Bill Lawrence USA

I have four of these pickups that I acquired from different places over the last 16 years: Stewart-MacDonald, a music store, and two used ones from Used Gear By Mail. They ranged in price from $20-$40. I have three of them in a Fernandes Strat copy and one in the neck position of a home made guitar (with a full size Schaller humbucker in the bridge position). I bought them because I wanted pickups that would sound like single coils but without the hum. These are the L-250's made by the Bill Lawrence Guitar Pickup Company out of California. This is the company that Bill Lawrence (whose real name is Willi Stich) started many years ago, and used to be called Lawrence Sound Research. Bill has not been part of the company since 1984 - it has been run since then by one of his original partners. This model has been in production since at least the early 80's because they are mentioned (with photo) in "Guitar Electronics for Musicians" that was published in 1983. These L-250's are single coil size humbuckers, with a single blade instead of polepieces. The coils are wound vertically and placed on either side of the blade, not on top of each other. Even though these pickups are humbuckers, they really nail the single coil sound! They are clear and punchy, sensitive to picking technique, and reproduce harmonics beautifully. The in-between pickup settings on my Strat offer all the funky sounds of a single coil equipped guitar. These pickups have a little more output than the stock single coils and have a little more warmth. The bridge pickup is much fatter sounding than the stock pickup. I actually use it by itself now! I play rock, blues, jazz, latin (Santana) and these pickups work well for every style. Overdriven or clean, they sound great. There is nothing that I do not like about these pickups. These pickups are built like a tank. The coils are embedded in epoxy (?) in the cover so they are essentially one-piece construction. No moving parts! These pickups are fantastic sounding and only cost about $40 new. They are a great bargain for anyone looking for quiet, Strat style replacement pickups. The website for this company is www.billlawrenceusa.com. I want to add a note about the confusion surrounding the two "Bill Lawrence" companies. A few years back, Bill (Willi Stich) registered "Bill Lawrence" as a "service" mark for his pickup design/consulting services, to market his design services to guitar manufacturers. He never registered it as a "trade" mark to market his pickups, or any other product. But he has been using the federal registration symbol (circle around the "R") next to the "Bill Lawrence" mark in his print ads and on his website, to market his pickups anyway, which is against USPTO rules (you can only use a registered mark for the purpose it was registered for). This has caused a lot of people to believe that "Bill Lawrence" is a registered trademark for the pickups that Bill currently manufactures, when it is not. Bill makes great pickups, and he even has a very different version of the L-250 (with TWO blades) that I hear sounds very good, but the other Bill Lawrence company, that makes the pickup I reviewed above, has the right to the Bill Lawrence name for marketing their pickups (even though they have not registered it with the USPTO - which is not required for a trademark to be valid). You can verify this information by visiting the US Patent and Trademark Office website at www.uspto.gov and searching for the "Bill Lawrence" trademark. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The L500L is very similar to the L500XL, but lower output. The XL has so much output that harmonics are almost jumping off the fretboard, making playing efforless. This isn't quite that high. It is still a pretty high output pickup, very smooth and much more balanced across the frequency spectrum compared to the very bright XL. Definitely has a vintage vibe to it, comparable to many lower gain pickups of decades before, similar to the DImarzio Super Distortion but tighter and smoother. Works great for any style, but for metal IMO the XL is better. I have both in a few guitars and I much prefer the XL, almost the same tone just much more effortless to play because of the higher output. The L500L is very smooth and vintage but still has a hifi quality to it. The highs are crystal clear and the low end is tight and present. It doesn’t have that cocked wah sound that many rail type pickups have which is great. Like I’ve stated in the title this is for the B&B model, not the BLUSA. I don’t get into the whole B&B vs BLUSA debate, they are both great pickups designed off the same platform. There’s a youtube video out there comparing the B&B, BLUSA, and Dimebucker all in the same guitar and the differences are so small that you wouldn’t hear them unless you were listening for it. Once it’s multi tracked or in a full band mix the slight differences would be completely gone. Don’t buy one cause it may be the one Dimebag used, he used all 3 throughout his career. I personally use B&B cause that’s what came in my Dean CFH new, I loved it and bought more from B&B so had no reason to try BLUSA. I liked what I had so no reason to change.

A very nice neck pickup, goes well with both the L500L and the L500XL. It is a dual blade style pickup with alnico 5 magnets. Along with the other L500 series, Dimebucker, and EMG, and select Dimarzio pickups these are a rail design. The pro’s of rails are a very even balance in volume. If you bend a string there’s no loss in volume or sustain which can be a problem with standard individual pole pieces. Very PAF like, in the sense that it's very smooth but thick and has a big low end. I prefer brighter neck pickups so I can play leads with good definition and this pickup definitely wasn't designed for that. For playing cleans it's great, very big and strong sounding. Makes any clean tone get right in your face without overdriving at all. Great for strumming where you want the balanced smooth tone, very acoustic like, but for leads it can get muddy quickly. Similar to a Duncan ’59 or Dimarzio PAF it’s a very bluesy pickup, very traditional sounding. For high gain leads I'd recommend a much brighter pickup, for cleans this works great. It’s a medium output pickup so it’s a good match for most medium and high output pickups. For a lower more vintage output pickup I’d suggest the L500C, which I believe the C stands for clean. The higher the output the easier it overdrives your amp which is good for high gain but bad for cleans. The lower the output the cleaner and more articulate the tone is but makes harmonics harder and has less sustain. So this is a good medium for that. Right in between too little with not enough sustain, but not too much to where it’s hard to get a good clean tone. I’d recommend this for someone who wants to keep the dual rail theme but wants a classic sounding neck pickup, but with better string to string balance.

