Hot Slag

Soundclips

Four soundclips — clean and dirty, bridge and neck. Hit play below.

What customers are saying

Eighteen unedited reviews from real Hot Slag owners. 18 reviews

1. Your pickups saved an old guitar from being sold! It was equipped with Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz, but the Hot Slags just blew them away. It's bizarre how natural and open they sound while having such a huge output. 1000% would recommend!

   — Wouter Witten, The Netherlands

2. Invested in a Hot Slag (Bridge) to fit in what was a rather muddy-sounding Les Paul — I am amazed. It has lived up to everything I have heard. I will be recommending IronGear to my friends for your philosophy, pricing and most of all the sound.

   — Watsy, Weirdbeat Collective, Dumbarton

3. Purchased a pair of Hot Slags for my Epiphone Les Paul Custom. The pickups are incredible — completely changed a bland Epiphone into my current favourite guitar. Through my Engl Screamer amp they sound heavenly, from blues, through rock, even to metal.

   — Matt Aldridge, Buckley

4. BLOODY HELL WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE! These things are outstanding. The tone has come alive on my Epiphone — pinched harmonics, fast riffs and shredding all there without having to fight the bloody thing. I also have a Schecter with Seymour Duncans in it and the IronGears are far, far better.

   — John, Bebington

5. Fitted a pair of Hot Slag zebras to an ancient Epiphone Les Paul. Slammed through a pair of AC30s they have the sweet clarity of an angel's first kiss with just that saw-edged hint of something unspeakably wicked lying underneath. As owner of a collection of over 30 classic axes and a pro player of nearly 40 years, if there is a catch I can't find it.

   — Dave, Chesterfield

6. I run my own business (Essex Guitar Services) and had already fitted a few of your pickups to customers' guitars. Chose the Rolling Mill & Hot Slag as a matched pair for my Michael Kelly Patriot Custom. I don't know how IronGear do it for the price, but they are without doubt the best matching pair of humbucking pickups I have ever heard.

   — Chris Cutmore, Essex Guitar Services

7. The Hot Slag nails ‘that’ tone. It's a revelation. I've been playing for 30 years and used all the big-name pickups — IronGears are the best by far. If you charged as much as the other big names they'd still be a bargain by comparison.

   — Simon Burrows, March, Cambridgeshire

8. Within 10 minutes it was sat in all its zebra glory in my 1966 cherry SG. This pickup has major output, the thing breathes! With minimal effort it grunts, spits and screams. Without doubt, this has the edge over stock Gibson pickups. If this pickup was £80–£100, I would still buy it. What a find.

   — Keith, Worcestershire

9. Dropped them into a mahogany Ibanez RG — they really brought this guitar to life. Hotter than the DiMarzio D Activators and EMG HZs and stock Ibanez pups I had in there before. They create searing gain when wide open, but still with clarity and cut. No mud here.

   — Jean-Pierre, Liverpool

10. Installed a pair of Hot Slag zebra coils in my Fender FMT. They sound AWESOME — lovely bite and warm, very responsive to the dynamics of my playing, and build quality is very good. Why bother paying the high prices for Seymour Duncans or DiMarzios?

    — S. Johnson, Plymouth

11. Installed Hot Slags in a twin-humbucker Strat project. For the first time in 11 years, my Les Paul stayed in its case. The Hot Slags are truly versatile pickups — just using the Crunch Channel on my Marshall TSL I was able to find tones from cutting Strat/Tele through to full-blown hard-rocking filthy overdrive. Far more potent and versatile than my Les Paul standard pickups.

    — Stuart Powell

12. Absolutely superb. This is exactly the Les Paul bridge sound I was wanting to hear — the bark, the sustain, the definition, tight bottom end, lovely growly mids and perfect highs. When you roll off the volume there's no loss of either definition or presence. Split the coils and it's almost Telecaster territory. There's nothing I don't like about this pickup.

    — Dave Scott, Hartlepool

13. Tried a pair in my Edwards JP relic to replace stock Seymour Duncans. In my honest opinion the IronGear humbuckers are clear, strong, well built and relatively linear across the frequency range. I will not be spending any more silly money on brand names again. (I work in sales at Thomann in Germany — well-placed to compare.)

    — Iain, Germany

14. Bought your Hot Slag (bridge) and Rolling Mill (neck) and slapped them into the Les Paul copy I was renovating. WOW — WOW — WOW, the clarity, tone, and beautiful sustain my guitar now has. You guys are total beasts to be able to churn out such monstrous pickups at ludicrously low prices!

    — Toby, Sudbury, Suffolk

15. Fitted to my Epiphone ES335. What I didn't expect was that it would have such great definition of every single note when hitting chords. It made such a big improvement that I'm leaving my Gibson Les Paul at home for the next gig.

    — Nige Haynes, Poole

16. Bought a used Musicman Silhouette fitted with Hot Slag and Rolling Mill. My first thought was to ditch these cheap pickups. A year on, the Silhouette with IronGears has become my ‘go-to’ workhorse. The more I played, the more I became aware that they not only easily match up to high-end pickups but surpass them in some ways.

    — Stevie Savage (45 years playing)

17. Hot Slag (bridge) and Texas Locos (middle and neck) on my Cort G254. Was surprised by the quality when they arrived, but was blown away by the sound. The character, clarity and power in all positions is amazing. I will never buy DiMarzio or Seymour again.

    — Ian Clark, Worthing

18. A set of Hot Slags replaced the stock pickups in my Epiphone Dot. Turned a slightly muddy-sounding guitar into a ferocious sounding guitar. Cranked right up on overdrive, they scream and snarl — exactly what I was hoping for! Dial it back and it has a really powerful presence. First-rate pickups and a great price.

    — Tom Lynch, Newcastle-upon-Tyne