My CURRENT list of top PAF's

[freefrog]

For anybody looking outside the traditional Gibdon PAF style the TV Jones Powertron is a damn good option. It shares a lot of ground with them tonally sitting somewhere inbetween the Gibson '57 Classic, the Burstbucker I, and a vintage style Filtertron in my opinion. It's equally at home in roots, blues, classic rock, hard rock, and even more vintage style metal tones. It also rips for gritty slide tones.

I don't remember if I've evoked that or not recently here but... putting a 3,3nF capacitor in parallel with a bridge Filter'Tron (standard specs) revoices it in a P.A.F.ish way. Much more useful than the usual "mud switch" in Gretsch guitar - or a good way to make this mud switch finally usable IME. ;-)

 

[timtam]

Thx for sharing and welcome onboard: I read and appreciate your posts among others on various forums for a long time now and periodically evoke here the impressive work(s) of Manfred Zollner (it's a bless to have at disposal the examples that he shared online instead of having to dig our crowded local archives).

Now and to put things in perspective: I wish the GITEC shared some comparisons involving vintage pickups as a reference and not only clones.

Yes, it's a pity that there aren't more blinded listening tests and measurements of vintage PAFs available. Helmuth Lemme's bode plots did show that vintage PAFs varied in their resonant frequency and Q factor, and that variation correlated with their sound ...

https://www.gitarrenelektronik.de/patent-applied-for
hell=bright
mittel=middle
weich=soft

One of the interesting things to come out of the GITEC testing was that the bridge and neck measurements of most of the PAF clones where different - but in the same way. The necks had a slightly higher resonant frequency / Q factor. Which suggests that clone makers are probably not copying any particular vintage PAF sample - which did not systematically differ between neck and bridge (and as the above plot makes clear, which sample would you copy ?). Instead they are likely copying a known recipe that is probably one of the early successful PAF clones.

 

[freefrog]

Helmuth Lemme's bode plots did show that vintage PAFs varied in their resonant frequency and Q factor, and that variation correlated with their sound ...

I remember that. I had a short discussion by mails with Helmuth Lemme about P.A.F.'s a long time ago...

... and I do measure resonant peaks for a bit more than 20 years now, as well as other specs - I've done something like 95 measurements with a Teslameter on pickups and magnets not later than Saturday.

Now, for me, a problem with vintage P.A.F.'s is how some of their tonal characteristics are NOT reflected by some lab tests. Not that I'm in the P.A.F. "mystique": they do obey to physics, of course. It's just that some of their tonal features appear to require other approaches than the kind of measurements evoked above. IME and IMO. Mileages may vary.

 

[timtam]

I remember that. I had a short discussion by mails with Helmuth Lemme about P.A.F.'s a long time ago...

... and I do measure resonant peaks for a bit more than 20 years now, as well as other specs - I've done something like 95 measurements with a Teslameter on pickups and magnets not later than Saturday.

Now, for me, a problem with vintage P.A.F.'s is how some of their tonal characteristics are NOT reflected by some lab tests. Not that I'm in the P.A.F. "mystique": they do obey to physics, of course. It's just that some of their tonal features appear to require other approaches than the kind of measurements evoked above. IME and IMO. Mileages may vary.

I think we need to be wary of throwing up notions that some elements of a pickup's emitted tone might be "not currently measured" or even "unmeasurable". I can't think of any evidence to support that notion. If that is what you are implying, what specifically are you basing that on ?

There seems to be far more evidence that what people say/think they can hear and what they can objectively hear may often be two different things. eg
Toole, F. (2017). Subjective measurements - Turning opinion into fact. Ch 3 in: Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms (3rd edition). Routledge.

There are definitely technical considerations around things like what loading conditions a pickup's bode plot should be measured under, eg Lemme's (?) standard of 470 pF and 200 kOhm, or something more specific to particular guitars - because the loading conditions affect the resonant frequency and Q factor. But those considerations don't undermine the overall approach.
​
The pickup industry as a whole has been responsible for keeping its customers almost entirely in the dark on the real frequency response specifications of their products. Speaker and microphone manufacturers would be out of business if they did not publish frequency response charts. The techology to do that for pickups no longer requires expensive dedicated analysers like the one Lemme built/sold, or the big old 1990s Hewlett-Packard rig that PRS uses. It can be done as well or better now by any enthusiastic amateur with a few hundred US$ of gear.

In any case it's understandable that players are not very familar with correlating objective measurements like resonant frequency and Q factor with what they hear. Because they just haven't had the opportunity to do that very often ... having largely wasted their time obsessing over things like coil wire insulation types, wire gauge, magnet grade, magnet manufacturing techniques, and other minutiae only of relevance to a pickup maker - none of which have a direct relationship to how pickups sound and, as such, are of no real relevance to the player/pickup buyer.

