The original pickups on Rory's guitar were changed as they failed or needed rewinding mid-tour so there’s some debate and inconsistency in what is believed to be in the guitar during which period.
After a lot of R&D and winding prototypes, I’ve settled on what seems to be most consistently documented and is also the most tonally authentic:
Shin Kicker neck pickup: based on a late ‘50s/early ‘60s Formvar wound neck unit for that classic flute-like neck Strat sound.
Shin Kicker middle pickup: based on a mid-'70s Plain Enamel middle pup with flat poles (no stagger) However, closer inspection reveals that the D and G poles which would usually be raised, have pushed down into the pickup so that they poke out the bottom of the flatwork, which was a relatively common - but risky - mod that was carried out to even out the string to string response on older pickups. I’ve recreated it here for tonal and aesthetic purposes!
Shin Kicker bridge pickup: Rory often used a higher output pickup in this position as the original either failed or was deemed too wimpy. I’ve created a bespoke overwound, beefier late '50s style bridge pickup - again using Heavy Formvar and black wax-potting that offers a thicker, louder yet still single-coil voice with real presence that retains clarity even when compressed.
Using three distinctly different voiced pickups not only allows you to capture Rory’s signature tones on the individual settings but on the parallel switch settings (2 and 4 - often erroneously called out-of-phase) the intentionally unbalanced blends capture the unique tones that are only heard on Rory’s songs.
Available only as a full set of three, aged or un-aged.
DC: 5.7 - 9.4k approx.
