Hi Ash, welcome to Review Zoo
Please can you tell us a bit about Oil City Pickups?
Well, we are a small pickup manufacturing company making a wide variety of pickup types and form factors with our main focus being on tone. We have a reputation for both vintage style pickups and also innovative modern designs like our Oil City Blackbirds fitted as standard to Blackmachine B6 guitars.
What got you into making Pickups?
I’d been a gigging musician for many years but come from a family that has a long engineering tradition. My father and grandfather were aircraft engineers and I learned to operate a lathe when I had to be stood on a chair to reach it – it seemed a natural progression for me to start ‘making’ eventually.
How long have you been making Pickups for?
Thirteen years
Where are you based?
Leyton in London E10 UK
Where do you currently ship to?
I’m proud to say we ship all over the world and have customers from Europe to Japan and the US
What’s your favourite Pickup you make?
That’s a tough one … they are all my babies ,,, but I’d have to say my Wapping Wharf tapped Tele bridge pickup … I have it in all my gigging Teles.
Do you make pickups for 7 string Guitars and above?
We certainly do, and we do slanted multiscale pickups to pretty much any angle I even have made custom 10 string pickups for Pedal steel!
Do you take custom orders, if so, what sort of choices do customers have in customisation?
Absolutely we do have a ‘standard’ range with cover and wiring choices but we happily take custom orders, and customers can pretty much have what they want! If you can dream it we can probably make it.
Who are your favourite bands?
I have really wide listening tastes … I started as a rock/metal guitarist so I would have to say Black Sabbath or Tool – but I love SRV and old blues stuff like Albert Collins too.
Favourite albums of all time?
Probably Stevie Ray Vaughn: Texas Flood. Lucious tone and fire and ice in the playing.
What do you enjoy doing when you're not making Pickups?
Playing guitar, and taking photographs
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