Tom Anderson H2+

Tom Anderson is a boutique guitar maker from California. He is up there with Suhr with his custom strat style guitars. When you make your own guitars you dont just want to slap someone elses pickup in them so he gets pickups made to his own specs that perfectly compliment his guitars. These are heavy pickups and you can tell from the oversize magnets in them. With the oversized magnets they work both in standard and tremolo spaced guitars not that it would make a difference if it didnt. F spacing is just a way to get you to pay more for a set of pickups. This pickup has your pretty standard four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet. Only vintage style pickups nowadays dont have four conductor wiring. With the four conductor wiring you can split this pickup and and sounds very good split. Many pickups that come with four conductor wiring can be split but dont really sound very good split. With this pickup you can split it and get a great single coil sound. Because of the natural brightness of these pickups the single coil sounds are spot on. This pickup is great for an old school 80s metal sound. These pickups are bright and clear and sound very 80s. Even the clean tones sound very 80s with their kinda bright tone. The eq on this pickup is pretty even and no frequency is bashing you over the face. With this kind of eq it brings out the natural tones of your guitar instead of placing its own tone on top of the guitars. If your guitar has a brighter sound the pickup will work with that. If your guitar is darker it will brighten the sound up a bit but overall it will still have a dark sound. This is the kind of pickup that compliments the guitar very well and adds its own flavor to the sound instead of making the sound all its own.

Tom Anderson is well known for his handmade guitars that he builds out over in California. On top of that, he also makes his own custom pickups to go with his guitars. These pickups are special in that they’re full sized coils instead of the normal half sized coils that people are used to seeing. On top of that, the pole pieces are oversized, so his pickups will work in both standard and Fender spaced guitars. This pickup is a ceramic magnet pickup with four conductor wiring for those that need the utmost versatility.

The H2+ is probably one of the best pickups out there for those looking for that great 80s metal sound. It’s super clear and precise, just like all the pickups Anderson makes. This one is a fairly hot pickup, but it’s never too overbearing. It can clean up great, and it even sounds great when used with a clean tone for that brighter 80s clean tone. The pickup comes equipped standard with four conductor wiring, and that’s actually the coolest feature of this pickup as these split amazingly well. The split coil tones on these sound about as close to a real single coil as you can get. They also make very well with a middle single pickup.

The H2+ is a fairly even sounding pickup, I’ve found. The bass is tight, but it’s not so tight that it loses its organic quality. The midrange seems to be just about perfect. It’s hitting the amp harder than some classic pickups, but it’s not slamming it to death like certain other pickups out there. The top end is slightly accentuated I’ve found, and that’s a great thing. It helps keep everything clear and precise without mudding out. I’ve also found that these pickups work in nearly any wood I’ve tried them in. Alder, mahogany and ash all seem to go great with this in the bridge.

If you’re looking for one of the best “go to” pickups out there, I highly recommend checking out the H2+. It’s one hell of a pickup, and it’s probably the most versatile out of Tom’s entire line.