Clausen Pickups - by Tony Edwards Guitars

Clausen Pickups is my own brand of bespoke made, hand wound pickups. All made by me, to order, in the workshop in Fakenham, Norfolk.

Why am I making pickups when there are so many different off the shelf brands available that are so good?

The truth is, that no matter what your budget, or your needs, there is an off the shelf pickup for you. I’m not going to make the claim that my pickups are better than anyone else’s pickups. That would be a false. However, I don’t make pickups in the same way as other companies do - and that is why I think my pickups offer you the best value for money that you can possibly buy from any pickup manufacturer.

So what’s the real difference between my pickups and other companies pickups?

It’s the process that goes into making them. A process that as a customer you are intimately involved in. Ask yourself how much you’ve spent on pickups over the years that you’ve been happy with at first, but didn’t last the course? If you’re a professional or serious semi pro player, I suspect you’ve either replaced aftermarket pickups with more aftermarket pickups or even sold and replaced guitars in your arsenal simply because the tone didn’t quite do it for you.

I believe that a lot of the problem is how we buy pickups in the modern market. Manufacturers give specs for a pickup, including DC resistance, magnet type and ‘tonal charts’. But these things are either not particularly enlightening, or they are so subjective as to not really tell you what you need to know.

So how do you buy the right pickups?

Answering that question is the biggest reason I started building pickups. I wanted to change the way that customers choose their pickups, by approaching pickup manufacturing in a totally bespoke and custom way, the same service as I have always believed in for making guitars.

Clausen pickups are pickups created as part of a totally personalised service. You can’t just buy a model, I design your pickups based on your requirements and the conversations we have about your tone and I make them myself by hand for you, totally to order.

Isn’t that going to be really expensive?

Of course, as people always say, you have to pay for service. But you don’t have to pay for a big factory. You don’t have to pay for fancy packaging. You don’t have to pay for big internet marketing campaigns (because I can only make a handful of pickups every week!)

Because I keep everything small, and do all the work myself, I can afford to offer this service for around the same price as you can buy an off the shelf pickup from one of the major brands and a lot less than you would normally pay for a so called ‘Boutique Pickup’.

Prices are generally the same for nearly anything you want in a standard ‘Humbucker’ or Single Coil format.
There is no reason for prices to be different unless the pickup is particularly difficult to make or uses parts that are more expensive to source. I use the best materials I can obtain for ALL my pickups, whatever the design.

Prices begin at:

Humbuckers : £120 (uncovered) - £130 Covered (Nickel/Chrome) - £140 Gold Hardware/Cover

Stratocaster & Telecaster Single Coils: £75.

P90 - £90 (Plastic Cover) £100 (wing Cover) £80 No cover

Jazz Bass - (Pair) £150 P Bass (£130)

Fitting service is also available.

Rewinding and Pickup Repairs

Rewinding, re-magnetising and repairs available for all kinds of pickups.

You’d be surprised how many people throw away pickups that are perfectly saveable. You can have your pickup rebuilt, and even change and improve the tone of it via a rewind. Often pickups that go ‘dead’ just have a dry joint on the lead and with a dab of a soldering iron will come back to life.

Rewinds begin at £40 per coil. Some repairs are even cheaper!

Hookup lead replacement or extension available.

Pickup Fitting, (I’ll fit anything, not just Clausens - and I’m not offended by people bringing me Seymours or DiMarzios to repair or fit!)

PS: People keep asking why I call the pickups ‘Clausen’.

I believe that if you truly believe in your product you put your own name on it. Clausen was, ancestrally, my family name. (It’s a long story that begins many generations ago in Denmark….)