Early Heritage Pickups

[MartyGrass]

Just out of curiosity, I searched for reviews on Schaller's humbuckers from back in the day.  Specifically I looked for the German made ones.  I looked at non-HOC posts.

There were several threads in the Seymour Duncan Forum on these.  The comments were largely favorable, even glowing.  This does not prove anything except some people liked them a lot.  Here's an example.

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/forum/the-pickup-lounge/114718-schaller-golden-50s-humbuckers

My guess is that Heritage had some deal going to use Schaller hardware and pickups, which makes sense from a business perspective in an emerging company.  Even back in the earlier years the Heritage founders would defend their choice.  Specifically, the four original owners and Ren said Schallers were good pickups.  Ren told me that the bridge and tailpiece were very well engineered.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a pickup engineer and luthier who knows Heritage well.  He has been designing pickups for decades.  He did not disparage the Schaller pickups Heritage used.  It's refreshing to get his perspective.  Not that many would be surprised though.  To paraphrase, whatever a skilled pickup designer makes, someone will call junk.

He likes Seymour Duncan's quality and says Paul Reed Smith is very fussy about his pickups.  He also has respect for Fralin and Lollar.  Lastly, he commented that he's sad to see such harsh criticisms for new winders on pickup creators forums.  A budding designer shows his new ideas and their sounds and will receive harsh criticism from some, not encouragement to keep going.  It sounds like the same sort of stuff that happens on various guitar forums also about pickup opinions.  For example, I recently looked for reviews on Phat Cats.  It seems that hate motivates posting more than praise.

I've heard good reviews about the 225 hots on the H-555 from a person I don't think is over critical in nature.

The big picture I get about Heritage is that it has morphed from the origins we all know well to a different company which is more refined and that has a R&D process that's pretty sophisticated.  I have my older Heritages that I cherish.  I've also have handled the new ones and understand the changes.  I'm optimistic about the company.

There's a reason Gibson moved to Tennessee from Kalamazoo.  I don't fully understand why, but it certainly had something to do with cost reduction or profit ratio.  Now Heritage can make a guitar consistently as good as Gibson for less money.  Some will differ in which is better, but that's soft opinion.  Kuz, for example, gave an excellent and detailed review of two LP style guitars made by each.  Neither seemed shabby and there was a significant price difference.  That's remarkable.

I posted recently about a H-535 I got built just a few years ago.  It is as good as any I've seen and better than some.  It has PRS pickups in it.  They sound good.  Would I pay twice as much for them and replace the harness?  No.  But I don't think I would get a better sound out of any other setup.  I also got a 2019 ES-345.  The pickups were replaced with Phat Cats.  Various forums contained hate reviews of these pickups as well as a little praise.  People are nuts. They sound like single coils, hotter than stock Fenders.  I have the T-types to put back in it but won't do that, at least for now.

I'm done rambling.  The bottom line for me is that Heritage is in a great place as a quality electric guitar producer and innovator.  I have not always felt that way but have always respected the original owners and what they could do.  Heritage is not the same without the internal soap operas, which were a source of interesting drama.

Here are pics of my 2002 Ultra that just had a bone nut put in and frets leveled.

 

[Heritage1970]

Beautiful guitar!

Here's it's Sister- a 2005 Ultra.

Thanks for posting- great read! As you mention, I think Heritage started off using Schaller as Gibson was using Schaller hardware, etc in the late 70's/early 80's. So when Heritage opened, I'm sure it was easy to just stick with things that were already being used. I have never had a problem with Schaller pickups. I know so many do, but they've always worked just fine for me. And at the end of the day, it's all opinion. One person thinks Schallers sound terrible, then the next person has found their dream tone. There really is no "one sound fits all" in the guitar world, and thank God for that! 

[pressure]

Not everything is an upgrade, sometimes it's just a change.

[MartyGrass]

3 hours ago, Heritage1970 said:

Beautiful guitar!

Here's it's Sister- a 2005 Ultra.

Thanks for posting- great read! As you mention, I think Heritage started off using Schaller as Gibson was using Schaller hardware, etc in the late 70's/early 80's. So when Heritage opened, I'm sure it was easy to just stick with things that were already being used. I have never had a problem with Schaller pickups. I know so many do, but they've always worked just fine for me. And at the end of the day, it's all opinion. One person thinks Schallers sound terrible, then the next person has found their dream tone. There really is no "one sound fits all" in the guitar world, and thank God for that! 

