G&L tech resources: Pickups

 
 

The German Schaller Electronic GmbH emerged from the radio repair shop founded by Helmut Schaller in 1945, only a year prior to Leo Fender starting his in Fullerton, CA. Through this kinship, these 2 men struck up a lifelong business relation. Beyond sourcing the tuning machines for all G&L’s produced prior to 1987, Schaller also provided pickups. Although no longer listed in their current online store, the past offering can still be accessed through this archived “Pickup Finder”. Most notably, the Schaller Golden 50 humbuckers (page in German), based on Seth Lover’s PAF design (as covered by by US Pat. 2,896,491 filed June 22, 1955), was used on practically all pre-BBE G&L models with buckers: the Invader (also this 1987 example), Rampage, and either of these 1986 or 1987 Superhawk models among the Superstrats, the 2nd X-body Interceptor HH and 3rd style Interceptor HSS among the Interceptors. They came with the proper ‘Fender’ pole spacing for the bridge pickup, i.e. wider than the PAF, and had the typical medium output. Note that the pole pieces are black anodized which distinguished Schaller buckers on G&L guitars from those sourced to any other brand. Typical these pickups use 4 height adjustment screws at the center of the mounting ring.


When the 2nd style SB-1 was introduced, the very early ones had a Schaller PBX split-coil pickup (scroll down in the Pickup Finder) based on the pickup used on a Fender Precision Bass and with a ceramic magnet. Unfortunately, the links to the documentation for this pickup are dead. Notice the black anodized pole pieces are height adjustable.

 

Other OEM: Schaller