KLOPPMANN PICKUPS
Vintage Inspired, Modernly Crafted
Recreating the Magic of Classic Tone
The Story Behind The Brand
How It All Began
In the early 80s, Andreas Kloppmann started working in a music store where he serviced and repaired electric guitars. Every since those days Andreas has been interested in how a pickup of an electric guitar worked. Together with Manfred Reckmeyer and Heinrich Sander, Andreas discovered some secrets of the magnetic coil...
In the middle 80s, Andreas started collecting data from every pickup that passed his workbench. To the best of his ability, he analysed these pickups and wrote down his findings. But it took time until the 90s until he was able to improve his analyse methods to understand what it was really all about.
More importantly (at least for Andreas), recording artists like Thomas Blug (guitar), Jürgen Attig (bass) and Peter Weihe (guitar) helped him to decide which sound (frequency response) of a certain pickup model was characteristic for it’s kind and manufacturing period (this Strat®-pickup sounds like Hendrix, this like Hank Marvin and this Jazz-Bass® pickup sounds like Pastorius - and of course a certain pickup in a certain guitar leads to completely different sounds).
Based on this knowledge Andreas can tell the sound of a pickup from it’s data and decide which one is good and which is not.
The Secrets Hidden Within Pickup Data
Andreas has learned a lot of very important facts by unwinding old pickups. It usually takes him about two days to unwind a pickup, but it is always worth it! In this way, he could not only find out how many windings there are, but also how they were wound onto a coil, which in fact is very important. Just to mention a few, Andreas unwound some Gibson® PAF Humbuckers (‘58,’61,’63,’68), Strat® pickups (‘56,’63,’66,’72) and others.
Every coil that Andreas produces himself is individually hand-wound. The bobbin is rotated by an old Siemens® winding machine from the 60s and the wire is guided by hand. A mechanic counter counts the windings. After having a few years of experience in hand-guiding magnet wires, Andreas can alter important parameters during the winding process which heavily influence the sound of that particular pickup.
Using a database filled with frequency response diagrams of different pickups from several manufacturers produced since the 50s, Andreas' pickups are made by comparing them with the original specifications.
Due to individual manufacturing, each pickup has its own special character. After its specs and frequency response the pickup is recommended for certain use and position (neck, middle, bridge, hot, soft). Each pickup has a production number. From this number Andreas can re-access the frequency response of every pickup produced. Because this production data remains saved, it is possible to choose an identical pickup from production. On request, it is possible to have a copy of the frequency response diagram. It can also be sent via e-mail. Please consider that this data is only meant for comparing-analysis using Andreas' database and does not provide absolute values.
For all of those who do not believe in data and frequency response diagrams, Andreas has been a performing artist for 25 years, a specialist in vintage guitars and of course he does benchmark his products by listening.