Creamery pickups?

Weaver85

What's everyone's experience with Creamery pickups? I'm looking to buy a set of low wound PAFs to replace my 57 classics and their name popped up. Would their own '57s' be a step up from the stock Gibsons? 

Funkfingers

Obvious questions.

1) In what guitar are your stock Gibson '57 Classic humbuckers installed? LP, SG, ES, other shape?

2) What do you dislike about the tone and dynamic response of '57 Classics?

3) Are the bobbins of your stock humbuckers covered or exposed?

•

For my tastes, a neck position '57 Classic is greatly improved by changing its bar magnet to alnico 4.

boz_h

I have a set in my Hamer Studio.  Someone had taken the Seymore Duncans out and replaced them with Gibson 490/498 that weren't in the best of shape. I can vouch for how well they were made, and customer service was excellent. They sound good (well, as good as I can make them sound with my playing), articulate and respond to playing dynamics really well. Are they "better" then the 57s that are currently in your Gibson, well they are possibly made a little better, tone and feel is subjective and the 57s are perfectly good, so step-up I'd say no. Are they a step-up if you either fancy a change or, like me, your pickups were knackered?  From the standpoint of you can contact Jamie (I think that's his name, apologies if I have got it wrong) and get them customized to your own specification, then defiantly.

chris78

Jamie has wound me wide range humbuckers, broadcaster tele style pickups and filtertrons and they’ve been great and yes a good guy.

Pabcrane

I have a set of Creamery 57s in my Tokai 335-type.
(I got a lowish wind, AlNiCo 2 in the bridge AlNoCo 4 in the neck if that helps)

They sound really good, the neck isn't boomy or indistinct, they sound good in all three positions, jangly in the middle and cutting enough in bridge.

I haven't done a side by side comparison with the Gibson 57s so can't comment there.

I did find Jaime helpful when I contacted him through email.

timmypix

I've had his take on T-tops (Creamery '76) and his Black Cat Filtertrons, and my friend has had the Black Cats, a set of Sonic-6 Strat pickups and recently picked up a set of his '59 humbuckers used.

They're all excellent pickups - assuming the '59s and '57s aren't too dissimilar, they're a massive, massive improvement over the muddy mess that are Gibson 57 Classics, but then so are most PAF-types from UK winders. In my experience, Gibson 57 Classics have a lovely singing midrange to them, but also sound like they've got a blanket over them and a massive low-mid hump that lends fullness to single notes and muddiness to everything else.

What I will say about the Creamery, with the best will in the world, as his pickups are excellent and well-priced, is it does seem Jaime struggles to keep up. I placed my last order with him in August and finally received them in January after chasing a couple of times (build time when I ordered was around 45 days). T the date on the pickups shows he wound them the week before I received them, and you could tell they'd been kind of rushed together - a couple of scuffs to the covers, things like that.

However, he did also say that's recently had to move out of and back into his workshop as the roof was damaged, so I assume that was a massive PITA for him and can't have helped him with build times or keeping on top of orders.

So his pickups are excellent, but I don't know if he's still struggling behind, which leaves a weird catch-22 of wanting to support him, but also not wanting to pile more on to him!

stickyfiddle

I haven't had their PAFs but Creamery did me a rewind of some Casino P90s a few years ago and it was genuinely transformative

Keefy

I put a pair of his WRHBs in a Mexican Tele Deluxe and they’re a great combination of sweet and nasty.

chrisj1602

I got some Rickenbacker style toasters off him; they were great. Just be aware of the wait time upfront.

Weaver85

Thanks everyone for your input. Funkfingers said:

Obvious questions.

1) In what guitar are your stock Gibson '57 Classic humbuckers installed? LP, SG, ES, other shape?

2) What do you dislike about the tone and dynamic response of '57 Classics?

3) Are the bobbins of your stock humbuckers covered or exposed?

•

For my tastes, a neck position '57 Classic is greatly improved by changing its bar magnet to alnico 4.

In a Les Paul. Pretty much what timmy stated - nice bloom with single notes, but a little muddy and congested with everything else. The bobbins are covered. I was actually going to go alnico V for the neck to tighten that up a little with downtuning to C Standard. A2 for the bridge. 

Johnnyseven

I've had quite a few pickups from the Creamery over the years, mostly his alternative humbuckers. They have all sounded great but I concur with the wait times mentioned above and the seemingly rushed order when I raised lack of delivery with Jaime. The wait time hasn't just been long recently when he moved premises either. Don't expect to receive during the timescale quoted.

Boromedic

I had some 57 Classics in a 335 and thought they were really good tbh, really sounded PAF like and not too far off some Imperials I had once, the neck tones were great. I guess not all pickups are equal in that regard.

If you don't like em though, Creamery are okay, the build quality of a Strat set I ordered wasn't great and they arrived loosely packed rattling around in a jiffy bag, but they did sound good. 

Try Hayden at Bulldog, he does some decent PAF style, but he is more communicative via phone than email. Tbh you are better off phoning him anyway as he can guide you to what you want. I had a set of his PAF style in a Sheraton and they were great tbf. I'd also recommend 50s wiring as that improved my Les Paul no end for me.

