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Hi...
It's my fisrt time will build ES335 thinline
Need to know, what you suggest me for pickups, but not so high cost.

Its my pre-spec:
semi hollow body
neck mahogany
ebony fretboard
stainless fretwire
tune-o-matic bridge or maybe floating tailpiece/bridge
thank's so much
herry tze

Hi. again
what about Golden Age Overwound Humbuckers from Stewmac that's $25 OFF SALE
hmmmm just $26.16 for neck or bridge so $ 52.32 neck and bridge

In my opinion, if you are going to the trouble of hand making an electric guitar, especially a hard to make one like a 335 semi hollow style guitar, you shouldn’t cheap out on the pickups. Pickups are the heart and soul of an electronic c guitar.

Golden Age, GFS, etc, are fine bargain pickups and are upgrades to the truly awful ceramic pickups shipped from the factory on the cheapest import guitars. But not what I would put in a guitar I made for myself.

I am a big fan of pickups made by Pete Biltoff at Vintage Vibe, but I also like Lollars. The US made Kent Armstrong pickups are excellent as well. There are several boutique pickup makers. Many will custom build for your taste and playing style. The cost is double a Golden Age pickup, but IMHO well with it.


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I have built two 335 style guitars - the first was for a guy who plays mostly classic rock and I used the StewMac Golden Era pups. He is very happy with them with a fair amount of overdrive.

The second was for a local jazz player and he specified the Seymor Duncan Benedito humbucker. They are quite a bit more money and only come in a couple of colors, but they are the warmest lushest sounding pups that I have ever heard. He plays clean thru a boutique amp and again, he is a jazz player (all those wonderful major 6ths and 13ths and stuff).

I liked the SD Beneditos so much that when I built my L5 clone, thats what I used. That guitar is forcing me to learn all those wonderful major 6ths and 13ths and stuff LOL.

I'll make a couple of other suggestions about 335 style guitars. Consider putting some sort of terminals or other disconnect in the pickup cavities so if you ever decide to change a pup you won't have to fish all the wires out thru the f-hole. I actually did the wiring while the back was off and pushed it all inside with some little fish strings to pull it back out the holes. If you look at the bridge pickup cavity you will see the terminal strips for the pups and there is a little piece of string (actually dental floss) on each control that I could pull it out with.



And here is the inside with the wiring just sort of hanging there. I masked off all the holes from the inside, stuck the pieces of dental floss thru and tied a knot on the outside. After the finish was all on and buffed I pulled the masking tape using some dental tools, pulled on the floss and, presto, guitar was wired.



Last comment - decide on your bridge and tailpiece before you set the neck - it might affect the angle. I used a stop bar on the rock and roll version, a Bigsby on the jazz one. Since there are different ways to do the center block you should decide on that in conjunction with the tailpiece.

I agree with what rlrrett said. If your going to go through the trouble of building a ES335 which is quite a bot more work then lets say a bolt onFender style. The better the pickups the better the guitar will sound. as far as tone goes the pickups are about 75% of the tone although everyone will give you a different opinion on this one. You can't go wrong with Lollar, Fralins and Seymour Duncan's. A little known fact is that Serymour is really the one who started the whole boutique pickup market. Im a fan of the Lollar's and Fralin's. Plus you can call and talk to both of the owners and get custom windings done.

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Hi' If I choose Seymour Duncan What type or Series you suggest for me? (That's a lot of type make me confused) thank's

What about SD SH1N + SH 1B or JB4? thank's

What sound are you looking for? What kind of music, what amp and what effects will you use? As I said, we used the SD Benedetto A6 in a couple of jazz boxes but I sure wouldn't use them for metal.

I'd have to think long an hard about using anything but a Lollar on a hand/custom built 335, or any other humbucking equipped guitar....... Then I'd probably just kick myself a bit for spending all that wasted thinking time.....

However if budget is the prime consideration..... I agree there are several other acceptable substitutes.

I'm happy to build some or another type of guitar and gift to my church, I've prepared SD Benedetto S6 pickup for my next building (Archtop). So this ES335 style guitar will be for style Pop, Poprock, sometime country, Jazz, maybe not metal. I use small amp Roland Cube-40GX.

Hi, Michael I've think hard and long for this pickups for some reason, I like to build guitar but I'm not pro builder
to date I'm never build the same one (this is the 6th), so every building to be my new experience and your suggestions
very helping to me to make decisions. Than's alot

Just get a Duncan Hot Rodded Humbucker set and be done with it. There's a reason they are the best selling pickup combo in history. They work for any kind of music, and they sound great.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Seymour Duncan Seth Lover set will sound bright. The guitar will have natural low end usually.


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Ken