At Cecca Guitars, we love ideas that seem obvious once you hear them. The Heritage Charlie 90is exactly that: taking the legendary DNA of the Charlie Christian pickup and putting it in a P90 Soapbar format. Simple on paper. Powerful to the ear.
The name doesn't lie. This pickup is directly inspired by the reissues of the legendary Charlie Christian pickups from the 70s—those rail pickups that shaped the sound of electric jazz before rock even existed. But this isn't just a simple copy: Cecca Guitars reinterprets this concept with a modern, handcrafted vision, preserving the magic of the original.
The principle? A P90 at heart, but with a single rail instead of the traditional row of six pole screws.
The rail means more inductance. And more inductance means more bass, more low-midrange, more overall power. But here's the trick: this extra inductance allows for a lighter winding. And a lighter winding means:
The result is paradoxical and fascinating: despite a relatively low DC resistance compared to a classic P90, the Heritage Charlie 90 delivers the power of a vintage P90, with the added bonus of more pronounced bass, generous headroom in clean tones, and ample gain. The attack is crisp, sharp, and decidedly twangy—a true single-coil character in a P90 Soapbar format.
I selected two rough cast Alnico to compose this set, each tailored for a specific role.
Warm, deep, expressive. Generous and round bass, enveloping mids, singing highs with that characteristic sweetness of Alnico 3. A pickup that will appeal to Blues and Jazz lovers as much as Grunge, Indie or Fuzz guitarists, in search of that organic and slightly compressed tone that sticks with you.
More tightly wound, more powerful. The bridge delivers a full-bodied, dense, and purely organic sound. Highly dynamic, it handles significant levels of distortion without losing definition. It will take you into the realms of pure Rock, Stoner, Doom, or Punk, with that raw energy and tight bass that make all the difference.
Lovers of sounds with real character, from the warmest Jazz sound to an organic "graveliness" of a complex overdrive, you are at home here.