Heritage H-550

[lb61906]

Whats up guys,

 

Have any of you had any experience playing an H-550 loaded with Schaller humbuckers? If so, name your likes or dislikes. Interested in your feedback.

 

Thanks

[111518]

My H550 custom has Schaller pickups (and the roller bridge.)

 

First, a little backstory, necessary to explain how I wanted the pickups in my 550 to sound: after not playing much at all for a decade, fifteen years or so ago I had a chance to begin to play out again, so I sold a Super 400 that I had acquired as a teenager to fund re-outfitting myself to gig. (In reference to concurrent threads about bubbles and guitar values, that was at the tail end of the big archtop bubble. I probably got at least as much for that Super 400 then as I would get today, so as an investment it would have yielded zero appreciation for the last 15 years.)

 

I took a g out of the 6.5g's I got for the Gibson and went in search of a Heritage archtop of some sort, which I'd been reading about for years but never played or owned, and eventually found my H550. I strung it up with flatwounds, and it became my traditional jazz guitar -- I expected more 175ish than L5/Super 400.

 

For that sound the Schallers are fine, and I couldn't imagine replacing them. (or the bridge --even though I'm not crazy about the aesthetics of the roller bridge. If I wanted to deal with tone sucking, I wouldn't put flatwounds on the guitar. Duh.) I think the Schallers are a tad on the bright side of medium output 'buckers, so that brightens up the natural thuddiness of a lam archtop with flats in a way that I like. The 550 is pretty good at resisting feedback, and I've played mine at fairly high levels on stages with a lot of monitor volume, etc. --stuff that usually causes archtops to howl-- and the tone doesn't turn to mud, which I think is in part due to the fact the pickups have enough high freq. response to give the guitar some edge if attacked hard, even with flats.

 

Now for my rant about pickups:

To be honest, I think most of the "difference" within the basic families of pickup design has more to do with marketing than magnets. Almost everything is sold by an association with a golden age of electric guitar manufacturing --Antiquities, Seth Lovers, Fillmores, Burstbuckers, PAF's, etc. etc.: I guess electrons behaved differently then? The physics are pretty simple --more winding, more output, less highs. Less winding, less output, more highs. You can vary this incrementally with magnet type. You can vary the sound of your rig a whole lot more by varying pick attack. The Schallers have everything a medium-output humbucker needs, except for the Madison Ave. "potting." Should have called them Carrera's, or 911's, or Beamer Boomers, or something positive about Germany. What do those guys expect, that people are going to buy based on predictable performance and intrinsic quality? End of pickup rant.

[Gitfiddler]

First of all, welcome to the HOC board!

 

I'm not clear if this helps answer your question or not, but pickups do not always make or break a guitar's tone. They are only one component (a big one, yes, but not the only one) in the tone chain. The first thing I wanted to do was rip out the Schallers in a used 575 I purchased, simply because I preferred HRW's. It took a while for me to do the swap however. Why? Because the Schallers in THAT guitar sounded fantastic! They were fat, warm, even-toned in all areas that I prefer in a jazzy guitar.

 

Maybe the Schallers sounded great because they were in a full hollow, solid wood archtop. Maybe because whoever wound them on the given day in Germany made these better than the usual pickups. I'll never know. They eventually did come out and HRW's installed, and I could not be happier. But those Schallers remain in my parts box waiting for just the right guitar to be dropped into.

 

Sorry I can't give you more specifics about Schallers in a 550, or other laminate semi-hollow. Bottom line is see if you like the 550 with Schallers. If you do, you are money ahead. If not, swap them out if they don't work for that guitar.

 

Hope this helps.

[High Flying Bird]

Joe's 550 has Schallers in it. They give a nice bright clean tone. You have a lot of room to get different sounds out of the amp's set up. It has a good jazz & blues tone and with a little gain it will howl.

[RJLII]

With .010 round wounds I was looking for a pickup change. I made a move to .012 flats plus a T-O-M Bridge and there's no turning back. The lady sings jazz!

 

[tyguy]

Whats up guys,

 

Have any of you had any experience playing an H-550 loaded with Schaller humbuckers? If so, name your likes or dislikes. Interested in your feedback.

 

Thanks,Love the stock Schaller pup's in this guitar.Don't like the looks of roller bridge but leavin' it on cause,have bigsby tailpiece.Lower the neck pup 'til it's just above(barely) the pickup ring.If it cuts volume too much,raise a little.This is the secret to good sounding pups.Get 'em as low as you can (3/16 clearance from strings).This is where the character and magic comes thru.My Schallers are setup like this in my 550 and they are noiseless.A heavenly tone is worth it for a little volume loss."Most" of the pros have pups backed off a lot and no "weenie boy" action either(medium to high).Rave on!Heritage, when the" other one" isn't good enough.