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Friday December 26th, 2003

Gibson reunites power and dirt in Dirty Fingers^TM guitar pickup

The Dirty Fingers guitar pickup, once described in Gibson Guitar literature as "The critical union between power and dirt," has returned after a 20-year silence. Gibson's Strings & Original Equipment division offers the extreme-output bridge pickups as replacement units that will max out the attitude factor on any electric guitar.

"The original Gibson Dirty Fingers pickups were overwound with a vengeance - they were some of the most outrageous and extreme pickups ever made," said Henry Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar Corp. "Nothing says 'attitude' like a (Gibson) Dirty Finger."

The Dirty Fingers gets its ultra-high distortion from a special combination of wire gauge and windings that far exceed the winding count of the standard double-coil humbucking pickup that Gibson invented in 1957. The Dirty Fingers reissue pickup is instantly identifiable by the gold "Dirty Fingers" logo stamped on one coil and by its twelve height-adjustable polepieces, which allow the player to fine-tune individual string response (traditional pickups have only six adjustable polepieces).

The original Dirty Fingers pickups were available on just a few select models in the early 1980s, including the Flying V, Explorer, ES-347 and 335-S. They were all but forgotten for two decades, until an international distributor ordered a special run of reissue Dirty Fingers pickups for their market in 1997. In 2003, Gibson's Strings & Original Equipment division decided to reintroduce the Dirty Fingers pickup for the world market. Tom DeLonge, frontman for alt-punk group blink-182, was given some sample pickups to spec for his signature model (introduced in December 2003), and he chose the Dirty Fingers. As he explained in the November issue of the UK guitar magazine Total Guitar, the original Gibson Dirty Fingers "was so loud and so obnoxious but you try it now and it's crazy. It's awesome. It sounds so good. It has so much more clarity and volume and a much wider sound... I instantly fell in love with it." Because of its aggressive tone Dirty Fingers pickups will also appeal to those who play tuned down nu-metal. The Dirty Fingers pickup comes with a four-conductor lead and is wax potted to eliminate unwanted microphonic feedback. And as with all Gibson replacement pickups, it's backed by a Limited Lifetime Warranty.