16 of the Most Iconic Guitar Pickups - 1934 to 2013

So this is the 4th in my recent Guitar Elements Series - which started with Ergonomic Headstocks, then Iconic Body Shapes, and Modern Tremolo Bridges. I have a few more to come - next up is Iconic Fret Markers / Fredboards, then Strings, and some more Body shape ones - I’ve already completed the follow-up - and feel I have enough remains for a 3rd 25, I may even be able to do a 4th - so 100 guitar body shapes all-in.

I had some blowback on the use of the word ’Iconic’ - where some disparaged my inclusion of Ibanez X / Xiphos, Music Man St Vincent, and Millimetric MGS£ as they had somewhat not earned their dues and were too recent to be ’Iconic’. However that word doesn’t really have a historic component - Everything Everywhere All At Once for instance is obviously Iconic even though brand new - Iconic really just means stand-out and mould-breaking - while some people are conflating it with ’Vintage’ to a degree - I will continue to use the word Iconic. I am the curator and selector here - and I do significant due-diligence on whatever I decide to include.

For the 16 most Iconic Guitar Pickups - I went back to the dawn of that technology - and picked out the most significant updates and innovations to that discipline. Obviously I had to make a few tough calls along the way - for instance I decided to include the DeArmond Gold Foils rather than the Teisco J-1 originators which in theory predated the DeArmonds by 5 years. Although I felt that the Tesico pickups looked fairly similar to the Filtertrons - and that the look of the DeArmonds was overall more Iconic and of an era.

I ended up on a 4 x 4 grid as I didn’t have enough for a 5 x 5 - where I would otherwise have included at least the Teisco J-1’s, DeArmond Model 2000’s and the Lace Sensor Alumitones.

Guitar Pickups is the one area of guitar tech that is still seeing some advances and some considerable innovations. The 3-voice Fishman Fluence Pickups are a great example of this evolution - where they include conventional electronics and magnetics - enhanced by microprocessors as far as I understand. The holy grail pickup is one that can ideally deliver Strat, Tele and Les Paul P.A.F. tones all in the same unit = and we’re not quite there yet.

In any case this was a massive project with a tonne of research - finding the appropriate imagery was touch - and a lot had to be photoshopped to see degree to render in my usual quality fashion. The whole process of the visual was about a day’s work - and a long day at that. I’m incredibly proud of the results - as there is no equivalent references visual of this nature out there. Getting the right colourways etc was most time-consuming - while I feel that the results speak for themselves.

If you had to list out the 16 most significant and Iconic pickups of all time - I feel most would largely agree with this selection. If your opinions differ - of course let us know which your 16 would be - and what you would choose to swap out for your choices!

Historic / Iconic Electric Guitar Pickups - by approximate year of first issue :

• 1934 - Rickenbacker Horseshoe Pickup [SingleCoil]
• 1935 - Gibson Bar / Charlie Christian Pickup [SingleCoil]
• 1946 - Gibson P-90 / Soapbar Pickup [SingleCoil]
• 1951 - Fender Telecaster Pickups [SingleCoil]
• 1954 - Fender Stratocaster Pickups [SingleCoil]
• 1954 - Danelecto Lipstick Pickup [SingleCoil]
• 1954 - Gretsch Filter’Tron [Humbucker]
• 1955 - Gibson / Seth Lover P.A.F. [Humbucker]
• 1956 - Epiphone Mini Humbucker [Humbucker]
• 1959 - DeArmond Gold Foil Pickup [SingleCoil]
• 1972 - DiMarzio Super Distortion [Humbucker]
• 1977 - Seymour Duncan JB (Jazz/Blues) [Humbucker]
• 1981/85 - EMG 81 and EMG 85 Active Pickups [Humbucker]
• 1984 - Seymour Duncan Hot Rails [Humbucker]
• 1987 - Lace Sensor Pickups [SingleCoil]
• 2013 - Fishman Fluence Multi-Voice Pickup [Humbucker]

Note that personally I’m not a pickup expert - so the further details will need to wait until such a time I that I do a proper series on pickup sampling and testing - that is really more the domain of specialists like Phillip McKnight - and I fully expect him to use my visual on one of his ’Know Your Gear’ YouTube episodes!