“You won’t believe this is a humbucker,” says guitarist and luthier Jeff Senn. “But bend a note and hold it, or grab a slide—and get treated to a brand new experience of liveliness and sustain.”
When Jeff Senn Guitars set about to design its unique Model One guitar, which pays homage to the “mail order catalog” guitars of the Sixties, the Senn crew knew that no existing pickup captured what they were looking for, so they turned to Jason Lollar to interpret their sonic wish list and turn it into a reality.
“I wanted something that was very, very clear and open but also had unusual sustain and overtones like my vintage Guyatones, Stratotones and Teiscos,” Senn says. “I suspected we wanted a wide magnet with a thin profile to capture the sound field along with a metal cover, and Jason agreed.”
From there, Lollar forged these concepts into a pickup that has an identity all its own.
From the company:
The Senn Model One is a humbucker in function, but the voice is that of a single-coil pickup. From huge twang to lovely overdriven tones, the Senn Model One is extremely versatile and doesn’t shy away from any genre of music. According to Jason Lollar, “I love those old guitars I grew up with, but no one’s making a pickup that really captures their tone. I really enjoy the Senn Model One for all musical styles. In fact, it even works great as a lap steel pickup.”The Senn Model One pickups utilize alnico 5 magnets and come with nickel, chrome, or gold-plated finishes. Available in a calibrated set, the D. C. Resistance is 7.3K Ohms in the neck position and 8.2K Ohms in the bridge. One-sixteenth inch and 1/8” shims are available for top mounting. Note that the Senn Model One pickup does not retrofit most routs or mounts. It’s a unique pickup in dimension, wider than a P90 or standard humbucker, and it may require routing to install.
The Senn Model One set retails for $420 and the individual pickups are $210 each. The Senn Model One pickups are hand built in Lollar’s Tacoma workshop and are available from authorized Lollar dealers or from lollarguitars.com.
Check out the two demo videos below; for more information and bonus audio clips, head here.For more about Jeff Senn Guitars, visit jeffsennguitars.com.
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