The genesis of Sonic Soup Pickups began in the early 1990’s when JD Mauro first started on his unlikely guitar journey. As with many people, he initially started with a simple acoustic guitar; however, a friend introduced him to electric guitar and everything changed. JD got his hands on a beat-up Gibson SG which became one of his favorite guitars. He soon realized that he could make modifications to his SG which made the guitar “better”. It wasn’t long before JD recognized that swapping the pickups on a guitar could yield dramatic changes/improvements in the tonal characteristics of an instrument. As the years passed, JD’s collection of guitars grew, and he recognized that certain guitars which sounded good were more likely to get played. As all guitar players experience the natural ebb and flow in motivation to practice and play, JD came to believe that the inspiration to pick up his guitar was priceless and needed to be nurtured. As such, one of the goals when he first got involved with making pickups was to enhance his inspiration to pick up his instrument. It was a purely selfish endeavor to create the best pickups possible based on his own experience and tastes.

JD set out to craft his ultimate set of pickups which maximized what he likes in a pickup and minimized what he didn’t like. Further, he was fortunate enough to have access to a diverse collection of guitars with a wide variety of pickup combinations, both vintage and new. This became the context for formulating his own unique set. Numerous prototypes were created, and countless hours were invested in performing A/B tests of his pickups against any number of others while playing through a variety of amps and in a variety of music genres. Meticulous record keeping and quantitative analysis factored into crafting the best results possible. The end result was Sonic Soup’s first humbucker set available for sale. Today JD proudly shares the product of his tenacious quest for guitar tone. Much like a good chef enjoys sharing their best recipes with friends, JD’s greatest reward is seeing other guitar players come to appreciate the sonic qualities of his pickups.

Sonic Soup is JD’s passion. He maintains a 9-5 career in the financial industry but continues to strive to improve his pickups and craft new variations to suite a wider variety of users. Stay tuned for additional offerings.