Pickups
All of our pickups are handmade by our small team of dedicated builders in Burgaw, NC.
Most of our guitar pickups feature light wax potting unless otherwise noted.
It is our mission to get the tone you are after, so we offer a 30-day exchange period (within 30 days from original delivery) for any of our standard pickup models. You are responsible for any greater difference in price, and all shipping costs to and from Mojotone. The installed pickups being exchanged must be in "like new" condition with full leads intact. Custom and OEM pickups, prewired pickguards and harnesses are not eligible for exchange.
Given the small and custom nature of our business, we do not offer refunds for pickups or prewired assemblies. We can however offer refunds (within 30 days from original delivery) for any unopened, never installed products that are returned in the same brand new condition and original packaging they were shipped in. Once they have been opened, handled, or installed, no refunds can be granted.
The type of metal cover you choose can have a significant affect on the sound of your pickup. Generally metal covers will knock some of the highs off, making the pickup sound warmer or darker, while plastic covers will have no effect at all. It is generally found that the most magnetically transparent metal cover available is high quality nickel silver.
All of the metal covers available at Mojotone are made from pure nickel silver, with the only exception being the plating. The cover itself is nickel silver but the plating is ferromagnetic and will have a slight affect, as it acts as a very thin magnetic shield.
Please contact sales@mojotone.com to discuss your tone and performance needs.
Pickup height is a personal preference, however there are reasons for making certain adjustments. Below are standard measurements we use on a daily basis when setting up guitars. All are our own personal preference, so please feel encouraged to experiment...
All measurements are in 32nd's and 64th's of an inch and are taken from the top of the pickup pole and the bottom of the string (while pressing the string down against the last fret). The bass side represents the low E string and the treble side represents the high E string on a standard 6 string guitar. It would be the low E and high G for a standard 4 string bass.
Telecaster/Stratocaster/Jazzmaster/Jaguar/Mustang/Jazz Bass/P-Bass single coil pickups-
- Neck pickup: 4/32" treble and 5/32" bass side
- Bridge pickup: 4/32" treble and bass side
TIP: Be careful with Strats especially, the pickups set too close can pull the strings and create a multitude of problems (3 pickups = 3 magnets on one string!)
Humbucker/P-90 adjustable polepiece pickups-
- Neck pickup: 5/64" treble side and 3/32" bass side
- Bridge pickup: 2/32" treble and bass side
TIP: With adjustable poles, you can stagger them for the strings. Be careful setting the pickups too close for drop tunings and super heavy strings.
Keep in mind these are "general" specs, however they should yield excellent results and will act as a great starting point.
No special wiring is required for the No Load pot to work. You may refer to any standard Tele wiring diagram for instructions.
American made to last a lifetime...
Handcrafted in North Carolina with superior quality, detail, and tone.
Mojotone offers great pricing discounts for stores and builders and we are always welcoming new dealers and OEM's. For more information please contact us today HERE.
Quiet Coil™ Pickups
Our approach was very simple, to make hum-cancelling pickups that look and sound like real single coils with minimal parts and adhering to actual vintage single-coil attributes. We've matched the resonant peak frequency and inductance of original single-coils, so they sit right in the frequency response and feel without having to compensate at all.
No batteries, stacked coils, or anything else associated with other hum-canceling pickups were used in our design. The result is simply the most pure and authentic sound possible, with absolutely no loss of true single-coil tone. They are sonically clear and warm, with every bit of single-coil sparkle and chime, just like the original pickups.
Most standard American Strat® pickup covers will fit, however they are shorter so there will be a gap between the bottom of the pickup and the bottom of the cover. You won’t see this gap because it will be below the pickguard anyway. However, many of the standard Strat® pickup covers can be too thick on the top leaving our polepieces below the cover so we recommend using our Quiet Coil™ covers instead which are thinner on the top. They also cover the entire coil so there is no gap. We can sell them by request for customers who own Quiet Coil™ Strat® pickups.
With any hum-cancelling pickups, if you hear noise or buzz, especially when you take your hands off of the strings, it is most likely not the fault of the pickups but quite possibly the lack of shielding in your guitar.
