Has anyone heard of or have any experience with these?
The list of big name professionals that use their pickups is pretty extensive but I haven’t been able to find much information outside of their website.
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Nope…
and “use them” can be a very stretched term.
They might give some away for marketing street cred, or if anyone ever bought one they go on the list.
Beware of marketeers, they all have very very long, growable noses.
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I have heard of Rio Grande pickups in the guitar world. They were very highly thought of. Check out thegearpage.net. It is the repository on all knowledge in guitardom. (I just checked and their pickups for Strats are among the best as noted in some of the threads at TGP) You probably can’t go wrong with them. I know lots of artists use their guitar pickups. The have a set called the “Rio Grande BBQ” that are supposedly killer.
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The Mike Watt Wattplower mark II comes with a Rio grand pitbull neck pick up. I had a wattplower with just the p blade pick ups . The bass sound was amazing but neck was to big for my liking and sold it. Not big fan of wider necks, due to injuries.
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Some really serious names in there. I pulled out the guys using bass pickups for the forum’s reading convenience:
| Mike Watt | Missingmen | Pitbull Bass |
|---|---|---|
| Danny Miranda | Meatloaf | Muy Grande J-Bass® Set |
| Todd Pipes | Deep Blue Something | Powerbuckers for Bass |
| Tom Peterson | Cheap Trick | Muy Grande for P-Bass® |
| Dusty Hill | ZZ Top | Muy for '51 P-Bass®, Powerbuckers for Bass |
| Robert Kearns | Bottle Rockets, Jack Ingram | Muy Grande for P-Bass®, Muy Grande '51 P |
| Ben Franz | The Waifs | Muy Grande for J-Bass® Set, Muy Grande '51 P |
| George Helm | Sigur Ros | Vintage for J-Bass® Set |
| Scott Esbeck | Charlie Robison | Vintage for J-Bass® Set |
| Dave Dreiwitz | Ween | Muy Grande P for Bass |
| Steven Layne | Gary P. Nunn | Muy Grande for J-Bass® Set |
| Kevin McCormick | Jackson Browne | Muy Grande '51 P for Bass |
| Bill Whitbeck | Robert Earl Keen Band | Muy Grande J-Bass® Set |
| Kyle Shimek | American Fangs | Muy Grande for P-Bass® |
| Mark Reznicek | 1100 Springs | Muy Grande '51 P-Bass® |
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I’ve had a few guitar Rio Grande pickups and I still have one (a Halfbreed). excellent pickups with a lot of grainy raw character.
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I think they are the official pickups of ‘the old cowhands’.