Re: Favorite PAF Replica
Of what I've tried, I really like a Gibson 57 Classic + in the neck. It sounds like a 57 but with more attack and cut. The regular 57, as someone noted, tends to get muddy and your notes sound almost like plucks with a foam dampener on your guitar. The output is also low enough that it can sound kind of hollow when put with a hotter bridge pickup. I unsuccessfully tried a 57/498t combo and ended up using the 57+ in the neck and it was perfect. The only drawback is the 57+ doesn't split and I don't think the 57+'s closest splitable sibling, the 490t, sounds as good as the 57+.
You also could consider pickups that aren't PAFs but try to replicate a PAF sound. To that end, I recently experimented with a JB in the neck and, backed down deep into the body, especially on the bass strings side, it sounds great. E chords are huge and it has a vocal quality to bends, although it can get a little hairy and brittle in the mids because it's so hot for that position. YMMV on the cleans--it sounds great split but slightly pushed in full humbucking mode. I think it's a great choice for players with a really fluid legato technique--Chris Poland comes to mind.
"I too have thought before that any conventional Humbucker is technically a PAF. Most would tell me I'm wrong. Go figure."
I thought about that briefly while reading through this thread. I think until the 80s it used to be that all PAFs were humbuckers and all humbuckers were PAFs. For the most part, you were a Gibson or Fender player.
But since the 80s, with the growth of high output pickups with ceramic magnets, etc., I don't think that applies. All PAFs may be humbuckers today, but not all of today's humbuckers are PAFs.
Also, I agree that there's no consensus on a PAF, but I do think the term is becoming a bit overused and meaningless. As a kid of the 80s, I associate PAFs with warm semi distorted/overdriven sounds, especially Guns n Roses, but there are also PAFs that have stinging highs like BB King's playing. Others, like a Gibson 57 Classic + in the bridge, may have smooth highs and bouncy lows because it's an A2.
This will doubtlessly be oversimplified for you guys who are older than me and into classic rock, but in my heavy metal world of active pickups and stuff I like like Full Shreds and Duncan Distortions, to me, the essence of a PAF is a creamy, warm quality associated with the neck pickup that "woos" in the bends and goes well with a warm tonewood like mahogany. That doesn't have to be all of them, but it's what I think of when I think of a PAF. I've also heard pickups that try to emulate PAFs that do bright, crystalline cleans well (an EMG 60 comes to mind). And yet at other times I've heard some that I could have sworn were single coils or actually sounded cleaner than some single coils, albeit with less dynamics and touch sensitivity than singles.
