Pickups

[mark claytor]

anyone know what kind of pickups Robin used in the early to mid 80's guitars? Talked to Robin and they said that they used all kinds of pickups back then. Any suggestions?

[charles e. heard jr.]

I BELIEVE that tokai and esp were making the robins back then. maxon was one common p'up for those companies to use. at any rate, if you don't like what's in yours....put some o' them honkin' RIO grandes in. worked for me.

[mark claytor]

Thanks,Rio Grandes are nice huh? never used any before. Might give them a try, any suggestion's? I like a screaming pickup with lot's of harmonic's and chunk in the bridge,and a warm bluesy one in the neck position.( I need to join,I love Robin guitars and it seem's pretty cool here.)

[Smitty]

You bet, Mark, sign up. We ABSOLUTELY keep your info private, and I think we've sent out one group email in the last year, so there's really no downside! Registered posters can post in all areas.

Smitty

[Ken Jones]

The earlier Tokai made guitars (RG, RV, RH, 2PU Ranger) have the same pickups as Tokais from that era. It's my understanding that these were manufactured by Gotoh.

The zebra humbuckers used in the RV and RH series guitars were especially great sounding pickups. According to Neal Sargeant, (who was Robin Guitars sole employee at the time) when the guitars arrived from Japan the humbuckers had a small sticker on the bottom that said "Tokai 57 PAF". They would pull these pickups out of the body and scrape off all these stickers before they sold the guitars. Of course, the bottom of the vibrato block still had "Made in Japan" stamped on the bottom of it!

[charles e. heard jr.]

re: rios

yeah, but watch out! they ar e going to be more powerful sounding than SD's or dimarz's or anything else out there. i have my avalon flattop on ebay now, (sigh) it has the BBQ buckers. as did my savoy (siiigghhhh....). you could watch the speaker jump as you played. it's almost like your amp is turned up louder than it actually is.....love 'em!......& ..will...miss 'em...(sigh).

"he who twangs and ebays away.....lives to twang another day." (you can use that if ya want).

[coty davis]

I was reading the site for rio grande pickups but none of them are distortion pickups, they are all some kind of blues or twang pickups. I play metal and my duncan trembucker in my medley is badass, is there any plans to make some kind of distortion p'up?

[BCRGreg]

Crunchbox.

[Chris Baker]

The Muy Grande/Tallboy combination is great. The Muy Grande is hotter than a Duncan Distortion! And the Crunchbox/Punchbox set is the heaviest combination I've ever heard...I use both sets.
You can't go wrong with either one!

[John Williams]

The one,two punch of the crunchbox/punchbox will rip your head off.Duncans,and Dimarzio's will then be fodder for your squire junker guitar.

[BCRGreg]

Around here, we use DiMarzios for refrigerator magnets.

Rio, baby, Rio.