Dumodal

Jaime makes really good pickups, have tried his P90 Humbuckers and Jazzmaster pups, right now it seems to me he's loaded with work his shop is always closed for new orders, and when it opens it fills back quickly and he shuts the orders again for two months or so, which it's a shame considering the competition right now.

So if you are lucky to get an order placed go for it, if not there is brilliant pickup winders like oil city, Mojo, Alegree, etc.

Zoonyboy

I've had three sets of Creamery pickups, including S type, Jazzmaster and HB and all were great, but those 57s are quite Ok. My favourites in HB are Lollar low winds.

Dave_Mc

timmypix said:

What I will say about the Creamery, with the best will in the world, as his pickups are excellent and well-priced, is it does seem Jaime struggles to keep up. I placed my last order with him in August and finally received them in January after chasing a couple of times (build time when I ordered was around 45 days). T the date on the pickups shows he wound them the week before I received them, and you could tell they'd been kind of rushed together - a couple of scuffs to the covers, things like that.

Yeah pretty much. I haven't tried his pickups, but I was going to try a set of his as I was curious what they were like and figured with a waiting list they were probably pretty good. I emailed him asking what he suggested, and he wrote back to tell me (this is paraphrased and based on memory) he was really busy, he was just letting me know that he had received the email ok and that he'd get back to me with an answer as soon as he could. 

He never did... his cart opened on his website a couple of times and then closed again, and then he raised his prices. (I hadn't liked to contact him again as I was aware he was busy, and when he said he'd get back to me I didn't like to pester him.)

At that point I just decided to go with someone else... his prices (while pretty good value for UK handwound pickups) were already at about the limit of what I wanted to pay for that guitar, and I've got excellent UK-made pickups with much faster service at similar (and often lower) prices. At the point I decided to go with someone else he'd already kept me waiting several months and I hadn't even got as far as ordering the pickups... (and fwiw he still hasn't got back to me, this is well over a year now.)

Johnnyseven

The Creamery store is due to open on the 4th April, for anyone that wanted to order.

edenfield99

I’ve had a rewire of a wide range humbucker and I’ve bought a tele bridge, a filtertron, a P90 and a set of PAF style. All were great, the WR might be my favourite pickup that I own.

I have also not ordered from him and gone elsewhere because the wait times were too long or the shop was shut. My last order took about twice as long as the 60 days quoted on his website. Probably worth the wait but then I wasn’t in a rush at the time. He always came back promptly when I chased and is a good guy to deal with. 

I’d definitely use him again…he’s a one man band and has had some workshop problems so I give him some leeway on the delays as, like I said, if you’re not in a rush it’s worth the wait.

benmurray85

Johnnyseven said:

The Creamery store is due to open on the 4th April, for anyone that wanted to order.

Good luck with that. I gave over bothering after opening slots for orders either disappeared (sold out maybe?) or just got extended. I will say that Jaime was helpful (but slow) on emails though. Appreciate they're either a one-person-band or a small endeavour and I'm not normally one to be negative or dismissive but ordering from them isn't an easy task!

Johnnyseven

benmurray85 said:

Johnnyseven said:

The Creamery store is due to open on the 4th April, for anyone that wanted to order.

Good luck with that. I gave over bothering after opening slots for orders either disappeared (sold out maybe?) or just got extended. I will say that Jaime was helpful (but slow) on emails though. Appreciate they're either a one-person-band or a small endeavour and I'm not normally one to be negative or dismissive but ordering from them isn't an easy task!

I've never had a problem ordering from Jaime, only problems with the timescale to receive my orders.

rze99

He wound some 59 PAF types for me for a les Paul. Had to wait but it was worth it. Still have. 

mojofilters

I've never actually ordered anything from him, but several years ago now I remember being advised by someone with a lot of experience dealing with 1970s Fenders, that Creamery wide range humbuckers were the ones to go for - though obviously this was back before Fender started building proper CuNiFe reissues.

For a variety of reasons I never got in a position to actually order anything from him, but I was very impressed by his website - especially all the details he included around the development of his wide range models. I really liked that he was able to build several variations, including models in regularly sized humbucker housing, accompanied by descriptions of how the tones varied.

Now that I'm fortunate enough to have a pair of the modern Fender reissues in my Thinline Telecaster, I'd be extremely interested to hear whether anyone has any experience of comparing Creamery wide range humbuckers with the CuNiFe Fender version? 

I'm particularly interested in the regular humbucker sized option, as I've got a cheap old twin humbucker tele that plays incredibly nicely and really captures the '70s Fender vibe, with a black guard on a black body. Unfortunately the pickups simply don't do it justice. If I got back into playing regularly enough that I'd want to keep a reliable backup instrument, I'd be tempted to save up and splash out on at least one really nice pickup for the neck...to start with.

Alternatively I recently had a chance to play a relatively modern Mexican Jaguar, which really impressed me. The stripped back design with a Gibson-style tune-o-matic bridge and hard tail seemed much more comfortable to play, compared with the more vintage correct Jaguars I've tried. What really attracted my attention was the simple design and a pair of humbuckers, which sounded fine though definitely left room for improvement. 

If I have both good reason and (more importantly) the means to buy another guitar at some point in the future, that Jaguar would be at the top of my shopping list. And as one of the least expensive guitars currently sold by Fender, it would be an ideal candidate to upgrade with the regular humbucker sized wide range pickups offered by the Creamery.