Q Pickups review: great and inexpensive custom wound pickups (2024)

I just bought a set of Q Pickups to put in my daughter's strat and wanted to give a quick report. No affiliation on my part, but there really aren't any reviews of these out there so I wanted to write something up. TL;DR: $84 for a set of 3 hand made pickups custom wound to my specs.

I'd been looking for an inexpensive pickup set for my daughter's Squier Protone Strat since the stock pickups were really thin sounding. I was going to go with GuitarFetish but got cold feet and ended up doing a bunch more searching and found these on Reverb. These are hand made by a guy in Croatia. $84 for a set of three and there were some intriguing options, so I decided to go for it.

I ordered the Alnico 2/5 mixed magnet set since I was shooting for a set that was less shrill and a bit beefier than what she had. After ordering, the builder contacted me and said he was out of gray bottom plates and asked if I minded if he used a different color. I had thought I was buying off of the shelf, but it turns out that he hand winds them once you order, so if you get in touch, he can wind them however you want. I asked for a slightly hotter wind on neck and middle, and a hotter bridge. He'll wind them to whatever DCR you ask for, and you can get staggered or flat poles, and whatever kind of magnets you want. They got to my house in CA in about 10 days. Word of warning, they don't come with covers though. I was planning to reuse the old covers, but found that the Squier pole spacing is different, so I had to go buy a set of Fender covers. Not a huge deal, but worth noting.

So I ended up with a set of Alnico 2/5s (5s on the wound strings, 2s on the plain) with flat poles, 6.1k neck, 6.5k middle, 7.9k bridge (as measured by me, which was spot on to what I asked for). They look really well made and sound great in this guitar. Sweet and warmer highs and a bit more beef in the bridge for gain sounds. It's not the same, but I like the tone of my daughter's Squire as much as I do my own American Standard now.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to anybody looking for a new set of pickups. Builder was a pleasure to do business with and I'm really happy with the tone. This is a great set as built to these specs, but you can get creative if you want too.

metrokosmiko said:

Looked up this thread after seeing his listings on Reverb. Might get around to trying them. Got any clips?

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No, sorry. Haven't recorded anything with them.

Necro bump, but I just want to say how awesome the Q tele pickups are. I've purchased 2 tele bridge pups.
Red bobbin, Alnico 3, 13K. no baseplate. It was $40 shipped. Sounds fantastic. Note: no baseplate = I needed to ground the bridge.

Black bobbin, Alnico 2, 8K. Steel Baseplate. This was $50 shipped. Flippin Awesome. Takes me to cowboy land with my Bigbsy B16 and Carmen Ghia.

They show up super fast considering he builds them to order and ships from Croatia.

Bumping again for future researchers.

I got a mixed AlNiCo 5/2 set for my Tele, 42awg neck, 43awg bridge (broadcaster tone!)
The man was happy to narrow down the specs with me and wind me exactly what I wanted.
He made them to order and shipped out promptly.
I just installed them on my Tele a few days ago and I'm blown away.
Neck pickup is meaty, throaty, sweet. The middle position has that tele glassy quack, the bridge has all the twang and plays very nice with overdrive. I can't imagine anything better than these, I'm 100% happy with the tone (unlike with Fenders, Duncan... which are still good)
Now I'm thinkign of ordering a set for my Strat. I strongly recommend the guy!

https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=q pickups shows all sorts of offerings.

FractalGarden said:

https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=q pickups shows all sorts of offerings.

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Right - and exactly one is an actual Q pickup and not from the builder.

sedawkgrep said:

Right - and exactly one is an actual Q pickup and not from the builder.

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It might be something with your filters / preferences on Reverb?
Here's the guy's Reverb shop, in any case. https://reverb.com/shop/q-pickups

metrokosmiko said:

It might be something with your filters / preferences on Reverb?
Here's the guy's Reverb shop, in any case. https://reverb.com/shop/q-pickups

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Wow. Thanks for that! Yeah I wasn’t getting any of those. I may have had a filter on location.

Necro-thread revivial, because I did a quick Google search. They're the real deal. I didn't really like the BKP pickups in the Johnny Marr Jaguar - they do the Marr thing, but not the me thing - and I figured I'd roll the dice since not many people make hot-Jag pickups. Arrived quickly and surprisingly, I loved 'em. More grunt and output, no shrillness.

Just ordered a pair of P90s in humbucker housings. He says they're built on P90 bobbins the right way. I'm an idiot about how they're built, but if they sound good I'll be happy. $120 a pair shipped? Yes, please.

RyanC. said:

@hitchco*ckblonde – Did you end up receiving the HB sized P90s from Q? Would love to hear your thoughts, as I'm considering ordering the same set to put in an MIJ Les Paul. Thanks in advance!

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I did. I REALLY like 'em. I will say they are "smooth" for a P90. Not as big a hoking mid-range as a hot Seymour Duncan. Very clear, balanced, pretty loud. It's hard to separate the guitar and amp from the pickups and how clogged my ears are or how good my mood is... but the IMPRESSION is that they're kind of like the Lollars I played once. More a clear and piano-like pickup sound than anything with tons of emphasis on one frequency or another.

J_Higgins said:

I just received a pair of humbucker p90's to install in my project strat. Currently, it has a G&L humbucker in the neck and a GFS Nashville Retrotron. I am excited to hear what these pickups will do to this guitar!!

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Nice, I think you'll love 'em! I have a set of Q pickups P90s in this beautiful B-way Custom guitar that I grabbed for a great price, they sound absolutely amazing! Wouldn't hesitate to get another set.