Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Was it Thompson being interviewed? I'm pretty sure he's mistaken and that they are still screwed in, but direct to wood. The "soapbar" P90 utilises a bracket that's fixed into the cavity and then the pickup screws directly into that - a pretty good system already. Ferrington is a well-regarded luthier, and gluing in pickups is basically asking for trouble later on (especially as the controls are all still pickguard mounted), so I can't see him doing it.
It was Thompson being interviewed. He's referred to this guitar and it's predecessor (which was blonde) before as being "experiments". He and Ferrington tried different pickups, different ways of wiring them.
But the more I think about it, the more it can't be pickups glued straight to the wood. THat's going to make maintenance mighty difficult. What if you have to do some rewiring? And he's been using that guitar heavily for 10 years at least. It was used on his '99 tour and since 2001 at least it's been his main electric guitar for live shows and featured on all his albums. It must have needed some kind of TLC in that time.
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Any idea what the controls are?
One volume pot per pickup. I don't know how the blade selector is wired. I saw him playing that axe at a gig in the UK in 2007, and he mostly had the selector in what would be the position inbetween the bridge and middle pups on a regular strat. (I was in the front row, about 6 feet away from his pedal board). The volume pots are set up so that he can blend pickups as he wants to - which would suggest that they're wired like a jazz bass, they don't all go quiet when you turn one pot down.
He also describes that guitar as having an "extra wide" neck.
