Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound
It turns out that the PAF Ed was using in 1978 was a rewound PAF done by Seymour Duncan who had just started advertising pickup rewinding services hence the EVH78 ie 1978 ie after VH1 in 1977.
I'm calling BS on this one...Ed clearly stated in a Guitar Player interview "See, I've rewound my own pickups before, and a guy named Seymour Duncan, I got pissed at him too. He called me up and said, "Can we use your name for a special pickup?" And I said no. Next time I pick up Guitar Player magazine, there's a special Van Halen model customized Duncan pickup. I called him up and said, "What the hell's goin' on?" So he stopped finally"
SD has been trying to capitalize on EVH since the day he became hot on the scene. The first EVH pickup that SD designed had nothing to do with the original Frankie PAF at all because Duncan never laid hands on it...it was simply SD trying to capitalize on EVH with a "special Van Halen model customized Duncan pickup" which, as we all know, became the "Custom Custom". All these years later, the Duncan Custom Shop "EVH" is BS as well...all it is a Duncan '59 that buyers are getting suckered into buying as some kind of "EVH pickup". The true story I heard behind the original PAF in the Frankie is that somehow the one coil winding got damaged and Ed had a friend who's dad was an electronics technician; he is the one who simply unwound the one coil to the break and reattached it.
The pickups Ed was using in the clubs in 1977, which is the year when VH1 was recorded, were pretty hot Mighty Mite Ceramics
Where the hell did you get this info??? You guys need to read EVH's own words from the early interviews - that's where the truth is. With regards to the pickup EVH put in the black strat with yellow stripes:
EVH: I got a DiMarzio pickup, and I don't really go for those, because they're real distorted. See, I like a clean sound, but with sustain. I hate the fuzz box, real raspy sound. I don't particularly go for that...The DiMarzio pickups have real big magnets that's how they get their power - so I took the DiMarzio pickup and put the P.A.F. magnet in it and I rewound it, which took a long time.
GP: You did that by hand?
EVH: Yeah. It took a long time to rewind that thing. Actually, I ruined about three pickups. By the fourth time, you know, it worked.
GP: What other pickups did you try?
EVH: That's about it. I'd do anything to get an old P.A.F. They're the best. They go for 100, 200 bucks apiece, but that's what I use, that's what I like. A lot of people don't like them. See, with my setup, it's matched. Like if I play my guitar through someone else's setup, it won't sound right. And if I use someone else's guitar through my setup, it won't sound right.
With regards to EVH's pickups in general:
GP: Do you do anything special to your pickups?
EVH: I usually use old Gibson PAFs, and I always pot them. I submerge the whole thing in paraffin wax, and this cuts out the high obnoxious feedback. It's kind of a tricky thing because if you leave it in there too long. The pickup melts. I take a coffee can and melt down some wax -- the same kind that you use for surfboards -- and put the pickup in it. See, one of the reasons a pickup feeds back is that the coil windings vibrate, and when the wax soaks in there, it keeps them from vibrating as much. It will still feed back, but it's controllable. After I dip the pickup in paraffin, I put copper tape around it. You have to be really careful if you do this to a pickup like a DiMarzio. You can throw an old PAF in there and let is soak it up; it doesn't melt. But with DiMarzio, if you blink, all of a sudden your pickup's ruined.
So there you go...there is no "special magical VH pickup"...Ed simply used old Gibson PAF's, possibly modded by Ed himself but who knows? Doesn't matter anyway because only EVH will ever sound like EVH...besides it has WAY more to do with the amp along with smart signal routing and recording techniques...
