Bill Lawrence pickups and controversy

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This comes from another thread. The story so far...

originally posted by GONZO-X
just promise me, first chance you get, to play a guitar that's been fitted with some bill Lawrence single coils, and then a/b them against the specials.....

that's what i did.

the Lawrence were, by far, much quieter and more toneful to my ears, without the 60 cycle hum....
and they're not humbuckers.

for less than the price of a trio of specials, you can get 3 L-290's

$40 a piece.

I've been kicking myself for not trying some years ago.....
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originally posted by KaBudokan
First of all, Gonzo - I'm with you. I am a Lawrence convert. I have sets in two of my guitars, including my new guitar I built (with the very first Lawrence L-495 in the bridge ).
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The Lawrence pickups have amazing tone without any of the single coil noise everyone is so used to in their strats. Your Texas Special "noiseless" set is not noiseless at all - the middle pickup of the set is reverse wound so the in between settings (2 and 4) will be quiet, but not the others. (You can reduce some of this noise, but it is inherent in the single coil design.)

Also, the Lawrence pickups actually have a low magnetic pull, which allows them to be placed closer to the strings without negative effects.

I don't know why, but Lawrence fans tend to become pretty rabid supporters. (Actually, I do know why - it is because of the amazing quality of the products and the even more incredible service that Bill and Becky give.)
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originally posted by charger
okay guys, I was thinking about getting some Lawrence's a while back, until I ran into "The Controversy."

The controversy is, there is really no guy named Bill Lawrence. There is the old guy who is really named Willi Lorenz Stich, who calls himself Bill Lawrence, at www.billlawrence.com, and then there is the guy who started the Bill Lawrence company with him, EZ Wajcman, who sells Bill Lawrence pickups at www.billlawrenceusa.com.

The first guy claims HIS pickups are the real deal. He is the guy who calls himself Bill Lawrence, and clearly at some point he worked with the second guy.

The second guy claims HIS pickups are the real deal, still wound on the same machines using the same processes as when the company started, etc., and those are the ones you can get through Stewart Macdonalds.

The prices are the same, the models look the same and are described the same. So my question is, where did you get your pickups, and do you know or care anything about this "controversy?" I ask because I always assumed that the old guy was the real Bill Lawrence, and he always claimed on his site that the pickups at Stewart Macdonalds were fakes, blah blah blah... But now that the new site by EJ Wacman has popped up, and he has told his side of the story, I notice a lot of the "old guy's" claims have disappeared from his site.

So which is which, who should I believe, and why does buying pickups have to be so difficult? Am I going to bet burned if I go with one over the other? Very confused about this...
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originally posted by GONZO-X
i would like to know the answer as well.

i was unaware of this.

i can say, that the pickups i bought from this group : http://www.billlawrence.com/
did do a great job on the pickups i recieved, and the transaction was straight up.......

also, i talked with a luthier in the atlanta area who said he had purchased some "bill lawrence" pickups through stewart mcdonald, and that they sounded like ass.

hm........
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That's the story to this point, here's my latest:

For the sake of simplicity, how about we call them BL1 (old guy, billlawrence.com) and BL2 (business partner, billlawrenceusa.com). So anyway, I had heard the same thing about BL2's pickups being crap. But if you look on Harmony Central, there are a bunch of really positive reviews about the pickups, and many of those people bought them from Stewart Macdonald's, thus making them BL2 pickups.

Maybe the solution is to buy the same pickup from both places, install, and do some sound tests? I wonder if any guitar magazine or independent reviewer has done this? Anyone?
 
i wrote a letter (email) to BL1

since i purchased my pickups from them, i have a history, and a reporte..........

so, i asked them straight out what the deal was.

i'll post the reply if and when i get it.......
 
This all stresses the point that one must judge a product on its merits and not on its name.

Anybody hear of a company called Fender that kept making guitars under the Fender name even when the "real" Fender was making guitars under a different name?

Name recognition means a lot in the world of marketing.

I remember hearing last year about a contreversy surrounding... the Four Tops, I think it was. Apparently there were 4 different bands touring the US, each called The Four Tops, and each with only one original member.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
Aaron Cheney said:
This all stresses the point that one must judge a product on its merits and not on its name.

