Tom Short's Handmade Pickups Steve Bistrow Western Swing/Jazz Floater

This is a gold-plated, floating, passive, single coil pickup for archtop guitars. It is fastened to the underside of the pickguard with a gold plated machine screw.

I installed this fine pickup on my 2001 D'Angelico New Yorker in place of the original Kent Armstrong humbucker. This hollow-body archtop uses a floating design (no attachment to the body) at the neck position only. The Bistro uses the original volume & tone pots, so all I had to do was unscrew the original from the pickguard, screw this one on, and solder the signal and shield leads to the original volume pots. This was a trivially easy job, but I took my time and took precautions to avoid careless marring of the guitar's finish - I covered the guitar with several layers of cloth, and moved the pickguard far enough away that I was not soldering over the instrument. The original wiring was long enough to permit moving the operation several inches from the guitar body without removing the jack and wire from the guitar.

This is a big (18") hollow-body archtop, so we would really want (and expect) a smooth, rich midrange for a traditional jazz voicing. I have an old Gibson Tal Farlow, which almost, but not quite, gets the sound I want from the New Yorker. The Gibson does a nice humbucker sound, with a little hollow-body warmth added in, which I characterize as a "late 1950's sound", but I wanted a little less direct, more acoustic sound. I call that a "1940's sound".

I'm not a good guitarist. I've played bass for 40 years, but I'm getting more interested in guitar. Tone is my thing. Strat tone, Tele tone, Martin tone, Guild dreadnaught tone - tone is where I am.

Until recently I used an old (1971) Fender Twin Reverb with original Jensen speakers. Rather than rebuild it or replace the aging components (particularly the electrolytic caps), I now use a 1960's Fender AB763 circuit, Dual Showman-type head that I made myself, with 4-10's or two 4-10 cabs. I use that rig for bass or guitar. The old blackface Fender circuit delivers the tone I'm looking for, for guitar or bass. I use the reverb channel for guitar, with just a hint, more or less, of tremolo and reverb. I use no effects or stomp boxes on any instrument - just straight into the amp. Adding gadgets with transistors & such into the circuit just adds harshness and graininess.

My New Yorker is a Vestax (Japan) instrument, and is really nice. Great looks, wonderful action, great playable neck. Acoustically, it has a fine harmonic balance, but not a lot of volume or projection. It's an archtop after all, not a dreadnaught...

Unfortunately, the original Kent Armstrong pickup just did not do the guitar justice. I found the Armstrong pickup to be dead, with very little in the way of midrange harmonic content and a tinny treble. Rolling off the treble did nothing to fill in the midrange at all.

I stumbled across Steve Bistro's story of many attempts to correct this problem on his New Yorker. Steve got Tom Short (http://tomshortshandmadepickups.com/steve_bistrow_western_swing_jazz_floater.html) to hand-wind several designs for him over an extended period, until they came up with the right sound. That is the story of this fine pickup.

How does it sound?
First, every string is distinctly and cleanly audible. Strummed fast or slow, a chord does not muddy up.
Second, the tone is rich - it captures the all-important midrange harmonics that this big hollow body generates. Tone control turned up full gives a nice sparkle, but not tinny, with that nice little bite on the low string attack. Roll off the tone a bit, and you get a nice smooth, round lead or chord sound, which is what I wanted right along. Roll the tone all the way back and it just darkens the sound a little more - one of the true tests of a pickup. That's where a cheap pickup gets really muddy sounding. The Bistro stays clean and distinct, just darker.

The instructions say to criticize, but I can't really think of any shortcomings. This is not a loud pickup, I guess. I don't really know because I use a lot of amp, and that makes loudness a non-issue for me.

I like this pickup so much that am really thinking about buying some of Tom's other models. It's pretty. The gold plating is perfect. It looks right on a pretty guitar like the New Yorker. It was easy to install. The price was right ($200).

My search is over.

Make sure you measure the thickness of your original pickup, and specify it in your order. Not all pickups or archtops have the same height under the strings, and 1/10 of an inch can make the difference between the right fit and no fit at all. Remember, a floater sits just above the body - there is no adjustment for height. Tom will make the pickup for you just exactly as you specify.

Tom is great to do business with. He's friendly by phone or email. He really knows pickups, for sure. He makes each one by hand. He's not a pickup factory, and that makes all the difference.

I don't buy a lot of pickups, but Tom's the man. Buy his pickups! I might rig up a Tele with one of Tom's other models one of these days.