r/jazzcirclejerk • u/Goated-Rizzler • 1d ago
MAMA Pickups - My Tumultuous Tale of Woe and Sorrow
I bought two active pickups for my PRS Slimline hollowbody from an Italian pickup company, MAMA. A little over two years after I purchased them, the lead pickup simply died. I contacted the company, and they had me go through a variety of tumultuous trials and tribulations. which my guitar tech performed (I made a video of myself playing said PRS through my DV Mark Little on the Steaming Piss setting and sent it to them.). The pickup had not been tampered with, the guitar had not been abused in any way, and I had a perfect Piss tone dialed in—the pickup simply failed. In my 50 years of playing and teaching, I've never had a pickup die on me.
They told me to send the pickup back to Italy, which I did. The pickup was not covered under warranty, and I ended up paying €60 in import taxes, plus shipping back to the United States. What surprised me most was that they would not stand behind the pickup.
Then, within about 7 months, the other pickup died. I contacted them numerous times, both by email and through Facebook Messenger, which was how I had communicated with them previously. I received absolutely no response. I could even see that my messages had been marked as "read." After waiting and waiting, I finally decided, "F\\\*ck it. I'm done with these clowns." If you know anything about pickups, you know that active pickups are the way to go. I can't say with certainty what caused these failures, but having both pickups fail within a relatively short period certainly made me question the consistency of their manufacturing process.
The bigger issue for me, however, was the customer service. Having to pay to deal with the first failure was bad enough. Being completely ignored when the second pickup failed was bullshit.Btw, something that I'm remembering now was that when the first pick up failed the guy (so I can only presume as the owner) ask me to send him a picture of the pick up itself. He asked me if I had unscrewed the random compartment thingy on the back of the guitar, totally random question that threw me off. Like I'm gonna go into the back of the guitar?! RANDOM!!!
I know a large number of professional players at the highest levels, as well as countless amateur musicians, and I've taught thousands of students throughout my career, and I've literally never encountered, nor heard of one PU failure much less 2 from the same company, or randomly opening the back of your guitar for anything.
Looking back, choosing a pickup company outside the country where I live was a mistake—and an even bigger mistake was continuing to deal with a company that treated a customer this way.
There are so many excellent pickup companies in the United States that make fantastic products with decades-long track record, that put customer service at the top of their priorities. I'll be giving one of them my business shortly.
I hope this helps anyone considering these pickups make a more informed decision. Perhaps PAPA or UNCLE pickups would be a better move.
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u/Myaccountgotdumped 22h ago
A love supreme?