All Ivison guitars come loaded with our own handwound pickups.
"We haven't mentioned the pickup mix... needless to say, it's stupidly good!"
GUITARIST MAGAZINE, JULY, 2025
Our Custom Wound Pickups
Every pickup is matched sonically to the guitar it is fitted to, ensuring the wood, wire and magnets work together in optimum sonic harmony before it leaves the workshop and arrives in your hands.
PAFs
Our take on the fabled originals from the 1950s. We start with all the right ingredients; plain enamel wire, butyrate bobbins, correct grade steel slugs and pole screws and vintage accurate covers, all cooked up into two distinct recipes:
Our ’59 set incorporates Alnico 4 long rough cast magnets, with a bridge and neck DC resistance of 8.6K ohm and 7K ohm respectively, to provide that classic PAF bite and snarl.
Our ’57 offering serves up a warmer, slightly cooler and more bluesy palate courtesy of the Alnico 2 rough cast magnets, wound to 8.0K in the bridge and 7K in the neck.
P90s
Based around a particularly musical original example from 1956 and incorporating a carefully selected slew of vintage accurate parts.
We find using a combination of Alnico 2 magnets for the bridge pickup, with an output of 8.5K ohm and Alnico 4 magnets for the neck, with an output of 7.2K ohm, provides all the grunt and girth expected from a great P90 set, without any hint of muddiness.
FREEBIRD
Our Freebird set is based very closely on the original pickups manufactured during the mid 1960s. Often compared to single coil tones sonically the Freebirds actually have a true humbucking construction.
A very careful combination of Alnico 2 polished magnets and 42 gauge coil wire, provide a bridge DC resistance of 7.6K ohm, while the neck unit sits at 6.3K ohm, all allowing for a bright, yet well balanced tone.
We voice the Freebirds to reduce some of the pronounced high end (particularly in the bridge) that the originals are known for so ours never feel overbearing or fatiguing.
FREEBIRD 90
Our Freebird 90 bridge pickup packs as much true P90 goodness under a Freebird cover as is physically possible. We use Alnico 2 rough cast magnets here with a custom bobbin, wound with 43 gauge coil wire that allows an output more akin to its full size cousin at 8K ohm DC resistance.
We developed this pickup after a request from Audley Freed (Sheryl Crow/Black Crowes) who requested a P90 bridge pickup but with the classic look of the Freebird. Coupled with a matched Freebird in the neck, we’ve nicknamed it our ‘Freedbird Set’ and it’s a winning combination that is currently rocking stages across the globe!
Our IviTron pickup incorporates a vintage correct parts list, with a few tricks to provide those super familiar overwound Tron tones. A very percussive pickup, with low inductance as found in the 60’s originals, yet with considerably higher DC resistance at 7.8K ohms.
Coupled with a correctly sized Alnico 5 magnet, makes this a hugely fun pickup to play, with enormous grin factor!
IVITRON
Workshop photography and Video Credits:
Six String Tales & Out There Film Co.
"We haven't mentioned the pickup mix... needless to say, it's stupidly good!"
GUITARIST MAGAZINE, JUNE, 2023