Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.
Pickups are just pickups.
It's how the guitar/pickups combine with all the gear that results in the tone.
They forget more than 2 things like a dimed 12 series Marshall, a Variac set to around 90v and rebiasing the Marshall accordingly, one cabinet with Celestion speakers from that era, optional JBL D-120F speakers, a Echoplex and it's FET based high impedance front end, a MXR Phase and Flanger, Mighty Mite Distortion ceramic pickup and a Duncan PAF based pickup later in 1978, a Sen Ash Ibanez Destroyer with possible Super 70 pickups, a Swamp Ash Strat body and Rosewood neck and later in late 1977 a Maple neck (the Duncan 1978 PAF pickup seemed to be used to match the Maple neck, the Mighty Mite pickup was used with the Rosewood neck) , EQ used as a higher impedance buffer for the low impedance Univox input only in the signal chain for Eruption and most of all Ed's playing.
