Why did Heritage use Schaller Pickups & Hardware?

[Einerbe]

Hello!

I've tried to find that topic by using the search function but didn't get a satisfying result. In case it had been discussed any earlier, I'd be very grateful to get a link to the related discussion. Thanks.

I was wondering why Heritage decided to use Schaller Pickups and Hardware? In another discussion it was mentioned, they changed this around 2006 (?), means for more than 20 years Schaller products seemed to be their first choise in regular production.

Most of the players do change these to other Pickups and Hardware (so did I with my H150). The Schallers aren't real rubbish but for players they are not the favourites.

Another thing, Schaller is a German Brand resp. Company. There are so many and good American brands & manufacturers that have been doing these pieces. In fact: some of them invented them. Also the former Gibson Business in Kalamazoo didn't use Schaller – as far as I know.

So what made them using Schaller items for their running production for lots of years? Does somebody here know any background?

Cheers
Ralph

[HANGAR18]

I can't speak for Heritage but any manufacturer is going to have to enter into a relationship with the suppliers of the parts they want to use in building their product. There needs to be a two way agreement between the supplier and the manufacturer and there are details to consider in each agreement. For example, what if I were to start making guitars and I wanted to put SD pickups in my guitars. But what if SD didn't want to sell me their pickups at a wholesale price unless I agreed to buy 1 million units per year? In the case of Heritage, I suspect that it would have been something like 1. They sound decent. 2. They are cheap. 3. There were probably no minimum order requirements.

[y2kc]

Leo Fender also chose Schaller pickups for G&L guitars with humbuckers. I have heard that Leo was very impressed with the Schaller factory and had a friendship with the owner. I imagine the German facility was light years ahead of any of his other options back then. 

Personally I have zero problems with the Schaller products on my vintage G&L and Heritage guitars. When buying old Heritage guitars, I prefer them to be just as they left the factory.

y2kc

[Millennium Maestro]

Shaller is very well designed and engineered, There is Shaller Nashville and Stopbar versions they used when not using roller bridge and top load tailpiece products. Shaller is family run and there was changes within the company that lead to dramatic price increases to heritage... Thus they stopped using Shaller. 

[Gitfiddler]

We may never know the reason Heritage went with and stuck with Schaller all those years.  What intrigued me was how many years we HOC members asked that they switch to better, or more mainstream pickups.  Even Ren's proprietary HRW p'ups were based on Schallers imbued with his 'secret sauce'.  Switching to Seymour Duncan pickups was to me, a big step up. 

[FredZepp]

Gibson has used Schaller made hardware before also.  I think it's possible that the gang at Parsons Street were friends with the rep from Schaller and they were comfortable ordering from that person. 

[tbonesullivan]

I believe many companies still use Schaller, though I believe there were hiccups when the original Schaller brothers passed away, which led to a not so smooth transition. I don't know the exact details of the relationship. It may be that Heritage owners were able to get a really good deal for a while, and when that ended in 2006, they moved on.

Personally I find the pickups to be a bit "sterile" sounding. It depends on the type of sound you want, and the application.

Their hardware is top notch.

[TalismanRich]

The Schaller bridge has some advantages in terms of adjustment vs a Nashville or ABR.  Say what you want about Schaller stuff, but its generally well built and well engineered.   Sure its not "vintage", but you can't please everyone.  I'll admit that its generally on the heavy side compared to a lot of aftermarket stuff.  Now that they are using TonePros stuff, there are still people who want to change it out.  

As for the pickups,  they are very similar to a lot of humbuckers out there.   I see pickups fall in and out of favor constantly.  Now that they use SD59s as the standard pickup, people want to yank them out and put in something else.   ...go figure.   

The Schallers are a very "standard" pickup in terms of output and frequency balance.    When you start doing very close A-B comparison, you can tell differences, but different doesn't mean bad.   Coke and Pepsi are different.   As for which is bad or good, that depends on your taste.   

 

 

 

[High Flying Bird]

3 hours ago, TalismanRich said:

Now that they use SD59s as the standard pickup, people want to yank them out and put in something else.   ...go figure.

 

 

 

Joe's 150 had "59s in it and they sounded very muddy.  Brent sent a pair of Schallers down and now he gets great tone out of the guitar.  (photo before pup change)

[High Flying Bird]

These Schallers are hotter than the other my friends and I have owned.  They would scream! 

