New Pickup Day....Rose Day Breakers

[Elias Graves]

I've kinda become friends with Ken at Rose pickups and he has sent me several pickups to try out....mostly B stocks and protos, but i just received a set of production Day Breaker model pickups. His builds are as clean as any I've seen and he uses top shelf components. The Day Breakers are an A4 set, with the neck pup coming in mid 7's and the neck is a little hotter and measures a little over 12. These are voiced to sound like a rockabilly style pickup....a little hotter than vintage but in that same voice.
Here is a link to his audio samples.
http://www.rosepickups.com/audiosamples.htm

The chrome half rings were optional, but I love the look.
Pics




Ken does a lot of cool stuff. He includes a graph showing the frequency response of the pickup with the shipment. The guy is a total tone freak and sells this stuff for really good prices. You should see this wild winding machine that he designed and built. I have no clue what it does, but it has more lights and numbers on it than your typical ER room. Must be good for something.

If you're on the hunt for something new without breaking the bank, give em a try. Handwounds for less than the price of a Duncan ain't bad. He'll do custom orders, too. Heck, he sent one friend of mine three different sets of magnets to experiment with. That's pretty cool.

EG

[Elias Graves]

Wow, not even a HNPUD?

EG

[gulliver]

Reads more like spam ... get back to us and tell us what YOU think of the tone and what it compares to within your experiences.

[Elias Graves]

I remember now why i stopped visiting this place.

EG

[gulliver]

^ why? Cause you can't post a free advertisement for a friend? It sounds like you haven't even plugged the pickups in yet. If that's your contribution, good riddance. I don't know of any forum that will be open to that.

*** If you have something constructive to add based on your own experiences, I'd be very interested to shut up and read it. ***

Sorry if I sound rude.

[Elias Graves]

I'll spare you the review since it's just spam anyway.
Suppose I'm spamming for Henry, too, since I'm playing it on a Gibson.

EG

[Dr. Sardonicus]

Hey that looks really cool in the Junior! How does it sound compared to the stock pups?

[cber1517]

Thanks for the link. Looking forward to checking out the Tele pickup samples.

[yodeloften]

I recently put Rose Westerland tele pickups in my partscaster tele. They sound great, and I got both pickups for around $40. Had Fralins in a tele that I sold a while back, which were a bit sweeter in the top end, but for a beater guitar the Rose PUPs are perfect.

[Elias Graves]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sardonicus

Hey that looks really cool in the Junior! How does it sound compared to the stock pups?

The stock 498 was pretty dry and one dimensional to my ears. I think that pickup is better suited to a heavier style than what I play.
The Day Breaker is still fairly high output, but in aspanky, mausical kinda way.
I call it the offspring of jimmy Page and Chuck Berry. A nice PAF with 15% filtertron thrown in.
The split side is where I'm really liking it. Easily the best split bucker sound I've played. The main coil is overwound, so the volume drop isn't monstrous. It's quieter, but not half. Play up by the neck and you're in Dynasonic country. Play back by the bridge and it's twangtown. Not so much that it's an overdose, but enough to notice.
It's a pretty cool sound.

Not recommended if you're after classic PAF tones, but I was looking for something different. It really made the Jr into a psychotic rockabilly beast.
Sound quality is nice and clear. No wet blanket syndrome.

Recommended if you want to Gretsch up your Gibby a bit.


EG

[Elias Graves]

Originally Posted by yodeloften

I recently put Rose Westerland tele pickups in my partscaster tele. They sound great, and I got both pickups for around $40. Had Fralins in a tele that I sold a while back, which were a bit sweeter in the top end, but for a beater guitar the Rose PUPs are perfect.

Rose has two lines. One import and one custom.
I've not tried any of his imports at all. Been pleased with all five of the handwounds I got. Two were some mysterybucker protos that I put in a rescue guitar, one is a New Dawn classic PAF and now the Day Breakers.
The new Dawn is paired with a Duncan 59 in my son's Epi LP and it's dead on for a PAF sound.

EG