Yours is stunning.

[Heritage1970]

2 hours ago, MartyGrass said:

Yours is stunning.

Yours too! Great to see these two in pictures one after the other- love the look of these Ultras!

[bolero]

Yeah beauties both!

Re: pickups I always use my own judgement & experience, preferences. Everything I use is because I've tried it and liked it. I largely ignore " the madding crowd" and they are mad, especially guitar players. I prefer to follow my own muse.

Pickups are easy to change.

[nuke]

I've put some study into Schaller pickups, putting on my engineer hat and measuring things electronically, making Bode plots of their frequency response and other characteristics and studying how they were made. I've got a collection of them from various sources. 

The first point is Schaller made a LOT of pickups, especially from the late 1970's through the 1990's.  They made them for just about everyone too. Hence, there are a lot variations of Schaller humbuckers, from really sweet sounding early PAF types, to slammin' hot ceramic magnet metal-monsters and some very unique ones, such as those used on the rare Fender Master Series of guitars 83-85. 

While they appear similar to Gibson humbuckers, Schaller's were their own thing. They're metric and none of the parts are interchangeable with imperial dimension parts, the neck and bridge units had different pole spacing. Schaller had very good winding machines, as their coils are very consistent and neatly wound. They usually have low parasitic capacitance, which generally makes them brighter and cleaner sounding. Most will have Alnico-V magnets and brass base plates. Covers are usually nickel-silver with low eddy current (desirable).  So they're not "cheapy" pickups, although back in the day, people bashed them a bit since that's what often came with the instrument. If it was not Gibson and it came wtih humbuckers in it during that era, there was a really good chance they were made by Schaller. 

You'll see all kinds, from very typical covered to open types with hex-head or double-slug poles. Hot wound or pretty wound, ceramic or alnico, they made whatever the guitar manufacturer asked for. 

[Spectrum13]

5 hours ago, nuke said:

 putting on my engineer hat and measuring things electronically, making Bode plots of their frequency response and other characteristics and studying how they were made.

No disrespect but does your engineer hat cover your ears? For real.

All talk and studies on what is or is not on pickup design and construction lack two of the most important considerations especially for players and listeners as we age.

When was your last hearing test and what is the spectrum of frequencies you can actually hear?  There is as much a chance everybody you are communicating with has the same number of hairs on their heads as the same drop off of high frequencies. Fact 

The way our brain interprets sounds and vibrations hitting our eardrum is unique to each of us.  

Suggest you read 

 

  

[MartyGrass]

I wonder if there is a perceived difference among pickups with gold covers, chrome covers, or no covers.  Perception affects perception.

[nuke]

11 hours ago, Spectrum13 said:

No disrespect but does your engineer hat cover your ears? For real.

All talk and studies on what is or is not on pickup design and construction lack two of the most important considerations especially for players and listeners as we age.

When was your last hearing test and what is the spectrum of frequencies you can actually hear?  There is as much a chance everybody you are communicating with has the same number of hairs on their heads as the same drop off of high frequencies. Fact 

The way our brain interprets sounds and vibrations hitting our eardrum is unique to each of us.  

 

 

  

 

 

My hearing was in fact recently tested, and is just fine. Despite my age and life experience, I've managed to preserve 95-percentile hearing acuity. It isn't what it was when I was 20, but it passes and exceeds US government requirements.

Humans are notoriously poor at making objective absolute judgements about sound or really much of anything. 

For instance, very few people have absolute pitch, and those that do, often lose it with age. Most of us though, have the ability to judge relative pitch or learn to do so. What's cold and hot, same deal. Those who are married probably understand the constant battle some of our spouses have with the thermostat, despite the electronic sensors reliably indicating the same temperature, yet, they feel too hot or too cold. (I don't recommend pressing the argument with one's spouse). 

Color is another area where human perception is both amazing and terrible. We perceive very slight differences comparing colors amazingly well and reliably. However, human sight is terrible at recognizing an absolute color when it is presented alone. 

