Seeing Stars
Cream T founder, Thomas Nilsen, is no stranger to our pages, and with pickups that are used by plenty of big names, including Billy F Gibbons, he must be doing something right. What’s his secret?
Thomas Nilsen made his first electric guitar pickup around 2007, although he’d previously been making a variety of acoustic pickups for a music store in Oslo. He formed Cream T in 2013 in the UK, and finally relocated here just last year. “I needed to expand, and I’d been getting a lot of attention in Norway because of my work with Billy,” he says. “I was working on a lot of new stuff and I couldn’t do that in Norway because of the expense of taxes, import/ export, and everything in Norway is so expensive – that was another factor in the whole thing. A major factor, though, was that I’d starting working with players like Derek Trucks and Lenny Kravitz, not to mention Billy, and to meet all these artists it’s much easier to be in the UK.”
Thomas’s Pickup Oracle Machine is a device that measures numerous parameters of a pickup
Central to the way Thomas works is his so-called Pickup Oracle Machine, a self-made device that comprehensively measures the parameters of a pickup, giving him the correct information to ‘clone’ or replicate an actual pickup from an artist or a significant historical guitar.
“It was Billy Gibbons who gave me the idea to make such a machine, because he told me how he tries to recreate the sound of his Pearly Gates Les Paul into other guitars he uses. I said, ‘Hey, let me look at it and see if I can do it in a more scientific way, and make sure we are able to get the whole frequency of the pickups from A to B, so I can read how fast the signal is travelling from A to B on the coil of each and every pickup.’ It will measure the whole frequency from around 120 up to 9,500Hz. That covers the whole thing like how the wire is put on the coil, how fast the signal is travelling through [the coil], and that will give me very complete details about how the winding pattern is done on the coils of the pickups.
“We will measure the exact frequency peak of the pickup: we measure the whole curve of the EQ regarding the frequencies of the bass, middle and the treble levels. I’m able to read all the details of what the human ear can hear regarding the frequency and the dynamic of the pickup.”
Armed with this information, Thomas has learned that matching these responses, not the materials themselves, is the key to ‘cloning’ a pickup. Thomas performed an experiment with a certain artist and his original Les Paul.
“I recorded and analysed the pickups from the guitar,” says Thomas. “I made a prototype from the readings. Today, what we get are not the butyrate bobbins of the classic pickups from the 50s; we used the polepieces and magnets you can buy today. I sourced the magnets to be exactly the same gauss readings as the original, because I’d measured that. The cover is the same type you get today. But I wound the coil in a specific winding pattern that I got from the readings of the original guitar’s
pickups. I put them in a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul and, basically, the artist couldn’t tell the difference.
“That proved to me it has nothing to do with the type of plastic bobbin you use, the polepieces you get today or the cover. To be honest, the material of the pickup doesn’t have that much to say; I disproved the statement regarding the materials and how important they are. It’s all about how the wire is put on the coil, the winding pattern, and how that signal travels and how fast it goes through the coil. That was my proof.”
Potting is another topic that Thomas believes is crucial to the pickup’s performance: “Yes, I pot my pickups, but it took me almost two years to come up with a special mixture. If you use too much wax, or only wax, you dampen and kill the
“The material doesn’t have that much to say… It’s all about how the wire is put on the coil” Thomas Nilsen
open frequency in the pickup; the pickup doesn’t breathe at all. The worst thing you can do is pot the pickup in paraffin wax. That is a no-go. So, eventually, I came up with a mixture where you can pot them but not kill the tone – and it actually sounds like they are not potted at all.”
What else has he learned about old pickups? “First of all, not one of the pickups that are in original ’59 Bursts are the same. Not one regarding the midrange, the treble, the bass frequencies and the output. I’ve tested 14 or 15 original ’59s now and no one sounds the same. I have tried an original ’59 that sounded more like a guitar made in China, from that to amazing-sounding ones.”
Another Gibson Les Paul actually helped in housing Thomas at Sound Affects in Ormskirk, as company owner, Tim Lobley, explains: “I had a Gibson Pearly Gates VOS Artist Proof #5 Les Paul for sale and Thomas contacted me and asked if he could come and see it. While he was looking at it he questioned a detail and actually called Billy to see if it was okay. He put a deposit down and when he came back to collect the guitar he brought me some pickups. As we talked more I eventually said, ‘Why don’t you come and make pickups here?’ But it all started with the sale of that guitar.
“There will be various options available,” adds Tim, noting that it’s still early days for the new venture, “pickups based on those he’s made in the past for the likes of Derek
Trucks, Jeff Beck and Billy F Gibbons or the Banger and Mash set you have there. There will also be signature pickups, too, in the near future. Then we’ll have the True Clone pickups based on the pickups in famous or significant guitars. And we also plan to offer that service to anyone: if they want to bring us their guitar, we can clone its pickups.”
While the new website is under construction (www.creamtpickupsdirect.com), contact Sound Affects on 01695 570023 or www.soundaffects.com for more info on Cream T pickups.