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Hrw pickups .

holyroller

By holyroller
in Heritage Guitars

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holyroller Collaborator

holyroller

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Hi , it's me posting again! Lol
What is the story of the hrw pick ups? Why don't they make them anymore? Who made them? What did they sound like, I am confused , if they were really good why discontinue them? Do people want to collect them since there discontinued ?

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SofaPlayer Apprentice

SofaPlayer

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I appreciate the fact that they stopped making them rather than having them produced by someone else. Those Heritage folks really are self-contained. HRWs may well become a collectors item in the future. Just like the 'H' tailpiece. Get yours while you can grab them!

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SouthpawGuy Veteran

SouthpawGuy

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My 2c ....

 

I have HRWs in two guitars, a semi solid Millie Std Ultra and a solid body '80s VIP2 superstrat. As mentioned the neck pickup is very good, articulate and balanced, doesn't get muddy or "woofy" with gain. The bridge pickup is a different animal, it has an ever present treble tonality that can't be dialled out. By itself it sounds fine, but it won't balance tonally with the neck. Set the amp so the neck sounds good and the bridge has too much brightness. Set the amp for the bridge p'up and the neck sounds off. Almost like two guitars in one.

 

I will be the first to admit that I don't like bright sounding humbuckers, to me single coils = thin, humbuckers = fat. Two other humbuckers that to my ears have a similar trait to an HRW bridge p'up are the DiMarzio D-Sonic and a Duncan Custom Custom. Both are highly regarded p'ups for high gain rock, they will not get lost in the mix. The bridge HRW is the same to my ears, it loves loads of gain and won't sound mushy. My Millie, which looks like a real jazzer, pulls off some amazing rock tones.

 

Previously I've owned a Godin LGX-SA with a Custom Custom bridge / Jazz II neck, and currently have an Ibanez RG3120 with D-Sonic bridge / Air Norton neck and the two Heritages mentioned above with HRWs. All four have that characteristic of sounding like two guitars in one. Sometimes that's a very desirable trait in a guitar, other times maybe not so much.

 

 

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HANGAR18 Experienced

HANGAR18

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My 2c ....

 

I have HRWs in two guitars, a semi solid Millie Std Ultra and a solid body '80s VIP2 superstrat. As mentioned the neck pickup is very good, articulate and balanced, doesn't get muddy or "woofy" with gain. The bridge pickup is a different animal, it has an ever present treble tonality that can't be dialled out. By itself it sounds fine, but it won't balance tonally with the neck. Set the amp so the neck sounds good and the bridge has too much brightness. Set the amp for the bridge p'up and the neck sounds off. Almost like two guitars in one.

 

I will be the first to admit that I don't like bright sounding humbuckers, to me single coils = thin, humbuckers = fat. Two other humbuckers that to my ears have a similar trait to an HRW bridge p'up are the DiMarzio D-Sonic and a Duncan Custom Custom. Both are highly regarded p'ups for high gain rock, they will not get lost in the mix. The bridge HRW is the same to my ears, it loves loads of gain and won't sound mushy. My Millie, which looks like a real jazzer, pulls off some amazing rock tones.

 

Previously I've owned a Godin LGX-SA with a Custom Custom bridge / Jazz II neck, and currently have an Ibanez RG3120 with D-Sonic bridge / Air Norton neck and the two Heritages mentioned above with HRWs. All four have that characteristic of sounding like two guitars in one. Sometimes that's a very desirable trait in a guitar, other times maybe not so much.

 

 

Very interesting to know!

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PunkKitty Veteran

PunkKitty

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I am very interested to find out whether an HRW bridge humbucker will work in the neck position.

There is no reason that it wouldn't. The output is a bit higher than a standard neck HRW. But a pickup will work in any position. Remember that the original PAFs weren't designated as bridge or neck pickups. But they sounded different because of their position and a difference in materials.

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H Rising Star

H

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There is no reason that it wouldn't. The output is a bit higher than a standard neck HRW. But a pickup will work in any position. Remember that the original PAFs weren't designated as bridge or neck pickups. But they sounded different because of their position and a difference in materials.

I wasn't clear in my original post. I wonder whether a bridge HRW in the neck position would sound like the neck pickup, perhaps with a bit of extra bite from the slightly raised impedance.
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SofaPlayer Apprentice

SofaPlayer

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The bridge pickup is a different animal, it has an ever present treble tonality that can't be dialled out. By itself it sounds fine, but it won't balance tonally with the neck. Set the amp so the neck sounds good and the bridge has too much brightness. Set the amp for the bridge p'up and the neck sounds off. Almost like two guitars in one.

 

I am not sure if I understand this. I have never had similar thoughts when playing my HRW GE although I have to admit I rarely use the bridge pup. If I use both pups, I find the balance quite pleasing. I will give it a little more attention from now on.

