4.52am Issue: 003 9th October 2016

FLETCHER PICKUPS
Hell Level 5
Ben Fletcher has launched a new UK-based
pickup company in the West Midlands this
year, taking no time at all to get up to
speed with a variety of designs and pickup
types.
As with most things in 4.52am we will be
looking at Ben’s approach and the company
in Guitar Quarterly, whilst here, over the
coming months we will be checking out
each of his different pickup designs.
As for no apparent reason they are always
the last thing I look at, I thought I’d start
with Ben’s hotter humbuckers, a range he
has quite aptly named ‘Hell’.
First things first, and something that I’m
sure will appeal to a lot of people reading
this, Ben is making
handwound/scatterwound pickups, using
top quality components in the UK.
Bear that in mind.
Ben is also doing it at price-levels that we
would normally expect to be buying massproduced,
Eastern pickups from the likes of
IronGear and Tonerider, in fact the Hell I’m
looking at here is the same price as the
IronGear Tesla Shark. So I’ll say it again,
Ben is making these pickups in the UK by
hand.
Trying not to dwell on his profit margins, I
asked Ben to describe his Hell Pickups, here
is what he had to say,
“Hell are my hottest humbuckers, and the
blue ones you see in the photo were
made especially for a customer.
I should explain, that all of my pickups
can are made to order and as such as are
available with a variety of options.
There are four levels to Fletcher Hell:
a. Level 5:
This has an Alnico 5 magnet and is
reasonably balanced tone-wise
with nice, full mids.
b. Levels 8:
This has a clearer high end than
the Alnico 5.
c. Rock Bottom
This has a Ceramic magnet giving
Fatter mids and lows, and
d. NeoHell: This is as bad as it gets
with a Neodymium magnet and is
simply described as - Childish!
For this set, the customer required
uncovered Blue bobbins to match his
guitar.
As for the customer’s response,
Thanks a million Ben, FANTASTIC sounds,
really crunchy clear as a bell. BRILLIANT
work, LOVE 'EM."
Check Fletcher Pickups out Here