Anybody hear of a company called Fender that kept making guitars under the Fender name even when the "real" Fender was making guitars under a different name?

Name recognition means a lot in the world of marketing.

I remember hearing last year about a contreversy surrounding... the Four Tops, I think it was. Apparently there were 4 different bands touring the US, each called The Four Tops, and each with only one original member.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
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Don't even start...................Guns N Roses anyone?
 
You are correct about a great deal of the history. It is a bit confusing, and both sides claim to be "right."

I haven't gotten that involved in the whole history of the thing, but... I do know that the Bill Lawrence at http://Billlawrence.com is the "real deal." I think that Bill's legal name is Bill Lawrence, though I am not positive. I know it's been back and forth in court several times. For practical purposes, I'll call Willi, "Bill."

When I say Bill is the real deal, I mean that he is the one behind the products. He is the man who developed the Gibson L6S. He is the man who has worked with other big name companies on pickups. (One of his designs is one of Fender's humbuckers - I want to say the DH1, though that may be wrong.) He's the guy who worked with Kent Armstrong teaching him a lot about pickups. He is the one still creating innovative new designs.

If you are worried about who you are dealing with, I would suggest calling Bill and talking to him. Yes, you will talk to Bill himself. His wife, Becky, might also pick up the phone, and she also knows a ton about pickups. Talk to Bill about pickups, guitars, doing setup work for Jimi Hendrix, etc. (He has forgotten more about the technical aspects of guitars than most of us will ever know.)

I've never talked to EJ (from the other company), but would certainly never have any reason to after dealing with Bill.

As far as the quality - I have never used pickups from Stew-Mac and the other company, but I have read others who have, and claim there is no comparison. (The "sounds like ass" comment is the impression I've gotten from their reviews.) I DO know that the pickups Ive gotten from Bill are pretty incredible, and I have no reason to try the others.

You may want to go lurk/search over at this forum: http://pub123.ezboard.com/fguitarsbyfenderfrm8 . Please don't post there asking about this, because it will be locked, since it has been covered a dozen times - the info and background and history is there - just search for it. I haven't read it all, because truthfully, I don't care a whole lot. Like I said, I know who the real deal is.

The only reason I am bothering getting involved here is that I think people shouldn't let this impact their decision to NOT look at the Lawrence pickups, and they shouldn't be scared away. The pickups sound incredible (for an unbeatable price) and the service is amazing. You can basically get personalized, custom service from them (output, covers, staggered poles, etc. etc. etc.) for less than most stock pickups. They'll also spend hours on the phone with you working on wiring issues, send you free copper shielding tape, etc.

(Do keep in mind that there is at least about a 5-6 week wait for "real" Bill Lawrence pickups, but if you read some of the testimonials over there, you may decide it is worth it if you aren't in a hurry. The only way to get those BL pups is direct from Bill and Becky.)
 
good info, Kabudokan

all i can say is, the pickups i have sound much better than the texas specials, in my opinion.....

they're definitely worth $40 a piece, at least........
 
In another thread, I'd asked if Bill Lawrence p'ups would induce sticker shock. Saw this thread, clicked the link...window shopped, and I can see Bill gettin' some business from me, in the coming future. I can see my Fender Standard Telecaster, and my Fender Standard Precision Bass getting Bill Lawrence p'ups, but first I must get my other guitars upgraded that I've already got all the upgrade parts for. How would a Squier Affinity P-bass with a Bill Lawrence P-46 sound, compared to a Fender Standard Precision Bass with a Bill Lawrence P-46?

Matt
 
There aren't too many of you that can say this...

But for a short time, I actually worked directly with the old man.

Bill's real name is true- Willi Stich (pronounced Shteekch). Bill also personally makes some of the best pickups. Becky, his wife, has been involved personally in the company at least since the time I had met them in 1991.

His business practices, and the way he and Becky handled the situation when I was there were as rotten as his pickups are great.

