How the Duane Allman clones came to be 3/21/2019

The Duane pickups are actually some of the very first "clone" pickups I had the opportunity to do. I've had a love for the Allman Brothers ever since I started taking notice of soulful music and great guitar playing. As one does with any music or artist you really get into, you seem to pick up on funny stories, side notes, and the history that surrounds that music and those artists. One story that I always found intriguing was the story about Duane's very special or as I refer to them "The Magic" pickups!

The short version goes something like this. Duane wanted a Les Paul. He found a '57 gold top. This was the guitar he used on Layla and the Allmans early records. He really loved the way it sounded but also, he really always wanted a burst. He eventually found a '59 cherry burst owner that was willing to trade him for the gold top. There was one catch. He didn't think the cherry burst pups sounded as good as the magic pups in his gold top so the only way to make the deal happen was to swap the pickups of the two guitars as part of the trade. At another point down the road, he decided to add an additional burst to his arsenal, the tobacco burst that is affectionately known as "Hot Lanta".

This story lived in my head for a long time. As I learned about and started making my own pickups, I often wondered what made those pickups the "Magic pickups" for him. As you go down the rabbit hole of the famed PAF pickup you'll learn that there were some inconsistencies with the way they were manufactured that created room for some "happy accidents" to occur. Sometimes they would get less wraps, sometimes they would get overwound. They were also using a few different kinds of magnets. Also, they were winding them on machines but the way they were set up it allowed enough variance that it created a sort of hand wound or scatter wound effect. All these things increased my curiosity about the Magic pickups even more.

Fast forward to 2014. The Allman Brothers did the final run of shows at the Beacon theater in NYC. Sometime after those shows I ran across an article about those final shows and how Duane's daughter Gladrelle had made it a point to get her father's guitars to those shows for Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks to play as a salute to the music and a whole genre of "southern rock" that Duane and the Allman brothers had created.

One thing I took note of in the article was that the guitars had been hanging in a glass case leading up to then and it didn't necessarily do them a lot of good. In fact, they had to call in a top-notch luthier/guitar tech by the name of Tommy Alderson to Whip them into shape before Haynes and Trucks could use them in those last performances. This was a good read for an ABB lover. I enjoyed it but pretty much filed it away with those other Allman Brothers stories in my mind.

Now this leads us to March 21, 2019 (I put the date in the title of this article to remind me it's been seven years and how fast time flies). I get an email from a potential client asking me if I can make him a set of PAFs only, he would like me to make them just like Duane Allmans if I can. He also states that he has attached a magazine article about those last ABB shows because they mention Duane's guitars. I notice it's the same article I had read before but decide to go through it again.

When I read the article this time, I had a revelation! First, this Tommy Alderson guy must be a bad mofo if they are calling him into work on Duane Allman's guitars. Second, I wonder if he knew the story about the special pickups. I knew if I had those guitars in my possession I would have taken all the measurements to be able to clone that magic pickup. In addition, why wouldn't you want to do the same this with the Hot Lanta guitar that was on the Fillmore recordings.

I was able to track him down and send him a message. In short, I told him I was a pickup maker and would like to make a set as close to Duane's Magic set as possible and that if he would be kind enough to share any information, he may have about those guitars I would gladly make him a set as well as

be grateful to him for the rest of my life. He promptly sent back a reply and his phone number and stated that if I would just call him, it would save him a lot of typing.

Well, wouldn't you know it! He is a great and generous man and an all-around cool dude who also happens to be guitar tech for Deep Purple. We became fast friends. He had in fact heard the story of the Magic pickups and was willing to give me all the measurements he had taken along with sound samples he had recorded over the days he cared for the guitars and sent me several pictures of those famous instruments. He also sent me a picture of the hotel stationary he used to write all the measurements on. Knowing the recipe to Duane's magic pickups and the recipe for the tobacco burst Fillmore guitar was a definite boost to this guy trying to make a living out of doing the work he loves. At that time being the only one who knew the recipe to clone Duane's pickups opened many doors for me. I'll probably never be able to repay Tommy for his gift to me.

We will be releasing Both sets of the Duane pickups in the near future. The main reason we haven't done it before now is the fact that I wanted to sit down and give the back story on it first. Since we started making those Duane clones seven years ago it seems that several companies are doing a version they are calling "Duane" pickups. Knowing the actual info it's somewhat funny how far off a lot of those sets are.

The DA5759s (gold top/cherry burst clones) and the DATBs (tobacco burst Fillmore clones) will be the next sets added to our "Clone Series" family of pickups. Keep an eye out and get them ears warmed up! :)