I first got one of these in my 2006 Dean CFH ML. I absolutely loved it. Made my pinch harmonics effortless and just made playing more fun. VERY articulate, some complain it's too bright but in the right guitar it just sings. I put them in all mahogany guitars so that definitely smooths out the high end a bit. I play metal which is really where this shines. It has bright spanky cleans but the high gain this just opens right up. Smooth, articulate, organic, dynamic, what else can I say? This thing is just amazing. Roll back the volume and it really cleans up. It just makes playing so much more effortless, and you don't need to crank your amp to get that feel. I play with much lower gain than most metal heads and with this pickup it gives me amazing definition and stays smooth, while still giving me the gain to play modern metal. As Dime said (paraphrase), it's really thick and chunky on the lows strings but screams on the high strings like a wah pedal toe down. He described it very well. I only found out about a year ago that the one in my CFH was a Bill n Becky. The pickup didn't have any markings so I called them and they confirmed it was theirs. Since then I've bought about 4 more along with a L500L and a L500R. I've never played a BLUSA so I can't comment on theirs. I do know that both pickups are very very similar so the whole debate online over which is better is complete rubbish. I only stick with B&B cause it was what's in my CFH. Just loved it so no reason to change it out. I have nothing against BLUSA at all, just haven't bought one.... yet.

I found this pickup in a local music store and paid $48 for it. I had heard good things about it on other guitar gear review pages and wanted to try one. I also own other pickups made by this company and knew that they make high quality products. This pickup is brand new and is still made by the original company that first produced it 20+ years ago, Bill Lawrence Guitar Pickups company (www.billlawrenceusa.com), aka Bill Lawrence Products, previously known as Lawrence Sound Research and Lawrence Electro Sound. It says “Bill Lawrence USA” in white letters on the front and in raised letters on the back. This is my first Bill Lawrence L-500XL and I've installed it in a home made two-pickup guitar. I’m very impressed. I used it to replace a Schaller humbucker and the difference is amazing. The L-500XL is bright and full of harmonics – every note just sparkles. The Schaller was bright sounding but not as “musical” as the L-500XL. This is the loudest pickup I’ve ever owned but it is still very clear, not muddy. I’ve been able to get screaming blues tones, jangly Beatles tones and singing Santana tones from it, depending on the amount of gain and compression applied. I can also get great Tele-like country lead tones. Combining this pickup with the neck pickup (single-bladed Bill Lawrence L-250) produces nice Les Paul-ish quack. The L-500XL has two blades instead of pole pieces, the blades are flat and signal response is very even from string to string. This guitar has never sounded better. I’ve read reviews of this pickup in which people complained that it’s too trebly. But the guitar I’ve installed it in is very lightweight (just over 7 lbs) and has NO TONE POT, and I can still keep the treble under control – I just turn down the treble on my amp. It is much brighter sounding than the HFS bridge pickup in my PRS CE-24, but is only about as trebly as the Schaller it replaced. I’ve also read complaints about these pickups squealing, but I haven’t experienced that with this pickup. Hard to believe it could ever be microphonic because the coils are totally embedded in resin inside the covers. There is nothing that I don't like about this pickup. It's great. It's built like a rock. The coils are sealed inside the cover (just like the L-250's that I own, made by the same company). No chance of coils ever coming loose or getting broken. I highly recommend this pickup to anyone looking for a high output bridge position humbucker with clean, sparkly tone. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bill Lawerence has been a pioneer in electric pickup design since the mid-60s. Having been a victim of various scoundrels and rip-off artists over the years, Bill has been forced to continue working well into his 70s. He now sells his pickups directly from his website: www.billlawrence.com. DO NOT buy products that are listed as Lawrence from any other place, they are just using his name and he gets no compensation. Reason for the purchase: My strat pickups had become microphonic and I was tired of that continuous hum from single-coil pickups. So I started looking around for a "noiseless" alternative. After reading several favorable online reviews, I decided to give Bill Lawrence a try. The L-280S is a noiseless strat-style pickup that sells for $40 plus shipping. Because they are hand made, they will take several weeks to arrive in the mail. I ordered a neck and middle pickup. My existing bridge pickup was already a noiseless style from a now defunct company, Evans (not the amplifier maker). I installed the new pickups and plugged guitar into amp. The only noise was the growling hiss of my 100 watt Fender tube amp. I played a chord. Full and warm tones rang out. These pickups are unique unto themselves. They do not attempt to model their tone after some classic strat pickup, but rather Bill has designed them to sound musical. And that they do. If you want ice-pick'n treble brightness, then maybe you should look elsewhere (or crank the treble up on the amp). If you want a pleasant, rich, and detailed tone - these should be seriously considered. You will be hard pressed to find a better sounding noisless pickup for this price. In my opinion, once you use noiseless pickups that sound good, you will never want to go back to the hum-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m. It took a while for these to arrive in the mail. If you are an impatient person, spend this time practicing and gigging. When they finally arrive, you will already be a better guitar player. As for the construction and finish, these babies are extremely well made. They are completely sealed, have good quality color-coded wiring, use high-quality plastic housing, and look like they will last a long, long time. Plus, they are made in the USA by a genuine craftsman and innovator. These pickups are the real deal. The price is a steal. Do your Karma a good thing and support Bill Lawrence. Besides your guitar will love you too. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com