Roswell Charlie Christian?

[Robkay]

Any thoughts on the Roswell c.c. pickups?

Roswell Pickups CHL Charlie Christian Black/White

With its unique construction the Roswell CHL Charlie Christian Pickup achieves a warm, profound character and opens up especially the profession of expressive jazz sounds. The pickup has a rather wide coil winding, but uses a slightly thicker AWG38 wire with lower DC resistance. Charlie...

www.dv247.com

Regards.

 

[JohnnyThul]

Hi Robkay,

Roswell pickups are made in Korea by WSC, a well known company who built for ESP, Fender and Status amongst others. They also make hardware and among that they produce the Bigsby Korea Tremolos (B-50, B-70) and Wilkinson bridges.
The pickups are inspired by available pickups on the market and built to a very high standard. I can personally see no difference in quality between Seymour Duncan or Roswells. The Charlie Christian seems to be a direct copy of The Lollar CC pickup, but is wound with AWG38 which is closer to vintage specs. It is a very fat, warm and clean sounding pickup and it can be tricky to find a matching bridge pickup (a hotter one works better in my opinion).
I use only Roswell pickups for my builts, as these are very well made, have a great variety of models and are not as expensive as the established brands while offering the same, if not better quality (my opinion, of course).

I used so far:

LAF AlNiCo 2 humbuckers
LVS AlNiCo V humbuckers
LLS4 humbucker (actually a DiMarzio Bluesbucker clone)
P90
P90 stacked
Charlie Christian neck and bridge pickup
Staple pickups (seems also to be a Lollar clone, so, more like a Jazzmaster type)

All of them are very good to my ears and an absolute bargain in my book.

Keep in mind that screws used on these pickups are metric, in case you want to change pole screws or the like.

Regards

Jonas

 

[kiwi blue]

The Charlie Christian seems to be a direct copy of The Lollar CC pickup, but is wound with AWG38 which is closer to vintage specs. It is a very fat, warm and clean sounding pickup and it can be tricky to find a matching bridge pickup (a hotter one works better in my opinion).

The Lollar CC is also AWG38, with low resistance specs around 2.9 to 3k depending on which version. The Roswell has similar specs, so I was confident it also uses AWG38 and is built along the same lines as the Lollar. That's one reason why I bought some Roswells and I agree with you about the quality. I have the HB sized versions in a cheap hollowbody that I upgraded. They sound great. I used identical Roswell CC pickups in the neck and bridge. I managed to match them up fine, and I was surprised how good a bridge pickup it is. Very cool twang to it.

I also have the HB sized Lollar CC in another guitar, but the guitars are so different in style and quality there's little point comparing it with the Roswell. Let's just say I never feel like I'm slumming it when I play the Roswells.

 

[JohnnyThul]

Hi @kiwi blue ,

Thanks for the heads up on the wire used on the Lollar! For some reason I thought he wouldn't use AWG38 for his creation.

BTW, you can get a CC pickup in Humbucker size from Roswell as well Just saying.

Best regards

Jonas

 

[kiwi blue]

Hi @kiwi blue ,

Thanks for the heads up on the wire used on the Lollar! For some reason I thought he wouldn't use AWG38 for his creation.

BTW, you can get a CC pickup in Humbucker size from Roswell as well Just saying.

Best regards

Jonas

Hi Jonas

Yes the humbucker size Roswells are the ones I have. They're great, and so is the price. I'm not so keen on the cost of shipping from Music Store in Germany though - 60 Euro to New Zealand! The pickup itself is only 36 Euro. I was able to reduce that by ordering other pickups for a friend at the same time and splitting the shipping cost with him, but if I were to order only one pickup the total price would be similar to getting a Seymour Duncan humbucker locally.

I'd definitely be keen to try their Tele sized CCs and the staple pickups but then I'd need more guitars to put them in. Oh well, can't be helped ...

Al

 

[kiwi blue]

Yesterday I put another set of Roswell CCs into an HH Tele copy (Artist TC-59). I'd been struggling with this guitar, trying to get a pickup combination that works together and works for me. The CCs did it. Big fat neck tone, and a full bodied but also slightly hollow and twangy bridge tone. They are as loud as humbuckers and a cool alternative to the usual P90ish HB size single coils. I found myself forgetting the guitar and getting inspired and lost in the music.

I bought a pair of their Bluesbucker clones at the same time. I haven't heard them yet. Still thinking about where they will go.