the 575 would be rather awesome too. Not that I am biased or anything.

[111518]

Lollar offers a CC-style pickup in a mount that fits in a humbucker route, so, any guitar with a humbucker route is a candidate for that pickup. They also sell the CC with the original mount, but, once a top was cut for that system, there would be no going back, and, I'm not sure whether or not the pickup could be installed through the pickup hole.

 

One thing to consider is that a single CC is likely to be noisy. I recently contacted Lollar to confirm that a CC and a P-90 would work together to buck hum, so, I'm working on setting up a formerly two-bucker guitar with that configuration --bucker mount P-90 in the back, bucker mounted CC in the front.

[Spectrum13]

They are great for more than just jazz and come in four different sizes and mountings. Use a different size pup than comes standard takes more than just making a larger opening. Height and mounting adjustability needs to be considered. It would take a lot of time to design the tooling. I asked Vince the same question and he said the person that use to mount the CC has retired and if there was a new design I would need to send them one to study. Like Larry has suggested use a humbucker size CC makes the most sense even though they don't look as cool.

[hinesarchtop]

Christians guitar was an ES150.

 

I would like to try this pickup in my fat neck Tele.

 

Like Barry said.........the 525 would be awesome with that setup.

[Bonenut]

Thanks for the input folks. Since the OP, Jason Lollar emailed me with some clarificatory information. There's a few things to keep in mind if you want to find a good home for one of these pups.

 

Apparently the easiest place to install is a solid body. Just make sure the body is 1-1/2 inches thick, better 1-3/4. Teles and Les Paul Juniors seem to be the popular choices.

 

Archtops are difficult. X-bracing is OK but with parallel bracing you need the braces a minimum of 3-1/2 inches apart at the point where you want the pickup. Finding out whether your parallel braced guitar is suitable is no slam dunk, even for a good luthier. You need to remove the pickup and then operate with mirrors, lights and specialised measuring equipment, specifically a small steel 6 inch machinist scale.

 

Here's a few reflections on some guitars you might have thought suitable. First, forget the Godin Fifth Avenue as a cheap solution; they can't be installed. Second, ES 150s, as Hinesarchtop pointed out Christian's instrument, is X-braced so presumably suitable. (The ones you'll find will have a P-90, not a Christian pickup.) As for the much easier to find short scale version, the ES 125, it has parallel bracing and I have no idea whether the spacing is suitable.

 

I initially shied away from solid bodies because I want the Christian sound amongst others, not just a good jazz sound. But the ES 150 isn't really a full archtop. It wasn't meant to be played accoustically, so the lack of accoustic resonance might not be a problem after all. That said, the 150 is kinda semi-accoustic, so I would not expect a solid body to have the same sound.

 

I haven't yet checked out the Heritage models since learning about the bracing requirements so if someone can chime in with some information that would be great. But one thing's for sure; I ought to be able to find a better made solid body in the Heritage catalogue that is suitable than a recent LP junior.

[Bonenut]

The best Heritage choices seem to me to be the H 525, as several have said, and perhaps the H 137. I'm not so sure about the 137; I base that idea on the fact that it resembles the LP Junior. Now, I wonder if the association of the LP Junior with the Christian pickup has nothing to do with sound and everything to do with John Lennon going for it. Anyway, I'm sure it would sound good in the 137, even if it doesn't sound much like Christian.

[ingeneri]

I love my 525 and Super E with Seths. But a Golden Eagle with a CC would be like the L5 Kenny Burrell played on Midnight Blue and would be a really special custom build. Likewise a CC equipped 550 would be like Barney Kessel's old Gibson 350.

 

Anyone know if the bracing on either Heritage would accommodate a CC?

[Halowords]

I think the Charlie Christian is pretty versatile. Mine is from Vintage Vibe. I think they are cheaper and you can more easily swap the magnets, some have reported they are a bit more P-90'ish than the Lollar version. I really like mine though.

 

 

It has a very thick/warm/smooth sound to it, like you'd expect, so it is obviously a great choice for Jazz, but it also handles rock pretty well. There's even a video of somebody doing high-gain metal on YouTube with it (although not my first choice). Regardless, it'll probably work fine in anything Heritage makes. I've read a lot of people loving on them in the necks of their Telecasters, semi- and hollow-bodied guitars are obviously more traditional, Lennon used his authentic Charlie Christian in an old LP Jr., there are some people on The Gear Page that have spoken highly of it in a Les Paul or similar style, and mine is sort of a Fender-scale PRS-ish sort of design and I like it quite a bit.

 

So not only is that a bit of a plug for Vintage Vibe's CC-Rider (their version of the Charlie Christian pickup), it's also more-or-less a bit of a nudge to pick whatever guitar you want for the music you play and then add a CC-type pickup. Plus, Vintage Vibe has the traditional shaped CC-Rider, which I think looks really cool, as well as a humbucker-sized (I think Lollar does as well), so it is not like you have to get it shaped differently. That said, I really like everything about the pickup in terms of its sound, and aesthetics (which admittedly come second, but I still think it looks awesome). It does give you options though, particularly if you have a nice guitar that you just want to swap in a humbucker-sized CC-rider, or even one of the Vintage Vibe blade-single coils (they are a Strat-sized CC-Rider, more or less, the main difference being you cannot swap the magnets on those).

 

Anyway, that's all I've got; well almost. If you're interested, here are the options from Vintage Vibe. It might be worth trying one of the SC or humbucker-sized in a guitar before having one custom-routed for the standard Charlie Christian shape. I love mine, and I honestly think you will be fine with them, however it was a kind of exciting leap of faith since it was a new spec'd guitar with pickups I had never tried before in anything done in a shape non-conducive to any other style of pickup ever fitting in there. I love it though and do highly recommend it, above caveats aside.

 

CC-Rider:

http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/windows/sc_ccWin.html

 

Humbucker-sized Blade pickups:

http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/windows/hum_bladeWin.html

 

Standard sized single-coil Blade Pickups:

http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/windows/blade_poleWin.html

 

Best of luck.

[unikh550]

Hi, Bonenut, I have a '98 H-550 with a Charlie Christian pickup from a Gibson ES-175CC on it. Ordered it w/o pickups, fretboard inlay (have Gibson bowties on them, and knobs for $1,500. Lollar and CC Pickups in the UK sell repros of the CC. CC's is probably closer to the originals than are the Lollars. Both sell for around $300. You can google Charlie Christian pickups and it will bring you to both companies werbsites. You can hear how both sound. My guitar has a very Kesselish sound to it, as opposed to a deeper Burrell or Johnny Smith sound. Not very strong when I play octaves or very lush tunes in lower registers, but really barks when I want to swing. Very distinguishable from other pickups. Good luck!- Charley Bevell