Wilde Pickups by Bill Lawrence
Bill spent nearly seven decades in the music industry as a musician, designer, and engineer. Learn more about his legacy through his biography, patents, and writing.
We offer a small, well-selected collection of Bill's favorite original models.
Since the days when Bill mass produced pickups, we still own an enormous amount of high-quality tooling and equipment which makes us independent from expensive outside suppliers. We are a small family based company and we operate on a modest budget without marketing or paid endorsers.
Our pickups are made in the USA using almost exclusively US-made parts, from the copper wire and machined parts to our injection molding and chrome plating. Just like our customers, we choose to support small business offering an incredible product.
A Note from Bill Lawrence
All my pickups fulfill the five most important things any player is looking for: output, dynamics, transparency, versatility, and a balanced tonal response.
Every pickup is made to perfection.
Each coil is carefully wound to precise specifications which insures that the coils are free from any internal shorts to guarantee a consistent sound quality. All pickups are treated with high temperature resistant wax to reduce micro phonic squealing.
Finally, each pickup has to pass our quality control check.
We measure the DC and the total resistance, the inductance and the Q Factor; but most importantly, I have developed a system that detects minor shorts or semi-shorts in a coil. These shorts will cause eddy currents to flow in the coil. Eddy currents interfere with the signal, alter the sound reproduction and cause severe losses. All coils must be free of internal eddy current interferences to pass our final inspection.
Our product is our advertisement.
Our History
After producing for OEM since 1991, Bill Lawrence and his wife Becky started selling direct to players in 1996 from their shop in Bethlehem, PA under Wilde (William Lawrence Design) and Keystone. In addition to the classic twin blade L500, they started Bill’s Noisefree Singles line for Strat and Tele with the L280, bringing greater versatility and a full-bodied response with a sweet highend. Other products included Bill’s redesigns of the bass and steel guitar pickups we continue to offer today. Their daughter Shannon first started making pickups during this time as a teenager!
While consulting for Fender starting 2003, Bill and Becky moved to Southern California as Bill designed and set up production for their Samarium Cobalt Noiseless series, featured in Fender’s American Deluxe series released in 2006. After completing the project, Bill and Becky expanded the Noisefree Singles line with the Alnico poled L200 and the “specialty” L298. They also released the single-coil Keystones, inspired by Bill's research studying dozens of the best examples of early 60s pickups.
Bill then designed the L45/L48, his twin blade masterpiece, which fulfilled his dream of capturing the sparkle and inbetween tones of early 60s pickups while delivering as much versatility as possible in a noisefree package. Even during their production, Bill continued experimenting to get the greatest possible performance using high coercivity permanent magnets, which resulted in the Microcoils — Bill’s personal favorite and proudest achievement in design work.
After Bill’s passing in 2013, Becky and Shannon continue to run their business producing Bill’s greatest design work from their shop in Macon, GA. We have been hard at work streamlining the website and getting orders out to you! Please join us on social media or sign up for our newsletter for future updates.