We’ve been asked a few times regarding who makes the G&L humbucker pickups, are they imported, and so on. We were not totally clear on this ourselves, but we were able to get the scoop at our trip out to NAMM this past week.
G&L does wind their own humbucking pickups in house at the factory in Fullerton. Like many pickup companies, they purchase components from the outside such as bobbins and base plates, but the actual winding and assembly is an in-house process. Besides controlling cost, it also allows them to tweak the specs more to their liking rather than purchasing a standard pickup from an outside supplier. Such was the case with the neck pickup used in the Bluesboy, which they wanted to make a little more percussive and snappy than the previously standard Seymour Duncan Seth Lover.
We also had the happy accident of running into Paul Gagon at the G&L booth at NAMM. Paul is retired from G&L, but was the electronics guy behind many of their developments, and also responsible for their P-90 pickup design. The G&L P-90 is one of our favorite P-90’s and Paul explained to us how he worked with a number of different total turns of wire before he really found something that would pop. Which is what we really like about their pickup: Cleaner, more snappy and with a less congested midrange than many P-90’s. We always learn something new at NAMM.