In the late 80s Thomas Blug was having a number of his vintage Marshalls serviced by the amp guru, Manfred Reckmeyer. But he was also looking for someone with an inroad to pickups. Master Reckmeyer had the answer: “Talk to Andreas Kloppmann, he knows what´s best!”. Shortly after that Thomas and I met.
Over the years Thomas and I have learned to appreciate each others knowledge and experience over endless discussions and analyses of old Strat pickups and how they compare to the curves my creations produce. The highpoint of our relationship was reached in the early 90s when I mounted a bespoke mid pickup on his beloved ´61 Strat. Since then this pickup has not once left its designated harbour. Thomas and I have continued our exchanges on guitars, pickups, capacitors and amps over the past 25 years, thereby cementing our respect and friendship for one another. Thomas´s experience and advice but also his tireless campaign supporting my pickups are major contributors to the international acclaim Kloppmann Electrics now enjoys.
During the testing of the Blug Signature Guitar, Thomas tried out my new Real 65 Set in one of the prototypes. He was blown-away by the typical mid´60s tone and promptly combined the neck and bridge pickup from the set with his rewired 1966 middle pickup. In doing so, the ST Blug II Set was created for his new project. The set was further fine-tuned and Thomas described it as follows: “My typical Strat neck pickup sound harmonizes perfectly with the beautifully mild bridge pickup and fantastic pearly sound can be produced in the positions 2 and 4”.
ST Blug I:
Thomas Blug was instrumental in my decision to develop my own Dummy Coil (DC). So what is a Dummy Coil? Well, I´ll have to get a little technical now: The Coil picks up the same interference as a normal Strat pickup. This is then serially mixed with pickup signal but with alternative phase. The disturbance is then materially reduced. The tone is more stable and smoother, which is hugely beneficial in high-gain sounds. Thomas uses the DC as much as a filter as a hum-reducer to create his sounds. Put in a less than technical manner: it sounds great and doesn´t hum!
At the end of the 80s Thomas Blug was on the lookout for the optimum middle pickup for his ´61 Strat. The studio projects of that time were driven by the intermediate 2 and 4 positions but the ´61 Strat´s middle pickup did not offer enough incisiveness to the tone. Thomas soon found an original 1966 Strat pickup which covered his needs and had me reproduce one as a RWRP version in 1993. In the meantime, Thomas has been named Best Strat Player in Europe with his individual tone being his trademark. The ST Blug Set consist of a replica 1960 neck pickup, the 1966 middle pickup and a 1962 bridge pickup.