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Blunote Community Regular

Blunote

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My 2c ....

 

I have HRWs in two guitars, a semi solid Millie Std Ultra and a solid body '80s VIP2 superstrat. As mentioned the neck pickup is very good, articulate and balanced, doesn't get muddy or "woofy" with gain. The bridge pickup is a different animal, it has an ever present treble tonality that can't be dialled out. By itself it sounds fine, but it won't balance tonally with the neck. Set the amp so the neck sounds good and the bridge has too much brightness. Set the amp for the bridge p'up and the neck sounds off. Almost like two guitars in one.

 

I will be the first to admit that I don't like bright sounding humbuckers, to me single coils = thin, humbuckers = fat. Two other humbuckers that to my ears have a similar trait to an HRW bridge p'up are the DiMarzio D-Sonic and a Duncan Custom Custom. Both are highly regarded p'ups for high gain rock, they will not get lost in the mix. The bridge HRW is the same to my ears, it loves loads of gain and won't sound mushy. My Millie, which looks like a real jazzer, pulls off some amazing rock tones.

 

Previously I've owned a Godin LGX-SA with a Custom Custom bridge / Jazz II neck, and currently have an Ibanez RG3120 with D-Sonic bridge / Air Norton neck and the two Heritages mentioned above with HRWs. All four have that characteristic of sounding like two guitars in one. Sometimes that's a very desirable trait in a guitar, other times maybe not so much.

 

 

I have to disagree with the comments about the bridge pickup. I just played mine and have no problem dialing down the treble. I you're looking for it to muddy up...it doesn't. Maybe you need to adjust the pickup height to better balance the two in your guitar.

 

The same holds true with the neck pickup. Neither get muddy.

 

For me, the neck sounds good dirty or gives great jazz tones clean. The bridge handles dirty really well by itself, or can mix in a whole range of tone when played with the neck. I don't have a telecaster, but my HRW equipped guitars, come the closest to producing that Nashville twang than anything else I've heard -and that's a function of the bridge p'up. As has been pointed out elsewhere, that's the kind of music Ren's into, so it makes a lot of sense these pickups would work together that way.

 

If you're going to try out a pair of HRWs, try not to expect they're going to be some variant of a different set you may have heard and liked. They're unique to Heritage and perfectly work the way Ren intended them to.

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SouthpawGuy Veteran

SouthpawGuy

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I have mine set very low in both guitars, lower than the pickup ring itself actually. Still too much brightness in the bridge for my taste. And the Millie does do a very good tele impersonation when set for a clean tone on the bridge, surprised me the first time I played it.

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Gitfiddler Mentor

Gitfiddler

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So the debate about HRW's continues. Ha, ha! :laughing9:

 

They are great pickups. Just different than some others out there. Some folks like them and others don't.

 

Also, I find that HRW's sound slightly different in solid body, semi-hollow and archtops. And yes, they need to be adjusted to one's taste...lower, higher, etc.

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Blunote Community Regular

Blunote

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I've recorded the HRWs in my Heritage Millennium Std Ultra straight into a Guytron GT100 FV Channel A, using an Olympus LS10 hand held digital recorder positioned about 3 ft from the speaker. Preamp controls for gain, tone, and line level were straight up to approximate a Tweed Bassman/early 60s plexi. Focus and Voicing switch settings were at 2 and 2 respectively.

 

The riff is the intro to "Can't you see" by Marshall Tucker since it provides a nice mix of lead and rhythm tones and I think these pickups work great for Southern Rock. As usual, please try to overlook the crude recording (and playing) technique. It's my hope this helps provide a common reference for our different opinions concerning the tones these pickups produce individually and together.

 

https://soundcloud.com/#tweedypii/hrw-pickup-demo

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holyroller Collaborator

holyroller

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This sucks I wish they would reissue them somehow . It would be great to have a pickup tweaked for the heritage brand. I meen since the heritage h-150 kicks the custom shop lp, it would the cherry on the top to have there pick ups kick the paf.

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Blunote Community Regular

Blunote

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Trying to get the hang of adding links to sound clips in Soundcloud. Maybe this will work.

 

Click on "Listen on Soundcloud" underneath the box.

 

If anyone knows a better way to do this, let me know.

 

https://soundcloud.com/tweedypii/hrw-pickup-demo?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=email

 

 

 

 

 

 

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HANGAR18 Experienced

HANGAR18

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This sucks I wish they would reissue them somehow . It would be great to have a pickup tweaked for the heritage brand. I meen since the heritage h-150 kicks the custom shop lp, it would the cherry on the top to have there pick ups kick the paf.

 

Well, to further aggrivate you... After the HRW pickups were discontinued, Ren Wall invented a pickup called H-Kazoo pickup which was said to be better than the HRW pickups.

But now, for whatever reason, I don't think you can get those either.

 

(Insert smiley icon banging his head against the wall here.)

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