EY sells a set of three vintage style lipsticks for about $40. That was worth a gamble to me, even though I'd end up with an extra lipstick pickup. I was getting a red tort guard for this particular Jag anyway, so I took the chance. The pick guard is printed tortoiseshell, but it's a good quality print, and still looks pretty good. It wasn't until I noticed the same pattern in one of the other red tort guards that I ordered that I realized it was a print, so it's definitely convincing.
I'm quite glad I did! But I'll cover the sound a bit below. First I'll go over mounting them - which is the major stopping point for many who want lipstick pickups in a Jag. I'm a bit light on pics for assembly, but hopefully some clear descriptions and a nice demo will make up for that.
First off on fitting them, the baseplate needs modified. The pickups themselves fit perfect. The baseplate, however, extends significantly beyond the pickup itself.
What I did to remedy this was use some heavy duty metal snips to simply cut off one end of the baseplate. This removes the screw mounting option from that side, so doing so causes some stability issues if you're planning on mounting them with a screw.
My idea was simple - use the baseplate in conjunction with a secondary metal holder. There are a lot of ways you can do this, but I went with the fastest and easiest route.
I cut two thin strips of metal sheeting. I found it with a small box that was made out of it, but basically any thin metal will work. It just needs to be strong enough to stay steady, yet thin enough to bend to shape.
Next, I unscrewed the baseplates. I slid a metal strip between each pickup and baseplate, then re-tightened. This, when looking at the pickup from the top, gives you a sort of cross shape.
From there, I set the pickups into their respective cavities, and adjusted them to be centered, and the correct height. I then bent the metal strips I fashioned to the correct shape for the pickup height I wanted - letting the top parts rest on the body where it will be covered by the pick guard.
I used painter's tape to secure the metal strips in place. This, in turn, secures the pickups in place as well. Something like Gorilla tape or duct tape would likely hold far better, but I was looking at keeping it entirely reversible, and having no residue.
The end result is two evenly placed lipstick pickups in a Jaguar without any body mods. They're sturdy, and are holding in place just fine. Similar brackets could be fashioned to screw into the body, but for my uses these are working just fine.
Sound-wise, the lipsticks are very, very responsive. They're on the bright side, but not ice picky. There's a hint of jangle to them, and they're fairly low output. They contrast very well with traditional Jaguar pickups, and I've been enjoying them with fuzz quite a bit. They shine on clean tones though. I'm quite happy with the tone from them, especially at the price. Not only that, but I still have another one left.
Here are some pics and demos. I'll update this with some shots of the metal strips and how the pickups are held in place when I do a much needed string change in a few days.
Demo:
https://soundcloud.com/noisemaker-effects/squier-vintage-modified-jaguar