Hence, I use test equipment when repeatable and measurable results are required. So, I can absolutely measure what any particular pickup actually does. A guitar pickup is an electromagnetic device that converts the motion of a magnetized guitar string into an electrical signal. What is presented in its magnetic field is converted into a current at the wire terminals. No human perception is involved with that, since we cannot perceive magnetic nor electrical currents, it isn't a human perception problem. If two pickups measure identically in their electrical and magnetic properties, they will function identically in their interactions with cables and amplifiers and so on and produce the same sound when processed and amplified through the same apparatus. 

 

 

 

[nuke]

11 hours ago, MartyGrass said:

I wonder if there is a perceived difference among pickups with gold covers, chrome covers, or no covers.  Perception affects perception.

Actually, covers are an interesting topic, and I touched on that. 

Covers can and do influence the sound of a humbucker pickup, measurably. There is in fact, a physical explanation and it depends on what the cover is made of. The reason is something called eddy current. 

Here's a demonstration of eddy current in this video:

 

 

So it turns out that metal covers over a pickup can alter the response of the pickup, in audible and measurable ways. Humbuckers and Telecaster neck pickups are particularly vulnerable to this.  It turns out that brass is not a great material for pickup covers vs. nickel-silver due the magnetic and electrical properties of the metal. Sometimes a good nickel-silver cover is plated with copper to better accept the final shiny nickel or chrome plating. The copper plating will also audibly change the response of the pickup. 

Also, the design of the cover can be accomplished in such a way that interrupts the eddy current. 

Here's a link to an interesting paper on pickup covers, materials and designs. 

https://kenwillmott.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pickup_Cover_Geometry.pdf 

 

[MartyGrass]

Hearing a guitar includes the setting, often more than the micro-acoustics.  A guitar won't sound the same at 9 AM and it does at 9 PM.  It will sound different in January than July, at least where I live.  A ton of factors come in to play.  Our expectations may not affect the true acoustical pattern, but it can greatly affect our perception.

I asked AI how magic works:

"Magic," in the context of a magician's performance, works by utilizing a combination of skilled techniques like sleight of hand, misdirection, psychological manipulation, specially designed props, and illusions to create the perception of supernatural abilities, essentially tricking the audience's perception by exploiting how the brain processes information and focusing attention away from the actual methods used. 

Here's more for those who are into this.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/achievements-the-aging-mind/202107/the-role-context-in-perception

Heritage names its guitar the H-150 Ultra, uses highly flamed wood, puts in its mysterious upgrade pickups, and uses gold all over.  Of course I hear the best possible sounds.  Then someone brings in physics.

Edited February 24 by MartyGrass

[rockabilly69]

On 2/23/2025 at 7:17 AM, MartyGrass said:

I wonder if there is a perceived difference among pickups with gold covers, chrome covers, or no covers.  Perception affects perception.

There is definitely a difference for no covers, and that's been measured many times. Is it a positive difference? I guess that just comes down to taste. Typically, without a cover, most pickups are a bit brighter than they would be with covers on.

And speaking of cover material...

One of my favorite sets of pickups, is what I installed in my #1 Zemaitis metal top guitar, a set of 12 Pole Kent Armstrongs. These pickup are encased in EPOXY, and Kent even ships them with epoxy pickup rings. I have many traditional guitars with classic style PAFs, and since I use this guitar to play my original music, I wanted something that was unique.

The reason that I bought them, was because I heard a demo of an original Zemaitis guitar which featured these pickups, and I heard something in that tone that I liked. So I called Kent Armstrong and asked him of he still wound them, and he said he still does, exactly like the originals that were in that Zemaitis.

They required a little work to get them to fit into my Zemaitis. I actually had to make spacers to get them to the right height. I made the spacers by sanding down a set of larger epoxy rings that Kent sent me. It took me a long time to dial them in. It was a bit time consuming getting the pickups and pole pieces where they sounded best, which was a close to the strings as I could get them without the stings touching the pickup, and the poles set parallel to the strings. But it was worth it, because these pickups are great sounding. The clean tones are fantastic, and they sing through the dirt. I have them wired G&L fashion with a passive PTB system (individual volumes, low cut, and master tone). 

And making the spacers wasn't the only thing that was odd about these pickups I actually had to wire the pickups on the bottom specifically for how I was going to uses them (parallel humbucking, series humbucking, or switchable).

Here's picture I found on the web to show this...