The Quiet Coil™ pickups are designed to be “hum-cancelling” against single coil 60 cycle hum, but they are not shielded against RF or EMI noise. The reason we do not shield the pickups or wires themselves, is because it adds capacitance directly to the circuit and changes the tone. It is recommended to completely shield the pickguard and control cavities, and connect the shielding to ground along with the ground wires from the tremolo/bridge and input jack. Shielding helps block out unwanted RF/EMI noise for the quietest performance possible.
No we do not build the Quiet Coil™ series with 4-conductor wire. These are designed to be like vintage Strat® pickups with 1 lead for ground and 1 lead for hot. There is really no reason to coil tap them anyway considering they already sound exactly like single coils. Coil tapping them would just make them sound thin and weak.
Yes we recommend using a 470pf - 500pf treble bleed cap in between the input and output of the volume pot. This will keep your treble clear when rolling the volume back so the pickups don't get muddy sounding. We do NOT recommend using a resistor in series or parallel with the capacitor as it can reduce the output of the pickups slightly. See our wiring diagram.
We recommend starting at 3/32’’ on the treble side and 4/32’’ on the bass side. All measurements are taken while pressing the string against the last fret and measuring from the top of the polepiece to the bottom of the string. You can adjust the Quiet Coil™ closer without magnet pull on the strings so there is more room to adjust the pickups to your own personal preference.
There is a significant tonal difference between the 67's and 58's. Just like the original 1958 and 1967 Strat® pickups, the materials, number of turns, winding patterns, etc all changed, which is why there is a tonal difference between the two. The 58's tend to sound brighter with more upper midrange presence, which gives them a more open and woody sounding tone, compared to the 67's which are more scooped on the mids and tend to have more quack and overall glassier highs. Think SRV or Clapton Brownie Strat tones with the 58's, and think Hendrix or Gilmour Strat tones with the 67's.
The Quiet Coil™ series is designed to work with 500k pots because they utilize 2 coils and 2 magnets per string rather than 1 coil and 1 magnet per string like a single coil. That being said, you have to double the resistance of the pot to 500k to match the impedance for a true single coil tone. We also sell prewired assemblies and prewired pickguards specifically for the Quiet Coil™ which are equipped with 500k pots.
The prewired pickguards are also completely solderless so you don’t need to worry about solder skills or professional installation.
Yes we can reverse the faux polepiece stagger for the look of left handed orientation by request. But the pickups themselves do not need to be made specifically for left handed guitars.
At this time we are not offering custom versions of the Quiet Coil™ pickups. We put years of research and development into the current models and we believe they represent the best possible sound you can achieve from their current specs.
The short answer is no. The Quiet Coil™ polepieces do not serve any purpose other than looks. We carefully considered players who don’t like the feel of magnets under their hand by beveling the tops and keeping them lower or flush to the cover. The actual Alnico magnets are hidden below the cover and the magnetic field is solid across all of the strings so there is no need to stagger the magnets or worry about string spacing. They can also be installed for left or right handed guitars because the actual magnets themselves are not specifically oriented for left or right handed guitars.
The Quiet Coil™ Strat® pickups are only about 1/16” taller than standard vintage Strat® pickups because if the shielding plate on the back of the pickup. That being said, as long as you lay the lead wires flat and side by side across the back of the pickups, without twisting or stacking the wires over top of one another, they will fit the shallow vintage routs just fine. We installed them into a ‘57 reissue here with no issues.
Guitar Wiring Harnesses
Our Mojotone branded CTS potentiometers are designed for US-made guitars; and most imported guitars will have to be routed to install the potentiometers properly as they use metric sizing.
These letters refer to the actual taper of the pot. The K only has to do with the ohms. For example 500K ohms. The following letters A, B, and C refer to the actual taper.
- A = Audio Taper
- B = Linear taper
- C = Reverse audio
You will normally only see the A, B, or C letters on metric pots, whereas US spec pots (such as CTS), will use a more straightforward lettering system such as A for Audio taper, L for Linear, and RA for reverse audio.
There is no difference in the functionality of these pots, but rather there is only a difference in what type of knob is used in conjunction with each pot. Solid shaft pots require a set-screw knob while the split shaft requires a push-on knob.
It is recommended that 250k pots be used for single coil pickups, as single coils tend to be very bright sounding inherently. For humbuckers, it is recommended that 500k value pots are used, as humbuckers are naturally darker sounding. Higher value pots = more treble.