Duneland Labs

ABOUT DUNELAND labs

Duneland Labs was founded in 2016 to make Bob Palmieri’s designs available to a broader market. For three decades, he had been building custom devices for dozens of clients, many whose names are instantly recognizable in the music world. The Blackpole set and Bronzeville system are the first such designs to be offered. But these two pickup offerings are just the beginning. At Duneland Labs, we have a very strong feeling that the electric guitar signal chain architecture needs a major overhaul, and we plan to be central to these essential improvements.

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Our team has been responsible for a long series of systems and components that have enabled luminary musicians and recording engineers to achieve stellar levels of performance from their gear. For more than thirty years, our approach has encompassed the following procedures:

• If the appropriate solution involved currently available devices, we understood the subtle but significant properties inherent in commercial audio equipment, and could specify, calibrate, and interface such devices in an optimum form.

• If commercial gear exhibited enough of the necessary characteristics, we modified the devices for improved performance.

• If nothing on the market did the job, we designed and built custom devices.

For the next decade, we intend take the next logical step: to create a series of products that draw on the most widely applicable designs in our portfolio. Their qualities range from improvements on established types of gear to some devices that necessitate the establishment of new categories appropriate to their functions.

ABOUT founder and chief designer bob palmieri

Bob Palmieri is known for taking radically different approaches to design informed by identifying the elements of great vintage gear and the way they interact with players in both live and recorded contexts.

"Modern materials and system architectures now allow us to have desired response characteristics without the undesirable side effects common to older devices,” says Bob.

the blackpoles

During the early days of Duneland Labs we pointed our minds and tools to some quite radical projects. This led some forces in the organization to ask if we couldn’t perhaps also generate some more familiar devices in the area of electric guitar pickups. Our answer was The Blackpole Project, in which we decided to pack some ambitious magnetic and electro-acoustic concepts into conventional humbuckers boxes.

These modules are simply the best thing you can fit into a humbucker-shaped hole. They have a broad dynamic response, are open voiced without sounding dissipated, and emit high output without mud. Hum and buzz rejection are significantly improved over conventional designs. Available in neck and bridge configurations.

the bronzevilles

Demand for an excellent magnetic pickup specifically designed for bronzewound acoustic guitar strings that doesn’t require a preamp or battery power was initially driven by premier contemporary archtop guitar builder Ken Parker. His use of such strings is essential for maximizing the acoustic character of his instruments. You can read more about these instruments (and the pickup system) here:

kenparkerarchtops.com

A flattop version is now being finalized in conjunction with some of our truly favorite players, builders and major acoustic guitar manufacturers.

testimonials

Nels Cline

“Bob Palmieri’s Duneland Labs pickups get close to being living organisms, so sensitive are they to the actual physics of nuanced sound production. Alive. And all the while possessing OOMPH, never being weak/wimpy/bland.”

Bill Frisell

“I had been hearing about Bob Palmieri’s pickups for quite a while. My good friend Nels Cline spoke very highly of him and I’d notice his name come up while hanging out at guitar shops. Last September I had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time. He had made some pickups for a brand new guitar I was getting that had been designed by Woody Woodland and put together by BilT Guitars. We had talked a little about what I was hoping for. He brought a few variations for me to try based on those conversations. What surprised me about this first meeting was that before I even heard the pickups I got to hear him play. I didn’t know he was such a monster guitar player. He’s a serious musician with serious ears. This made it really easy to communicate. It was about the music. There’s so much unexplainable, hard to put into words stuff that goes on in music. We play a note, or a chord, or make a sound, or whatever, and there is a whole world going on high up above all that. Overtones. A rainbow of stuff. To be in tune and in harmony we have to listen for this and hear it. It’s not about some mathematical formula. A machine can’t really do it. It’s about listening. Bob has the ears for this and is sensitive to it. I think that’s why his pickups are so awesome.”

duneland product demonstrations

Our founder and chief designer Bob Palmieri demonstrates five of Duneland's unique pickup designs.

This track from around 1997 captures much of Johnny Rutledge’s brilliance in reimagining classic tunes with a terrific mix of live players and machines, not to mention his stunning singing! It also captures a snapshot of the earliest prototypes of the pickups that became The Blackpoles and the very beginnings of my work with analog amp/speaker simulation. The Leslie, however, is real. Very real...

— Bob Palmieri

Johnny Rutledge - vocals, arrangement, programming, guitar
Bob Lizik - electric bass
Jim Hines - snare drum
Bob Palmieri - keyboards, lead, crunch, Leslie and additional guitars

Recorded and mixed by Freddie Breitberg at Streeterville Studios.

Bob demonstrates Duneland's surface mount humbucker on his 1962 SG/Les Paul. Says Bob: "I've always loved P90 pickups and SG/Les Pauls. The surface mount neck pickup allows me to use the Junior model, in which the neck joint is much stronger than the Standard due to the lack of a deep well for the neck pickup.The P90 was used on the loop and the surface mount neck 'bucker on the solo. I plugged straight into my Quilter Tone Block 201 and set up a quick loop which I played it into my TC Electronic Alter Ego delay, inserted in the effects loop. No other effects were used, either in the recording or performing setups."

Bob demonstrates the dynamic response of the Duneland Blackpole pickups. Says Bob: "Using the bridge pickup I loaded a loop into my TC Electronic Alter Ego delay, which is in the effects loop of my Quilter Tone Block 201. The graceful way this pickup follows playing dynamics makes it really satisfying to play with a relatively clean treatment on the neck pickup for the solo. Recorded in my living room with a stereo mike; no other effects were used in either performing or recording rigs."

Bob Palmieri demonstrates the dynamic response of the Duneland Blackpole bridge pickup. Axe plugged straight into Quilter Tone Block 201 w/single 12" cabinet and TC Electronic Alter Ego Delay in effects loop. Recorded live with a stereo mike in living room, no EQ, compression or other effects were used.

Bob demonstrates the prototype for the Archtop Bronzeville pickup system currently used on Ken Parker's spectacular modern archtops. Says Bob: "Here we have a solo guitar performance of a tune that's been going through my head for a year. I've played it for numerous people and no one has yet identified its title or creator. I'm thinkin' Horace Silver or maybe Benny Golson. This was the first prototype for the current Archtop Bronzeville pickup, heard here on a $300 imported guitar I got from Chicago Music Exchange, played through my home stereo and recorded in my living room with a stereo mike and no effects."

Bob plays Dave Onderdonk's beautiful tune "Perry" on a Waterloo guitar from Collings Guitars. This features the prototype of a new pickup Bob is designing for an artist signature model the company is developing. Played live through a home stereo with no EQ, compression or other effects.