Imagine going back in time to the 1950s and being able to get a set of pickups wound to suit your style and gear, then zoom back to today -- Don Mare's Pickups has done it!

100% vintage tone reproduction is found here, Its all about Vintage here, and nothing else, our entire focus is aimed at recapturing every detail. 1000's of Vintage Purist /Customers will agree!, Real 50's vintage magic happens here.

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One of the original winders, tone-tone-tone!
RELICING is optional. $10.00 ea. or $20.00 set
100% Real  Vintage Toned Pickups!!!
ALL HANDMADE -- ALWAYS "HAND-WOUND"

Best Vintage Wind Pattern!
The fine wire is always "Finger-Guided" onto each coil.

Recreating what is said to be:

"The World's Best Vintage Tone"

You get the best of the best vintage sound that's ever been fully replicated.  No automatic winding machine here.  No cam patterns or CNC are ever used!!

My machine is OLD SCHOOL- a perfect duplicate of one of Leo's 1950's "hand winders"
.


Awesome vintage pattern...
This old pattern/style of wind/tension/traverse/speed, etc. breaks all the rules!
  No Ice Pick, No Harshness- pure tone that breathes life into your fingers!  A real tool for musicians that has no limits or dead ends!


I feel this wind pattern was by far responsible for some of the best tones that ever left the factory in the 50's thru mid 60's.

The pickups' coil tension is nice and tight around all 6 magnets (not just the ends, so the volume is increased).
My hand wound coils are all done by eye.  The coil tension is felt and adjusted constantly by my 2-fingers.  This extra fine coil wire trails through my 2 fingers while the tension is continually adjusted to suit each and every wrap.
Next, I control my wire spool's angle to the chassis, and continually adjust my winder speed to
be sure the coils are extra tight.
My cloned winding style stays true to the original form.  This awesome wind is always recreated and used on each pickup I make, just like it was 1950 all over again!

These pickups are very labor intensive and, what I truly feel, are today's very best ever vintage clones!

-Don Mare

*NEW for 2013* lead time @ 5-to-6 weeks ( time from purchase to shipping)
Update-3-7-13:

"For late 60's Strats®"
From Leo to CBS Era (late 60's) Replicas

These used the smaller .187 Dia., hand bevelled Al-5 magnets and featured Grey Bottoms.  Their sound is probably the most popular of the Strat® sounds we all heard on the majorty of concerts and recordings!

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"For late 60's CBS era Teles®"

These also used the skinner .187 Dia., hand bevelled staggered Al-5 magnets and grey bottom flatwork.  They have a brighter, fuller sound.  These guitars also came with a combo of pots, 1 meg Volume and 250k tone (sometimes 1meg on both), with a treble by-pass on the volume (these parts are avalible on this site) to retain highs when rolling off volume.
These pickups are LOUD and have a full specturm of tone-- Perhaps the best sounding Teles® to ever leave the factory.

Now taking advanced Orders.
Get your  "For late 60's pickups" NOW by request.  Just email me for details at buck@buckcannon.com

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Just Added More Pickup Selections, Makes and Models!
USE THE MENU TO THE LEFT OF THIS PAGE

WAIT TIMES ARE DOWN 5 to 6 weeks tops..!!!

*NEW* TONE HOTLINE!!
 Call and speak directly to DON MARE
(562) 331-9042 /  Pac Time


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Some artists who enjoy Don Mare Pickups...

JOHN FOGERTY
is using Don Mare 3-Speed StangRay on 2 of his stage guitars.  3-Speed StangRay specs are: Alnico 5 @ 5.5k / 6.5k / 7.7k
(Thanks, John!  -DM)

Also Using Don Mare's Pickups is LOU REED. Lou likes Super Sports for
Tele®.

BOB SEGAR BAND likes the Hot Bakelites for Tele
®
 
SUBLIME w/ROME
enjoys Super Sports for Strat®
and P-bass®/Jazz bass® Pickups

KIRK FLETCHER: Hot Bakelites
for Tele®

JUNIOR WATSON: Junior Watson
Set for Strat®
 
BROFEY DALE: Hot-Bakelites
for Teles®

NICK MOSS

HENRY CARBAJAL


LA JONES


BILL KIRTCHEN


HAL LINDES
(formerly of DIRE STRAITS)


MARK KNOPFLER



(More artists are listed on the ARTIST PAGE)

-Don Mare

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ADDRESS:
Don Mare
PO Box 3361
Long Beach Ca. 90803

*NO "signature required" packages at the PO BOX, please.
For signature required packages, please email me or call for address.

There are NO CANCEL OUTS or REFUNDS once your order has been placed.  (Sorry, no exceptions!)

Your pickups will
be processed and delivered in just 5-6 weeks.

If your ever by-chance your order has passed 6 weeks or you just want to be sure your order is processing, then by all means do email me.  -DM 

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Everything here is made and done just like it was in 1950-to-62' all over again.  I have back-engineered only the very best of those old hand-wound pickups and settled on one special style of winding.