[Einerbe]

Hey! Thanks for all your answers and contributios.
Will keep all original parts anyway. My extracted Schaller things are well stored.

And: that H150 has a gorgeous piece of mahogany wood - man what a killer look!

[davesultra]

My only gripes with the Schaller stuff were/are mostly cosmetic. That damn tailpiece is “pug-fugly”! Also the fragile plastic pickup rings with the extra holes in them weren’t very inspiring to me.

[tbonesullivan]

It should be noted that Schaller makes a standard TOM as well. They supplied lots of hardware for Hamer guitars, including their standard tailpieces and Nashville Style TOMS. I believe they also supplied Gibson at one point.

[bobmeyrick]

I wonder if the use of the Schaller bridge and tailpiece was originally a way of differentiating Heritage from Gibson?

[tulk1]

On 1/28/2019 at 7:19 AM, bobmeyrick said:

I wonder if the use of the Schaller bridge and tailpiece was originally a way of differentiating Heritage from Gibson?

Good chance of that. And, betcha Schaller was more open to working with Ren's custom jobbers than SD would have been at the time, pickup-wise. My thoughts, anyway. 

[pro-fusion]

Schaller hardware is top-notch. Their German-made Floyd Roses will last a lifetime, as I suspect will any of their TOM bridges. Their tuners are also great.

The Schaller pickups, oddly enough, are probably a victim of how good their engineers were. The classic PAF humbucker sound is, to an extent, based on how poor the quality control on the vintage Gibson pickups was. Schaller used better material and had better QC, but the result was an overly clean, sterile-sounding pickup. Great for certain '80s sounds but not what most of us are looking for. I had them in an '83 Kramer Pacer I bought a few years ago, and it really was instant 1983 tone with those pickups. Putting in Duncans brought back the complexity and thicker tones I want.

[tbonesullivan]

On 1/29/2019 at 3:07 PM, tulk1 said:

Good chance of that. And, betcha Schaller was more open to working with Ren's custom jobbers than SD would have been at the time, pickup-wise. My thoughts, anyway. 

Yeah, you can bet SD would love to get the secret sauce Ren uses. Schaller has a very "German" way of looking at pickup design, which is similar to the Japanese way.  It's more of a "Beer Purity" method, very academic and engineering based.  So they designed the Golden 50 to give a nice neutral tone that lets the sound of the instrument really shine through.

However, if you're used to the more "Classic American" voiced pickups like a Seth love from SD, they sound sterile.

[gnappi]

In a hollow body Schaller goldens are sweet. I put one in a crummy Harmony 335 copy and it was perfect in a semi. When I can score another pair with rings I'm going to try them out in my Prospect. It now has SD SH1's  in it now and they sound pretty good but I look forward to trying Goldens.

This whole PAF thing (as well as any naming convention suggesting late 50's sound) is silly. I'll bet that 99% of the players out there never played a real late 50's git with PAF's and the fact that the genuine PAF's were not all good sounding just makes me wonder why all the hype.

Names like the SD "Jazz" Gibson's BB's in particular are about as misleading as they can get because the "Jazz" and BB's I have owned are trebly and shrill nothing like a jazzer or someone who owned a real 50's Les  Paul burst would use or recognize.

 

 

[davesultra]

On 2/24/2019 at 8:08 AM, gnappi said:

In a hollow body Schaller goldens are sweet. I put one in a crummy Harmony 335 copy and it was perfect in a semi. When I can score another pair with rings I'm going to try them out in my Prospect. It now has SD SH1's  in it now and they sound pretty good but I look forward to trying Goldens.

This whole PAF thing (as well as any naming convention suggesting late 50's sound) is silly. I'll bet that 99% of the players out there never played a real late 50's git with PAF's and the fact that the genuine PAF's were not all good sounding just makes me wonder why all the hype.

Names like the SD "Jazz" Gibson's BB's in particular are about as misleading as they can get because the "Jazz" and BB's I have owned are trebly and shrill nothing like a jazzer or someone who owned a real 50's Les  Paul burst would use or recognize.

 

 

Yup! Original PAFs’ were horribly inconsistent sounding. I just prefer lower output humbuckers which usually have names that go along with something PAF-ish. It sometimes amazes me how powerful the placebo effect can be when dealing with vintage gear. Some will say even the worst sounding gear sounds like an angel just because it’s old.