What Bernie Marsden says…
(We don’t normally copy descriptions straight from the manufacturers but this is a great one)
On 1st October 2019 I had a private visit at my house with a Norwegian colleague, Thomas Nilsen. We had talked a few times in the previous few months about a possible signature BM pickup. Thomas, being the engineer owner of Cream T Pickups, was very excited about a very new procedure he had been working on, and came to show me at my home. Almost as soon as he arrived, he had transformed my kitchen into some kind of instant electronic laboratory!
He produced a piece of equipment that looked like a Doctor Who prop, but turned out to be a type of scanner. The machine was set up, computer fired up, leads and cables plugged in and headphones worn.
Thomas now needed one more ingredient, the most essential one. The guitar on offer was no less than my 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, known universally as ‘The Beast.’ Thomas practically plugged the guitar into the scanner and technically cloned The Beast’s pickups. The Cream T ‘Super Scanner’ Series now had a new member to sit alongside Z.Z. Top’s Billy F Gibbons legendary ‘Pearly Gates’ Les Paul!
Thomas has since produced prototype of the ‘Bernie Buckers’ for me to add to a few of my guitars. I have to say that I’m totally knocked out with the results. I have added them to an old Les Paul Gold Top, and a relatively new PRS BM signature guitar, and both now have an uncanny, and slightly eerie, resemblance sound-wise to the original pickups on The Beast. I still don’t really understand how he does it, but the thing is, he does!
So, if you are a fan of the guitar sound on my classic Whitesnake solos and rhythm tracks, and the guitar I wrote ‘Here I Go Again’ with, check out these Super Scanner Series. If you want to upgrade your guitar once and for all with genuine vintage sound pickups, Cream T and their Super Scanner Series is the way to go. Ask Billy F Gibbons if you don’t believe me!
Bernie Marsden
November 2020
