Adeson Tri-Sonics

There are different versions of the Adeson pickups. I requested a "Brian May" trio set.

I have a set of these installed in my homemade Brian-May style guitar.

If you're going for "that sound" that is unique to Mr. May, you probably know about these. This is the closest that I have been able to get to achieving it. These sound right.

I've owned Kent Armstrong's Burns reissues. These are much different. These have more top end detail, but the sound is not piercing. It is a slightly smoother sound.

If you search YouTube for "Scott's Homemade Red Special Guitar" you can hear me playing these.

I would buy another set. There really is no substitute for this pickup if you own a Brian-May type guitar.

Passive, vintage single coils. Wax-potted and totally silent. Check out the Adeson website for specs, I'm not going to type them out.

I bought these to install in my Dillion DBM-04T Brian May Red Special copy. I purchased all three for under $200 CAD including shipping (in less than two weeks) from the UK. They may as well have been beamed down from sound heaven. They are absolutely spectacular and I would never think of buying anything else. I replaced the factory Dillion pickups which were basically cheap strat-copy crap. Couldn't have made a better decision.

These pickups sound like an siren scream from a teflon well. Like an electric whale in haunted sea. Truly amazing. Output is a little hot, and can require some tweaking to keep them under control, but that's what this game is all about anyway, isn't it? I play it primarily through my Marshall JCM800 and 4x12 which is excellent, but also through a Vox VR30 which gives it a much more round and cool-sweet quality. They put out virtually no hum for single coils, however with the Vox (which is somewhat noisy anyway) the hum seems to be amplified a little. No noise whatsoever through the Marshall though. Tone is middy with a good mix of shreek when you want it and just enough bottom to round it out. Each pickup sounds great. I play rock and so I play all kinds of tones for different dynamics. I tend to blend the middle with one or the other of the neck or bridge (personal preference) but I can get a good dirty honky tonk tone to a nasty bridge rock tone to a full, thick mouthful of a tone from the neck. All with a very warm and dynamic vintage tone that sounds like home. Beautiful.

There's nothing wrong with Burns Trisonics. I was researching what kind of pickups to try in my Dillion and came across the K'z guitars website which uses the Adesons exclusively. So I emailed Adeson and corresponded a bit. I really appreciated all of the correspondence and the price is so reasonable that I couldn't pass it up. I made the right decision. I haven't compared the Burns to these back to back, but I have demoed a Burns Brian May and it sounded great. My guitar sounds like a dream now, and I was even able to get the Adesons with Tortoise Shell inlay to match my Tortoise pick guard!! It looks deadly! I know this review sounds glowing, but I really can't say enough about these pickups. Check out the Adeson website. Seriously consider these pickups if you are thinking at all about that vintage British tone.

Pickup features: Single coil replicas.
Impedence or other specs: Standard 7K 1964 Vintage spec.

Model of guitar or bass: KZ Red Special and Home made Red Special
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: Kent Armstrong Tri-Sonics
Other pickups on guitar: N/A
Artists using this pickup: Brian May
You musical style(s): All styles but mainly rock music.
Reason for pickup change: I decided to try out the Tri-Sonics after reading the very interesting details on the website and chatting with Adrian at Adeson. The cases, baseplates, coil winding methods and magnets have all been replicated.

Perceived output level: I expected these pick-ups to be slightly hooter than what I was using. But compared to original Tri-Sonics they were very close indeed.
Tone: Middy
Sonic evaluation: I use these pick-ups with a treble booster and two AC30's connected in stereo with a Boss CE-1 Chorus. These pick-ups were based on the typical value of a Tri-Sonic from 1964. I figured that this is what Brian May would have got when he bought his at that time. The sounds are stunning. Of course Brian's pick-ups are wired in series so they add together rather than like a Strat or other type of guitar. Generally the were more powerful than my Kent set. The clarity was retained though. They are very warm but clear. The bridge and middle in phase at full volume gave a very warm, rounded and smooth tone. Plenty of sustain and clean as well. Lowering the volume retained some gain and of course a cleaner tone came. This was great for a crunchy rhytym sound. Powerful still but with a kind of strat twang to it. Low volume and the guitar cleaned up with a clean bell like tone. This was something I could not get right before. Out of phase settings such as neck and middle had warmth but were really screechy. Very tuneful but just as I wanted. Something else I was unable to achieve properly before.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: Generally I play Classic rock music.

Comments: I would definitely replace them if they were lost or stolen but then I would have to replace the guitar too!
These pick-ups have transformed my guitar and I would not use any other set for my two Red Specials.
I asked for them to be waxed to further reduce any microphonics. These things were totally silent. Adeson have been very helpful and very informative about the history of these pick-ups. They are very highly recommended.