 

[marcello252]

I never thought the A2P sounds all that modern. It is rounder than typical PAFs, sure, but the touch-sensitivity is the same.

I agree with Mincer , to me the A2P is one the best PAF style HB, with all the quality of old PAFs , I don't feel it as modern .

(If you're gonna say 'you don't know how a real one sounded' mmh, well, it actually happened I tried for a very lucky chance several original 59s LP, not just one, I know it's hard to believe it but it is the truth)

 

[Chistopher]

This sort of discussion is why I tend to prefer buying pickups now that have largely been undocumented by the online forums. I have yet to find a pickup either name brand or hole-in-the-wall that has not found a suitable home one instrument or another. It gets a lot easier to make that decision if you don't have facts and figures that tell you what you can or can't do.

Once you actually hold a vintage instrument in your hand you realize that the magic of a classic instrument can't be replicated by simply duplicating the manufacture method and paying some goon to relic it for you. What makes a 59 LP or 51 Tele cool is the fact that every single one of them belongs in a museum and they are as much a historical and cultural artifact as they are an instrument.

If you consider it logically, who is going to make the better guitar pickup, the nameless factory workers who wound the first PAFs only knowing to wind until the bobbins looked full enough, or Mr Duncan, who has been winding pickups for 50 years now?

 

[freefrog]

I think we need to be wary of throwing up notions that some elements of a pickup's emitted tone might be "not currently measured" or even "unmeasurable". I can't think of any evidence to support that notion. If that is what you are implying, what specifically are you basing that on ?

No. I was referring to non-linear phenomenons / to what happens in the time domain and that one-line / two-dimensional frequency graphs won't translate.

 

[Chistopher]

Again, I think the magic of PAFs is all in the users head and will never translate to a chart. GuitarFetish puts more time and effort into product consistency than the pickup winders at Gibson did in the early PAF days, but a GFS pickup will never make you feel the same way it does to know you are playing through an transducer that predates rock and roll. Most people will never get a chance to play a bone stock vintage instrument so all they have to go on as to how great they are is the words of others and the advertising literature for the people selling replica components.

To me it's kind of like how classic cars will always be worse vehicles than a comparable modern vehicle except in the one category that trumps all others: how cool they are. A top of the line 64 Mustang will never out perform even the modern ecoboost Mustang, but most enthusiasts will lean towards the 64 because it's way cooler

 

[freefrog]

Again, I think the magic of PAFs is all in the users head and will never translate to a chart. GuitarFetish puts more time and effort into product consistency than the pickup winders at Gibson did in the early PAF days, but a GFS pickup will never make you feel the same way it does to know you are playing through an transducer that predates rock and roll. Most people will never get a chance to play a bone stock vintage instrument so all they have to go on as to how great they are is the words of others and the advertising literature for the people selling replica components.

To me it's kind of like how classic cars will always be worse vehicles than a comparable modern vehicle except in the one category that trumps all others: how cool they are. A top of the line 64 Mustang will never out perform even the modern ecoboost Mustang, but most enthusiasts will lean towards the 64 because it's way cooler

No P.A.F. "magic" in my mind: simply, such crude cheap transducers did program our aural memory and tastes.
Hence the incredible number of clones on the market...

Or must I say "supposed" clones? Because comparing copies to original old pickups did reveal differences more often than similarities IME (generally speaking, all pickups considered). Even in a same guitar and not only for a question of "feel": despite very close LR and mT readings, amps settings had to be modified, lowering a volume pot on the guitar was no more doing the same, etc. These difference could be explained by deeper technical reasons but were there [EDIT - without making any pickup "better" or "worse" IMO: I've already stated that in the post 48].

No disdain at all for GFS, that said: I appreciate their products enough to have mounted one of their mini-hums once in a vintage Rickenbacker. Blasphemy! But the owner was happy since I had done the repair for free (including a new pickguard cut in a rectangular plastic sheet) and gifted him the new Chinese pickup - as cheap as was initially the totally dead vintage one... but working and absolutely good sounding!

Beside playing and testing vintage pickups, I had also to repair a few of them, BTW (vintage humbuckers, bringing this answer back on topic). It has been instructive.
​

 

[Aceman]

Again, I think the magic of PAFs is all in the users head and will never translate to a chart. GuitarFetish puts more time and effort into product consistency than the pickup winders at Gibson did in the early PAF days, but a GFS pickup will never make you feel the same way it does to know you are playing through an transducer that predates rock and roll. Most people will never get a chance to play a bone stock vintage instrument so all they have to go on as to how great they are is the words of others and the advertising literature for the people selling replica components.

To me it's kind of like how classic cars will always be worse vehicles than a comparable modern vehicle except in the one category that trumps all others: how cool they are. A top of the line 64 Mustang will never out perform even the modern ecoboost Mustang, but most enthusiasts will lean towards the 64 because it's way cooler

I like this - but there is an important difference.

