
The All New Angeltone
Lightning

Soundclips Rhythm
Clean, Middle
Clean, Lead
Clean
Rhythm
Solid State Hot, Middle
Solid State Hot, Lead
Solid State Hot
JCM800
Rhythm Hot, JCM800
Middle Hot, JCM800
Lead Hot
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These soundclips were recorded without
drive or boost pedals of any kind - just plugged
straight
into an amp's clean channel with a little amp
reverb. The amp's volume
and tone controls
were untouched at all times. The 'clean' clips were recorded
with the guitar's volume on about 7
and the 'hot' clips were recorded with the volume
on 10.
There are two
kinds of 'hot' clips here for a reason.
The Lightning can overdrive almost any
amplifier without using any tone modifiers
of any kind
including drive or boost pedals, and to
demonstrate this I have recorded the 'hot'
clips
with two different types of amplifiers.
The 'solid state amp' clips were recorded
with a Fender Champion 100 solid state
practice
amp with a 10 inch speaker, and the 'JCM800
hot' clips were recorded on this 1980's
Marshall JCM800 50 watt halfstack with four
Celestion 12" speakers.
For the interested, the JCM800's controls
were set as follows -
Presence 6, Bass 4, Mid 2.5, Treble 6.5,
Master 5, Preamp 8
All of the clips were recorded using this
Fender AVRI 1957 reissue Stratocaster,
the same guitar I use to prototype all my
'Strat style' pickups.

The Lightning started out as an
experiment...
I was asked by a very old customer
of mine to make the most powerful 'Strat style'
single coil pickup I could
under these conditions - 1) the pickup had to be
passive with no preamp, 2) the pickup had to fit
in a stock
Fender Stratocaster body's pickup route with no
modifications, and 3) the pickup must still have
the clean tone
Angeltone pickups are famous for. Imagine having
a pickup with the ability to instantly change
your tone from
crystal clear to flaming hot simply by changing
where and how hard you hit your strings -
without using any drive
pedals or signal processing of any kind. It
wasn't easy, but after many prototypes I think I
finally succeeded.
The Lightning shares many of the same parts as
my other Angeltone 'strat style' pickups, but
that's where the
similarities end. This pickup represents a total
'clean slate' rethink of everything from the
pickup's basic design
and materials to the coil's design and magnetic
structure, and everything inbetween.
The Lightning has easily enough power by itself
to overdrive almost any amplifier without using
any drive
or boost pedals. It's also a very
dynamic pickup that cleans up
your tone when you lightly
pick your strings
or turn down your volume
control... all without using a
compressor.
The Lightning is
available with all three pickups 'stock'
with the same magnetic and coil winding for studio
work
or with the center pickup setup 'RW/RP' for
hum reduction when used with either the rhythm or
lead pickups
at the same time for onstage use. The RW/RP option
requires a '5 way' pickup selector switch (not
included).
Both options
are no extra cost -
please specify when
ordering.
The Lightning is also available with your choice of
pickup cover
colors.
Right Handed Pickup Covers Shown
'Lefty' Covers are also
available at no extra charge. Please
specify at ordering

Black,White or Aged White
(Parchment Not Shown)
Price - $224.95 USD for the set of 3
Free Shipping to CONUS customers