10 Boutique Guitar Pickups You Probably Didn't Know Existed

Take a look at 10 boutique guitar pickups you probably didn't know existed, from Telecaster Dynasonics and Gold Foils to forgotten classics and smart hybrids.

7/19/20264 min read

Everybody knows the usual suspects: a vintage Telecaster pickup, a Strat pickup, a PAF, a P90.

Those designs earned their place decades ago and, for good reason, they're still the benchmark against which almost everything else is measured.

Spend enough time around boutique pickup makers, though, and you discover a parallel universe. Familiar ideas are turned inside out. Forgotten designs are brought back to life. Pickup routes become invitations rather than limitations.

Here are 10 pickups that'll probably make you stop and think, "Hang on... that's actually a thing?"

Sunbear T-Twin Neck Pickup

Most humbuckers are built from... humbucker coils.

Stuart Robson had another idea.

The T-Twin is built around two traditional Telecaster neck coils sitting side by side inside a humbucker-sized housing. It's one of those ideas that seems so obvious you wonder why it isn't everywhere already.

Every T-Twin comes with four-conductor wiring as standard. In humbucking mode it delivers a full, clear voice. Split the coils and it becomes Sunbear's BroadFIVE0 Telecaster neck pickup.

Mojo Tele Neck Dynasonic Pickup

If Stuart Robson looked at a humbucker route and saw room for two Telecaster neck pickups, Mojo's Marc Ransley looked at a Telecaster and saw room for a Dynasonic.

For decades, Dynasonics were almost inseparable from Gretsch guitars. Their oversized adjustable pole pieces became one of the design's defining features.

The Tele Neck Dynasonic is part of Mojo's growing Dynasonic family, alongside humbucker-sized and P90-sized versions. This one drops straight into a standard Telecaster neck route.

A Dynasonic in a Telecaster still feels slightly unexpected.

Mojo Strat-Sized Gold Foil for Tele

Marc Ransley wasn't finished moving pickups into unfamiliar places.

Gold Foil pickups have one of the stranger stories in guitar history. Originally fitted to inexpensive department-store guitars, they spent years being overlooked before musicians rediscovered them for exactly the qualities that once made them different.

The problem was always practical.

Gold Foils and Telecasters weren't natural partners.

Mojo fixed that.

The Strat-sized Gold Foil for Tele fits guitars already routed for a Strat-style bridge pickup, bringing one of the guitar world's most distinctive pickup designs to a place it had never really been before.

Mojo Strat-Sized Broadcaster Bridge

Nor was Marc Ransley finished rearranging Fender history.

The Broadcaster arrived first.

The Stratocaster followed several years later.

The Strat-sized Broadcaster Bridge takes one of Fender's earliest pickup designs and reshapes it for a Stratocaster.

What if?

Grinning Dog Dixie Chicken

Not every unusual pickup begins with an engineering problem.

Sometimes it begins with a record.

The Dixie Chicken pickup takes its name from Little Feat's Dixie Chicken. Shinji Kishimoto used Lowell George's Stratocaster tone on the album's title track as the starting point.

One guitar.

One song.

One sound.

Mojo Tele Neck Gold Foil Voiced

Gold Foils aren't usually part of the Telecaster conversation.

This one is Mojo Tele Neck Gold Foil Voiced

Mojo brought elements of classic Gold Foil design to a Telecaster neck pickup, creating a combination that's still surprisingly uncommon.

Mojo TL90

Some ideas barely need explaining.

A Telecaster bridge pickup with a healthy dose of P90 character is one of them.

The TL90 keeps the familiar Telecaster bridge format, so there's no need for replacement bridges or conversion plates. It simply answers a question plenty of Telecaster players have asked over the years.

Mojo Roy Watkins Prototype Two

History remembers Leo Fender.

It almost forgot Roy Watkins.

Back in 1949, Watkins arrived at a very different solution to the same problem many early electric guitar designers were trying to solve. His design never became the standard.

Marc Ransley thought it deserved another chance.

The Roy Watkins Prototype Two recreates that forgotten pickup, including the absence of the steel baseplate that would later become one of the defining ingredients of a traditional Telecaster bridge pickup.

Ron Ellis Tellisonic

Ron Ellis built his reputation on some of the finest vintage-style Fender pickups available.

The Tellisonic takes a slightly different path.

Vintage DeArmond pickups provided the starting point. The result is still unmistakably a Telecaster pickup, but one with a different family tree.

And One for the Bass Players

Guitarists have been spoiled for choice for decades.

Bass players, for reasons nobody has quite explained, usually have far fewer boutique pickup options.

That makes the Mojo 60s Thunderbird Bass Pickup Set worth a mention.

Marc Ransley based the set on original 1960s Thunderbird pickups, preserving the construction and character that made those early versions so distinctive.