Classic car guys do not go around preaching how much better their vintage 57 Vette is compared to a current model, or a Ferarri in terms of performance.

Vintage PAF guys do...

 

[Chistopher]

I like this - but there is an important difference.

Classic car guys do not go around preaching how much better their vintage 57 Vette is compared to a current model, or a Ferarri in terms of performance.

Vintage PAF guys do...

Another difference: Put a modern drive train in an older vehicle and people love it, put the circuit from a 2024 Gibson LP in a '59 and you will be shot.

 

[ehdwuld]

I liked the 57s I played in a shop once

I'm a neck pickup guy

And on my new set of headless guitars
The neck pickups had a wide range of ohm readings
I would assume all other parts were similar
the ohms ranged from 7k ,7.5k , 8.0k , and 9k

Played through my H&K Tonemeister
they sound remarkably similar

I am perplexed
I thought I had an idea of how these things work

You can't judge a pickup by the resistance
Or wire size or magnet type
or base late or color
Or name brand

 

[Mincer]

I don't think pickup companies would agree on what makes a PAF. And I'd bet everyone here defines it differently...it is a moving target, after all, as there isn't one 'PAF' sound. BG's Pearly Gates (the guitar) sounds nothing like Greeny, or like Robert Fripp's 59 Custom. I tend to equate it with a certain type of 'feel' rather than construction or one type of tone.

 

[freefrog]

the ohms ranged from 7k ,7.5k , 8.0k , and 9k

Played through my H&K Tonemeister
they sound remarkably similar

I am perplexed
I thought I had an idea of how these things work

You can't judge a pickup by the resistance
Or wire size or magnet type
or base late or color
Or name brand

Agreed. Many things can fool us...

...Gibson have recently used purple died poly insulated wire meant to mimic PE insulated one...

...What is currently sold as AlNiCo nowadays often seems to differ in a subtle way from what made vintage magnets. Even with sand cast / RC ones... some old bars even appear to be "in between" official AlNiCo grades (which is logical since the proportions of some components in AlNiCo's make very little differences in percentage: add a bit more of this or that in the furnace and the alloy changes)...

...The min / max tolerances in a supposedly same wire gauge can alter its diameter enough to explain the differences of DCR that you stated, with a same number of turns, a same inductance and therefore a same or similar sound. Winding tension can also stretch the wire and increase its resistance...

Non limitative lists. Magnetic pickups are very simple in theory. In practice, that's another story IMHO / IME.


Regarding P.A.F.s as moving targets: of course, they differed. Now, some recurrent sonic features (that contemporary players would possibly consider as flaws) can appear as drawing a kind of red thread between vintage pickups IMHO and IME, even when they have different specs and tones. I've tried to share about that in previous replies.

 

[marcello252]

that's why I don't search for specs , I search for feelings, specs are just a very general guide but the experience is the real thing

 

[Chistopher]

It doesn't help that the only two ways you can advertise a pickup are specs that are often times meaningless and poetic advertising literature that is oftentimes wrong

 

[Mincer]

Describing sound with words is often inadequate, no matter what the industry.

 

[uOpt]

It doesn't help that the only two ways you can advertise a pickup are specs that are often times meaningless and poetic advertising literature that is oftentimes wrong

I would like pickup makers to at least publish wire gauge and wire type. It's not that this is a closely guarded secret when you have the pickup in hand.

 

[jeremy]

its all copper wire

i get what you are saying, but i doubt they would do that. gibson winds pups with poly that is dyed to look like pe for example. im a hobby winder and i have three different types of [NODE="42"]A5 antiquity & Custom Timbucker neck[/NODE] pe from the same manufacturer so there is variation even in the same gauge with the same type of insulation from the same manufacturer. its really hard to look at something and tell what it really is unless you have some good testing equipment.

 

[Aceman]

Yes, it's a pity that there aren't more blinded listening tests and measurements of vintage PAFs available. Helmuth Lemme's bode plots did show that vintage PAFs varied in their resonant frequency and Q factor, and that variation correlated with their sound ...

https://www.gitarrenelektronik.de/patent-applied-for
hell=bright
mittel=middle
weich=soft

One of the interesting things to come out of the GITEC testing was that the bridge and neck measurements of most of the PAF clones where different - but in the same way. The necks had a slightly higher resonant frequency / Q factor. Which suggests that clone makers are probably not copying any particular vintage PAF sample - which did not systematically differ between neck and bridge (and as the above plot makes clear, which sample would you copy ?). Instead they are likely copying a known recipe that is probably one of the early successful PAF clones.

A lot of those are not even noticeable thresholds of human hearing.

Physics is one thing, psychoacoustics and human perception is another...