I use it on all my pickups.


All my DON MARE pickups:
- Have great organics

- A player's touch
- are attack sensitive and have very rich harmonics
- have perfect volume and note bloom

They breathe.  T
hey feel alive.

They are replicas of the world's best ever vintage pickup tone.
Not just another vintage, but the best ever vintage, making you say "That's the one!"

They inspire, making the strings sound better.  Your amp's tubes sound better.  They'll never hit dead ends or road blocks.  They do not limit your playing in any way shape or form.
Instead they inspire you to develop further than you could dream was possible with today's pickups.

This is NOT HYPE - I actually don't like pickup hype!
It's all Gospel truth!  That, I  can promise you.  And I will stand by this.

You will notice: All my DON MARE customers will verify
that these claims are 100% true.  (visit www.harmony-central.com - it's a good place to have a peek!).

I use my reverse-engineered vintage winding style "full-time." It's on everything I do here!
I then located the finest AlNiCo 3 & 5  magnets made.  These are actually better then vintage magnets, as they are more gas free and much more consistent then the old ones ever were.  They really do sound much better than any magnets we have ever heard!
I  also use the very best quality vintage-spec copper magnet coil wire that's being made today- beautifully toned wire.
My winder is a perfect duplicate of Leo's very first original winding machine, so your entire pickup coil is wrapped nice and tight around all your magnets- not just on the ends.  That way the overall output is much more powerful and
the brighter high-end has lots of head-room to spare.

- No metallic harshness 

- No ice pick at all
- No bright ear snap
-
No meshing or loss of single notes

Here you can finally find 100% real vintage tone dialed in to match your rig and style.

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Note from Don:

The best way to compare my pickups is at a Vintage Guitar Show or a store that sells loads of vintage.  That's how we did our testing here for many years, until we were 100% confident that I had unlocked Fender's best ever Vintage pickups.

Put any pickup I make up against an equal vintage counterpart and let it speak for itself.  Take the other maker's with you and do the same comparisons.  Otherwise its all "he said she said"- I like oranges, you like apples...etc.

But that was never my quest. I was out to nail vintage tone or nothing.
  I never wanted to sell a thing.  My quest was a personal one for me and a few artists I was tech-in for.

For 6 years I've never disappointed one vintage purist.  Not one.  And those guys are the toughest pickup customers on earth!

If you ever think you have a partsocaster with real vintage tone, do yourself a favor and do what we did- get out there and do a few A & B test comparisons with real vintage guitars.  Preferably with lots of them.

Now, if you can walk away happy, please call me and tell me about it.  I'd love to hear from anyone who's done it, and HONESTLY did not walk away from the test with his tail between his legs!!  Or going-- "Hey, we're only 85% max, but not 100%", because it's that 10% or 15% that will drive you nuts.  On many early test, we left the building with our tails tucked and saying 80%-85% many times before we got this vintage purist thing 100% down.  And we started all these tests with the TOP makers of the month, etc.  This was long before I wound one single pickup!  Then we did the same test to mine untill we flat out nailed it!


When you have owners of vintage guitars telling you they hear everything in yours that's in that vintage (Some even saing they like yours a little more) then its mission accomplished!  At least it was for the artist and myself here.  And that's the day I opened to the public- not one day earlier.

I was dead set on getting this tone or die trying.


-Don Mare


PS.. youtube "10k keefer"

    • DBA: Don Mare Pickups Long Beach, CA.
    • We sell guitar pickups that use the Fender® Stratocaster® guitar and Fender® Telecaster® guitar and Gibson® guitar. They are high quality pickups for Fender® guitars and Gibson® guitars (and many other brands).

      We are not representing them as products of the following companies: are all the property of Fender® musical instruments as if you did not know.

      We are not associated with Fender® or Gibson® and have never been. No relation.

      We are not associated with: Fender®, Gibson®,  or any of these companies and their trade names and trade marks are the property of the respective companies.

      Strat®, Esquire®, Telecaster®, Tele®, Jazzmaster®, Jaguar®, Dou-Sonic® Mustang®, Champion®, P Bass®, J Bass®, Fender®, Guild®, DeArmond® and Squier® are registered trademarks of Fender® Musical Instruments Corp.
    • GRETSCH®
    • In 2003 Gretsch® entered into an agreement with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC), under the terms of which Fred Gretsch III would continue to own the company, with FMIC handling most development, distribution and sales.[

    •   Gibson®, Les Paul®, SG®, Flying V®, ES-175®, ES-335®, L-5®, Byrdland®, Epiphone® and P-90® are registered trademarks of Gibson Guitar Corp.

Rickenbacker® and RIC® are the property of Rickenbacker International Corporation ("RIC"), 3895 S. Main St., Santa Ana, California 92707, USA. Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. All Rights Reserved under United States and international law.




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