Jimmy Page Pickups

[Gunny47]

I just baught a Led Zeppelin Live DVD set that spans a bunch of concerts and I watched about an hour or so of it today (disc 1 which was a concert from 1970). I have about a DVD or 2 of every band that I like (GNR, ACDC, Metallica, Hendrix, SRV, The Who etc) but I never got a Zep one. The Les Paul Jimmy Page was playing was a '59 or a '58 (not sure if it was one of his 2 main ones) and it had a cherry sunburst flame top, a covered neck PAF and a bridge open coil double cream humbucker. I was just wondering, which pickup is that bridge pickup? I was thinking that it was DiMarzio because it was double cream, but then I thought it could just be a normal PAF with the cover removed (I read that he did that to get slightly more output). Is this a DiMarzio or something else? Also, what pickup today would give me closest to that pickup or sound? I was considering putting a Duncan Antiquity neck humbucker and the a double cream DiMarzio PAF in my R7, just a thought. So Im just curious about what pickup that was. Thanks.

 

[Humbucker]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

It was just the stock PAF. Any good PAF clone will sound similar.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

Stock PAF's with the cover taken off the bridge pickup.

I have a set of Antiquity's in my R8 and I will tell you it's a great sounding guitar.

Also, FWIW, you can get a double cream Duncan you just have to order it that way...or get lucky with a Seth or Antiquity!

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

I have seen photos of Page with some different 58 or 59 Les Pauls then his main one.. He did have a dual creme plastic pickup in one in the early days of Zep.... But i heard under the covers they had black or creme plastic.... Not sure if that was true.. but i heard it was just luck what colour you got when you removed the cover.... Page had a few late 50's LP's..... his main 2 but he also had 2-3 more then that... One of them in the early days of Zep had a highly figured top....

 

[rmcfee]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

I don't think Dimarzio was around that early. - Rob

 

[Gunny47]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

Okay, so that was a Gibson PAF. He got creme plastic when he removed the cover. Okay - got it. Now, I love that double creme look and like the sounds of a good true-to-spec PAF pickup (Duncan Antiquity, Gibson Burstbuckers 1 and 2 etc) but doesn't DiMarzio have the double creme locked under a patten? Or is that up now? In other words, can I order a Duncan Antiquity bridge humbucker in open coil (without the nickel cover) and in double creme? I know that they age the pickups and the way they look. Will the double creme look aged? Thanks a lot.

 

[flank]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

you can special order a duncan with the cover not soldered, or lightly soldered, and with double creme bobbins, and this does not violate the patent. I think you can do this directly with duncan, or Wymore Guitars/Blackrose customs used to be a place where guys would call up and order that

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

You can order any Duncan bucker in any colour you want but if you order double cream it will have to come with a cover that you will have to remove. FWIW, the Seth Lovers and Antiquity's are just like the original PAF's in that you could end up with double black, double cream, zebra or reverse zebra...

 

[Torren61]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

Most of the above answers are wrong. I wrote a guide on JPLP's. You can Google it with Jimmy Page Signature Les Paul Pre-Buying Information.
Seymour Duncan sells Custom Shop Page spec humbuckers. Seymour Duncan himself custom wound Page's pickups so he should know how they were done. Good luck, William

 

[Burnin_UP]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

Don't know what you think is wrong about it!

The guitar on the DVD is the Number #1, and it does indeed have the stock gibson pickup with the cover removed. Under that cover he was in fact lucky that he had the double cream colored bobbins. It could have been black or zebra in those days.

The Duncan custom pickups came much later - in the nineties, and are not used on any of Zeppelins recordings. They're currently in the Walsh guitar, which historians refer to as Number #2. That's the guitar with the fancy switches.

And today, what you see in his Number One is just a plain old T top, that was partially rewound, with the chrome cover removed. Slightly unbalanced coils, and a phase switch on the push pull tone control (the reissue is wrong, the experts concur, as it just does a nice coil split. I have one myself, and it's certainly not a phase switch, that Edwin who inspected the guitar for the reissue reported). The double cream pickup was removed as it stopped working - and it was probably the result of too much being smacked with the violin bow.

I've read your guide out there on ebay; kindly understand that no offense is intended, but the real authoritative information on this topic is at http://www.lespaulforum.com which has in it's ranks the most expertise on the topic of all les pauls, and this very one in particular. There are members there with the largest burst collections in the world, and some of them are expert advisors to the Gibson Historic division.

--> To the original poster:

My advice is try to find a Duncan Antiquity with double cream bobbins in the 8.7-8.8K range. That'd be closer than current BB offerings, including the rather thin sounding bridge pickup they put in the reissue.

Good luck!

//Back to lurk mode ;-)

 

[Kivitel]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

I am close personal friends with Page and you are all wrong. I was having tea with him on the satanic croquet pitch on the grounds of his castle and he told me that his pickups were scatterwound by Gypsies (a man and a woman, about to be married, one doing each coil, to symbolize their union), and the plastic components were actually fashioned from the left thigh bone of Green-Bottle Stevens, guitarist for east coast-coast blues-woman Zora Neale Hurston. The bones were purified in a ritual that Page neglected to elaborate on, but that was probably due to the morbid nature of most of his ceremonies (sort of hot topic meets college hazing sorts of things) and besides we were about to start playing croquet with David Bowie and Elizabeth Taylor (Page won, but I suspect his mallet has an amulet of some kind).

 

[burnt999]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

YOU WIN KIVITEL ! Why wonder, order Seymour`s Pagey`s out of the custom shop. He DID his homework, just like the Peter Green`s, EVH78`s,etc.All the others mentioned are great also but...why ? Did E.T. really take her wig off to play ?

 

[Kivitel]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

Elizabeth Taylor no longer wears a wig - the wig wears her. The wig was given to her by Page, who recieved it from Satan. The wig grants her immortality. She doesn't mind that people know this but don't bring it up in front of her.

 

[burnt999]

Re: Jimmy Page Pickups

So you really are kin to her ! Dude ! I would`nt bring it up behind her either ! Does`nt she have a line of pickups called Diamonds or somethin` ?