Fret Tech

True "vintage" single coil Fender® styled Tele® stgring wound bridge, uncovered Tele® neck, and covered Strat® pickups that feature 42AWG and 43AWG coil wire, AlNiCo V rod magnets, black vulcanized fiber flatwork, Tele® coppered steel bridge base plate, cloth covered wire leads. Deep vacuum wax potting is standard (light wax potting by request) using a special 75/25 blend of paraffin and bees wax. Cavalier pickups are the real deal.

I build the bobbins, hand guide wind the coil wire, wax pot, charge the magnets and test every Lion, Lioness and Tiger pickup.

~ Rob DiStefano

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The Cavalier Lion Tele® bridge pickup has classic vintage flat top pole pieces and are wound to an average 8.7k coil resistance using 42AWG Formvar or Poly coil wire over AlNiCo V rod magnets. A *perfect* pickup for an Esquire®! The sound is twangy fat, punchy, bright, articulate, and growls well with overdrives and modulation pedals. A fat P90-like tone is achieved when used with a 250k/.022uf tone pot - better yet if the tone pot is modded as a no-load. Tele® Lion default winding pattern is clockwise, with the start lead as hot and the finish lead as ground. Top pole magnetic polarity choice and white or black string coil wrapping. Height screws and neoprene tubing included for bridge attachment.

Cavalier Lion
Tele® Bridge Pickup
$60

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The Cavalier Lioness Tele® neck uncovered pickup has classic vintage flat top pole pieces and are wound to an average 9.5k coil resistance using 43AWG Plain Enamel or Poly coil wire over AlNiCo V rod magnets. A *perfect* pickup to complement a Cavalier Lion! The sound is warm, articulate, and acoustic-like, works well with overdrives and modulation pedals. Tele® Lioness default winding pattern is counter-clockwise, with the start lead as hot and the finish lead as ground. Top pole magnetic polarity choice. Black tape wound after wax potting. Height screws and neoprene tubing included for both body and pickguard attachment.

Cavalier Lioness
Tele® Neck Pickup
$50

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The Cavalier Tiger classic Strat® set is wound 5.3k for the neck, 5.7k for the RWRP middle, and 6.1k for the bridge. Wound with 42AWG Formvar or Poly coil wire over AlNiCo V rod magnets. The sound is late 50's early 60's "Fender® vintage" - bright, articulate, will "quack" and twang well, and is quite compatible with overdrives and modulation pedals. Strat® Tiger pickup sets have clockwise winding for both the bridge and neck, and counter-clockwise for the middle (RWRP). For all Tigers, the start lead is hot and the finish lead is ground. Top pole magnetic polarity choice for each pickup. Standard Strat® plastic covers in white or black provided, customer's choice. Height screws and neoprene tubing included.

Cavalier Tiger
Strat® Pickup
$50

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Soundbytes

Cavalier Lion Tele®

Test guitar is an uber-light 5.2# Esquire partscaster, solid paulownia body, TRO-W Fender® Japan neck, vintage Wilkinson brass compensated saddles, and 11-50 nickel wound GHS strings.

Two amps were used - a Li'L Dawg "Champster Special" 5F1 w/JJ 6V6, 12AX7 & NOS 5Y3, 12" Weber AlNiCo 12A125 speaker, and a stock Reissue Fender Deluxe.

A tad of pedal compression was used for all tracks, guitar volume always left full up.

Amps were stereo digitally recorded directly to a Zoom H2, 44Hz/128bit wav files were generated and converted to mp3 files. Other than cutting and saving tracks, there was no sound editing of any kind.

The Cavalier Lion goes a little bit country ...

Guitar pickin' courtesy of Sean Aumack of the The Detonators

Champster Special - 1.2M - The master no-load tone pot fully engaged which completely removes both the pot and .022uf tone cap out of the signal path for direct raw pickup tone.

Champster Special - 3.36K - The master no-load tone pot is rolled back back 1/3 to 1/2 turn, which kicks it in for a nice fat P90-like tone.

Champster Special - 332K - Listen for the tone pot to go from a 1/2 rolled off fat P90 tone to completely off for a biting, cutting treble tone without that nasty ice-pick-in-the-ear.

Blackface Deluxe - 1.2M - A bit of reverb and overdrive added for some classic overdriven Tele/Esquire tones.

Test guitar is a "heavy" 6# Esquire partscaster, solid paulownia body w/bound maple cap, TMO-FAT Fender® Japan neck, vintage Wilkinson brass compensated saddles, and 11-50 nickel wound GHS strings.

The amp used is a box stock VHT Special 6 combo with no mods, tone set to 1/2, vol set to 3/4, no boost - you can hear the amp breaking up as it gets pushed. All fingers, no pick. Sound 1 - pup w/no tone pot or cap in the circuit, sound 2 - pup w/.0047uf cap on the signal to ground, soundb 3 - pup w/250k tone pot and .022uf cap, tone pot fully dimed (mud!).

Amp was stereo digitally recorded directly to a Zoom H2, 44Hz/128bit wav file was generated and converted to mp3. Other than cutting and saving the one track, there was no sound editing of any kind.

VHT Special 6 - 1.1M - Three playing styles, three switch positions, three distinct tones.

Another Esquire, this one sports a Trem King. GFS Paulownia body, TRO-W Tele neck, Cav Lion bridge mated to a special under pickguard dummy coil. The controls are my typical for an Esquire - bridge pup only, pup + tone pot/.022uf cap, pup + .0047uf cap.

Centrance & PC - 1.9M - Fingerpickin' recorded directly to the pc with no modulation fx, tone pot rolled in slightly. Listen to the Lion's acoustic-like sparkle.

Cavalier Tiger Strat®

The mint green Esquire® had some surgery recently, and like the emerging beautiful butterfly has become a Tele® (not that the Esquire® wasn't a beauty, either!). A Cavalier Tiger Strat® neck pup has been added, a 4-way pickup switch, and the rosewood TRO-W neck replaced with a solid maple TMO-C Fender® Japan neck. Does the fun ever stop? :)

Champster Special - 360k - Tiger neck pup into a bit of EH Memory Toy analog delay, into the Champster Special (as above) with amp volume at 3/4's and guitar volume full up, tone pot removed from the circuit, power section is way overloaded and pushed well into amp distortion. Recorded with a Zoom H2, fingers only (no pick) and no sound editing with Audacity.

Centrance & PC - 743k - Fingerstyle with the Tiger neck pup, recorded directly to an old notebook via a Centrance AxePort Pro and mixed down with Audacity in Win7. No modulation added or removed, just direct guitar-to-pc in one take.

Centrance & PC - 1.1M - Tele® with Cavalier Lion bridge and Tiger neck, recorded directly as noted above. No modulation added or removed, it is what it is. Tiger doing the rhythm, Lion on the lead. Fingers, no pick. Freebie drum track courtesy of the Web.

Cavalier Lion and Tiger pickups are wound exclusively using a custom Sidewinder coil winding machine that's available through Ohm Guitars. This is the finest professional hand guided coil winding machine on the market!

Cavalier dogs and Cavalier pups ...