In essence, I met up with him excited that I had met a legend and asked to learn the craft. I was expecting to learn, and by just being here for a short time, I learned a tremendous amount by simply being in the same room with him. At that time, Willi had apparantly had some rough times and was living in a strip mall next to a Food Lion in Marietta, GA with no name. He was trying to work with a nearby city (Smyrna) to negotiate a warehouse and a plant. I was also supposed to have been responsible for sales, and had previously worked at Daddy's Junky Music in Boston and was trying to help be a part of building the business. Since he told me that he couldn't afford to pay me at that time, I would work as an 'apprentice' and spend time helping market what I still feel were one of his best pickups that he was designing- a humber with a variable resistance level- infinite possibilities of tone.

Essentially- Bill didn't quite realize that mid-December was a bad time to launch a new retail product line, and Bill also failed to realize that 'job' meant that he actually wanted me to form a distribution company and guarantee a reasonably large quantity of pickups on a regualr basis. I worked with my retail contacts who all said to contact me in January after Christmas. When he found out that I didn't have a pot of gold to buy his distribution company, I got a special present from Becky for my birthday- get the f&^% out- literally.

I had recently had a couple of guitars stolen a couple of weeks before this, and he was remaking a couple of testers for me personally. It was, to this day, the best pickups I have ever had- hands down. If you can ever get a hold of something like them, I would recommend them highly.

Not the same recommendation for Bill and Becky- two very ugly people.
 
That last post was confusing as hell. So you're saying the variable resistance pickups rock but Bill (Willi) sucks? All I know is I owned a L-500 once upon a time and it was a rockin humbucker. I have no clue which turtle made it.
 
TravisinFlorida said:
That last post was confusing as hell. So you're saying the variable resistance pickups rock but Bill (Willi) sucks?
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I was differentiating between someone who makes a great pickup and someone who is much less desireable as a person ethically. The real Bill Lawrence is both
 
So both companies are selling pickups labeled as Bill Lawrence with the same model numbers and everything?
 
TravisinFlorida said:
So both companies are selling pickups labeled as Bill Lawrence with the same model numbers and everything?
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Yep, at least the L500, as that's the one I have (but mine's the other Bill Lawrence company...) The difference as I've seen (not heard) is that the magnet blades on the Willi brand are thicker, look more substantial. I don't know how that affects the performance as I've never heard one, but the one I've got (the other BL, ya know) I love and will likely have until I eventually rewire it into a feeble mass of quivering wire and plastic...

As far as their "controversy", I don't give a rat's ass as long as they aren't flying airliners into skyscrapers...I believe that Leo founded MusicMan after leaving his namesake, and THAT company did just fine without instant name recognition...Somebody out there needs to grow up...

Eric
 
The ones that you buy through Stew Mac are the bad ones. The ones you buy direct off the company website are the real deal. I've read about this many times in the past, so far the verdict of the people who have tried them both is very clear in that regards. The pickup that Dimebag used and the pickups that caused all the hype around the Bill Lawrence name were the ones you order from the website, not the crap they sell at Stew Mac.
 
stetto said:
I believe that Leo founded MusicMan after leaving his namesake, and THAT company did just fine without instant name recognition...Somebody out there needs to grow up...

Eric
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Who might that be?
 
TheRockDoc said:
Who might that be?
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Anyone who thinks that name recognition alone is the avenue to success...If you have the shit and you know it, you'll make it go. At what point do you bypass the success of a name and start living down the petty quibling that's been going on for years...The reputation inevitably ceases to have as much to do with your product or whatever and turns to defending bullshit...

Eric
 
ibanezrocks said:
The ones that you buy through Stew Mac are the bad ones. The ones you buy direct off the company website are the real deal. I've read about this many times in the past, so far the verdict of the people who have tried them both is very clear in that regards. The pickup that Dimebag used and the pickups that caused all the hype around the Bill Lawrence name were the ones you order from the website, not the crap they sell at Stew Mac.
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As far as Dimebag goes, at the very least he used both. I've seen a video with my own eyes (it's on YouTube, I'll find the link) where he states that he gets his pickups from Stew Mac.


edit: It's either this video, or the second part.......I haven't watched the whole thing in a while

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIXo1kqARfg
 
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