Bill Lawrence Pickups

[SABOTAGE]

FYI - The situation is not that Bill "allowed" another company to market pickups with "his name". The company that he used to co-own, and that owns the "Bill Lawrence" trademark, is still in business, even though Bill has had nothing to do with the company for the last 20 years.

It's kind of like the situation with Leo Fender and the Fender company; after Leo was no longer there, the company continued to own the "Fender" trademark and market products with it. The original Bill Lawrence company sold products with the "Bill Lawrence" trademark when Bill was with the company and still does, even though Bill's no longer there.

But the original company has not given permission to Bill to use the "Bill Lawrence" trademark to market his new pickups. That's why they've asked the Patent and Trademark office to cancel Bill's registered trademark. Be sure to visit this link...

http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?q...&pn2=&cop=&cn=

...and read the cancellation petition. There's lots of good information.

in a nutshell who has the "BETTER" 500XL?

[Bluesman75]

Well underthose circumstances i take back what i said bout his name being stolen though i still wouldnt buy bill lawrence pickups from anyone but the man himself since my understanding is the stew mac pickups are terrible and it doesnt do bill lawrence anygood having his name on crappy pickups when the real deals are quite unique and great pickups.

FYI - The Bill Lawrence pickups that Stew Mac used to sell are not "crappy". They're made by the original Bill Lawrence company and they sound great! I've owned a bunch of them and have used them for years. Never had any problems with them, always have great tone. Unfortunatly, besides using the trademark of his old company without their permission, Bill has also been bad mouthing the products they make in an attempt to further hurt the company.

[SABOTAGE]

FYI - The Bill Lawrence pickups that Stew Mac used to sell are not "crappy". They're made by the original Bill Lawrence company and they sound great! I've owned a bunch of them and have used them for years. Never had any problems with them, always have great tone. Unfortunatly, besides using the trademark of his old company without their permission, Bill has also been bad mouthing the products they make in an attempt to further hurt the company.

here is the ones the stew mac used to sell,
http://www.torresengineering.com/billawl5hum.html
nice price at $42! http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/e...post&p=272291#
http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/e...post&p=272291#
but look at the resistance of the XL it is way under the 16K that the other
http://www.billlawrence.com/
sells ?

[Bluesman75]

in a nutshell who has the "BETTER" 500XL?

"Better" is totally subjective. They both sound great to me, but I only own pickups from the original company (www.billlawrenceusa.com).

[SABOTAGE]

"Better" is totally subjective. They both sound great to me, but I only own pickups from the original company (www.billlawrenceusa.com).

OK but just to let you know one is 11.2K and the other is at 16K?
quite i difference to me

[Bluesman75]

thnaks for clearing that up, now on to my next question
why does the two 500XL's look and sound different from one another?
one has the larger(thicker) blades and the other has the skinnier blades?
I was told that the ones from BL USA have a trebly,thin tone and have a resistance of 11K and the ones from BL.com have a 16.2K resistance and sound full,ballsy,and just plain "better" and are the ones that dime from pantera used before going to duncans?

The difference in blade thickness is not as great as it looks in the photos - there's only a .5 mm difference. The pickups made by both companies are very bright and you'd need to turn down the treble to get a "full" tone from them, but they're both very "ballsy". I haven't measured the resistence on mine, but it's the loudest pickup I've ever owned.

I don't know which one Dime used personally, but his signature guitars (as well as the Nuno guitars) all have the BL USA pickups in them.

[Bluesman75]

OK but just to let you know one is 11.2K and the other is at 16K?
quite i difference to me

But whether one sounds "better" than the other is still subjective. Higher resistence does not equal "better". The L-500XL I own from BL USA is a very musical pickup - lots of character, sounds great clean or overdriven.

But just to put the resistence in perspective, 11 .2K is higher resistence than the Alnico II Pro, Pearly Gates or Screamin' Demon, which are all fine sounding pickups as well.

[theodie]

I have owned both versions of the XL-500 and they both are decent pickups but, I prefer the one from BillLawrence.com or the 16 ohm version alot more. I have heard complaints in the past about the 11.2 XL 500's being noisy with microphonic issues but, I have never personally witnessed it.

[Bluesman75]

I have owned both versions of the XL-500 and they both are decent pickups but, I prefer the one from BillLawrence.com or the 16 ohm version alot more. I have heard complaints in the past about the 11.2 XL 500's being noisy with microphonic issues but, I have never personally witnessed it.

I've owned the ones from BL USA for many, many years and mine have never had noise or microphonic issues either.