 

 

 

 

 

[bolero]

Sometimes I wear a wig when I play. And bellbottoms. Things sound more like they did in the back in the day. Not sure if it's the pants, the hair, or both. But it works.

[TalismanRich]

14 hours ago, MartyGrass said:

Hearing a guitar includes the setting, often more than the micro-acoustics.  A guitar won't sound the same at 9 AM and it does at 9 PM.  It will sound different in January than July, at least where I live.  A ton of factors come in to play.  Our expectations may not affect the true acoustical pattern, but it can greatly affect our perception.

I think in these cases, it's not the instrument that is sounding different,  it's a person's variability.   Your mood, how much noise you've been exposed to that day, your blood pressure, all these things can affect your system, including your hearing.   So if you've lost some "highs" tonight,  your Tele sounds good.   In the morning, that humbucker sounds nice but the Tele sounds like an ice pick.  

People can be very good at hearing slight differences, but when it comes to better or worse,  we are affected by our biases.   Since in audio there is no absolute "target" it's purely a judgement call.  

I've seen cases where a race driver will comment about how a change has really improved the car, but then the stopwatch numbers say he's 5 tenths slower.  Is that an improvement? Maybe, if it means you don't crash,  maybe not if that 5 tenths puts you in row 11 instead of row 1.  At least you have a real measurable target.

[ironmike]

My experience with Schaller pickups is pretty  good..I have a few Heritage guitars with HRWs, and I found the Heritage Schallers were the Schaller classic 50s..I converted a few to HRWs and prefer  those over the classic 50s, but that's my own subjective thing...the Schaller classic 50 is a fine pickup.

[Heritage1970]

17 hours ago, ironmike said:

My experience with Schaller pickups is pretty  good..I have a few Heritage guitars with HRWs, and I found the Heritage Schallers were the Schaller classic 50s..I converted a few to HRWs and prefer  those over the classic 50s, but that's my own subjective thing...the Schaller classic 50 is a fine pickup.

Yeah, I LOVE HRW's. Can't get enough of them! Such clarity and definition. As for Schallers: I've always wondered why so many don't like them? I've never had a problem with them. I always have to laugh when I read something has been "upgraded." Based on what? Price? Opinion? It's ALL opinion. Some people like chocolate ice cream, some don't. That doesn't mean replacing chocolate with vanilla is necessarily an "upgrade", it's just your preference and opinion. At the end of the day, plug the guitar in and if you like it you're good, if you don't move on to another guitar. There is no good or bad, just preference. 

[MartyGrass]

Some have better ears and know what they like.  I've never had a problem with Schallers.  Here's a sound comparison between Seth Lovers and Schallers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mURVofPTnY

 

[nuke]

Like I said, Schaller pickups were very very common in the late 70's through 1990's and into the early 2000's. Just about every guitar maker in that era used Schaller humbuckers. Schaller made a whole lot of different models of humbuckers as well. Even Gibson used Schaller to manufacture components and probably entire pickups. The materials and methods Schaller used to make pickups were top quality. 

Most Heritage Guitars of those years also featured Schaller bridges and other hardware. 

It was the era right as "boutique" pickups were just starting to gain in popularity. Prior to then, no one really changed pickups unless they broke. A few experimenters did things like split coils and add switches, but it wasn't common.  

Since the Schaller's were "stock" pickups that came with everything from inexpensive guitars on up, people tended to equate them with not being very good. Schaller was also not a player in the aftermarket, preferring to do B2B with guitar OEM's. 

Outfits like Duncan and Dimarzio gained a lot of notoriety, as they got associated with a lot of the new players in the 1980's when hot-rodding guitars really took off after EVH and his penchant for playing parts-guitars he crafted together himself. 

Schaller eventually left the pickup market, partly due to some changes in the ownership and family, and they probably saw the writing on the wall. I recently ordered a set of humbucker pickups, shipped direct from China, including shipping and tariffs, that were only $14 for the pair. Only took a week to arrive. Thing is, there's nothing wrong with them, work just fine. I don't know how anyone can compete with that pricing. Heck, I can't even buy the magnets for that much. 

Pickups are easy to change, and widely available, so people change them. 

[bolero]

I had Schaller pickups in about 4 Heritage gtrs. The pickups I replaced them with sound way better.