Here's the thing: Gibson humbucking pickups were a part of a guitar. Gibson was not a pickup maker but a guitar maker and pickups were a part of a guitar. So the manufacturing had more to do with pumping out enough pickups to meet guitar demand and thus, they were not only mass produced by 1950's standards, but the specs had to change with the availability of wire/magnets/black plastics, etc. Seth Lover didn't design his pickup and the specs for the pickup with "constant changing type/quality/consistency of wire and magnets" but had a certain number of turns of 42GA wire with AlCiNo V magnets, the most stable and powerful magnet available. But PAF's based on changing specs based on material availability, had all kinds of magnet grades and a variety of wire within the 42GA spec. So trying to nail "THE" PAF sound is impossible but making pickups based on the specs, as closely as you can, gets you close enough. There are so many variables and individual PAF variants, the one you wind probably has an old clone of that pickup sitting in closet somewhere in Ohio. Who knows? The chasing some ghost of "the perfect PAF" is silly but also saying you can't get the basic sound of the early Gibson humbucking pickup if you follow Seth Lover's formula, just because today's wire is more consistent, is also silly. If anything, it allows you to produce a more consistent product for your customer.
Paul Reed Smith claims to have tracked down the original PAF wire machine from the original factory. They apparently found the original machine sitting idle in storage for years with some original copper ready to be fired up again. He talks about signing an exclusive deal with them on buying wire from that machine in a few interviews you can find online. I have a meteor 301b winder from an old factory and have spent a fair amount of time making PAF clones for personal use. In general, I think it would be easier to just find PAFs that sound amazing, run a lot of tests on them on the actual output and response curves by signal sweeping in the right way to get a numeric baseline for what a great sounding pickup actually sounds like. Then set about creating a recipe for that sound using modern materials. There are so many ways that you can tweak the way a pickup sounds that you wouldn’t need to source original materials. Just some time and R&D. On my winder alone, there are so many different settings that affect the tone and none are anywhere near precise. There is no way one machine could exactly match another without some serious side by side tuning. Better to start with the sound you want and work backwards to build a pickup recipe that gets you there rather than try to replicate the manufacture in every minute detail, I think.
Yeah but tone sniffers will argue that you need vintage Kalamazoo area Americans who eat burritos from the joint across the street because the farts got into the windings after lunch and that's when Gibson made the best PAFs
I bought two Meteor 301's in Ohio years back, along with a couple of Gorman Bobbineer winders and an old REA desktop winder with the heart shaped cam. I lucked out and got them all for $1600, I rented a truck and drove the 800 miles there and back to pick them up. All were in perfect condition...I like the Meteor winders but I use the Bobbineer and the REA winder more. I love making pickups but I do for a few people a year now. It's been 38 years of pickup tinkering. I never get sick of it.
The PAF pickups in my 1961 Les Paul sound great but i like the sound of the 57 classics in my 2013 sg just as much. They don't sound exactly alike but i enjoy the difference.
That's all true. The inconsistent wire/insulation and winding tension produced very inconsistent pickups with varying degrees of high-end and output loss. The Late Bill Lawerence tested hundreds of vintage pickups when he was chief engineer at Gibson, Nashville in the 70s. He found little consistency and high internal capacitance. You'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference even if the same gauge wire somehow varied by 50% DCR (and it wouldn't), as long as the coil dimensions are close for the same winds. A 50% increase in DCR from 8k to 12k results in only ~1/4dB output loss and no change in the tonality. You want reduced highs with a PAF? Use a 250k for one of the pots and a relatively high C cable to increase the peak level and lower the freq. I think Gibson actually used 330k pots for a while. AlNiCO IV magnets were largely responsible for the coveted mid 60s-era PAF sound. HF wire and AlNiCo, II, III or weak AlNiCO V was the 50s sound. I follow Bill Lawrence's lead on this. The PAF mystique is BS.
As you said in your video, there is a fair bit of difference from pickup to pickup in the original PAF's, some sounded great, some not so much. Therefore the sensible approach is to forget about replicating PAF tones, and just seek a pickup that sounds great to you in the way you intend to use it. It's the same thing I say to people who try to nail a specific artists tone through gear. Don't try to sound like Gilmour or SRV, try to find the tones that you like the sound of when you play that style of music. No matter how much you spend, you will never have their fingers.
Many years ago an EE friend of mine, as part of his post grad, made 3 phono preamps; valve, discrete transistor, and opamp topologies, and did a double blind test with a bunch of people. IIRC, the only trend he found in listening preference was to do with the age of the subjects. Getting a stack of 50s PAFs and a bunch of musicians and working out which they prefer the tone of would actually be interesting if done as a true double blind. Also people forget that the pickups are just one element of a passive high z resonant circuit. And 1950s pots were well made physically, but electrically were all over the shop.
Funny that people say modern pots are very inconsistent. Every 250k guitar pot I've measured in the last 10 years has been 220k~250k. It hardly matters considering everything that makes up electric guitar tone. My new cheap Fleour P/P pots all seem to be ~220k.
Snake oil. Not only that in 999,9 percentile the listener cannot make the difference between the PAF and "PAF", the rest is also important: cable, amp, valves... And NONE OFE THOSE can be recreated in full, so let's all just get back to 2023. and accept the pafs are behind us and we do sound good today, as well
One great pickup is the Gibson Classic 57 which does not attempt to exactly replicate the original PAF materials and winding process but it does follow Seth Lover’s specs just to modern standards rather than try to build in the flaws of 1950s manufacturing. My test is, does the pickup sound good rather than does it try to replicate the old ones.
@@FrankMacDonell That's interesting to hear because I have never tried a guitar with actual PAFs. I'm left handed which limits the number of guitars I can play anyway. I have two Les Paul style guitars. A Gibson and a Heritage. The Gibson sounds quite dark and muddy and the Heritage is bright. The Heritage had Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers and the Gibson has Classic 57s. I thought I didn't like the Classic 57s. I tried them in an SG guitar which is brighter and they sounded fantastic. So then I tried them in the Heritage. Also great. Classic 57s won't hide a bad guitar and I think this is what is going on with pickups and people constantly swapping them for expensive clones to try to kill the muddy tone in so many guitars. I took the Seymour Duncans and tried them in the Les Paul. It seems like the Seymours were made for a Les Paul because a lot of the mud was gone but the Heritage with the Gibson Classic 57s wins easily. Best to get Classic 57s on ebay while you can because Gibson seem to be limiting the supply, probably because they know that you can take any decent guitar and make it sound good with these pickups. They have a lovely dynamic feel. Very expressive. i find myself playing guitars for hours when they have these pickups.
This one will get the cork sniffers worked up for sure! Lest we forget people all throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s were swapping out PAFs for "upgraded" pickups.
@@HighlineGuitars Love it. Pickups are cheap things, the material cost is minimal and the process is largely automated these days. Charging anything more than $100 a pickup is just ripping it. If even Gibson only charges about that much for a PAF copy then where do they get off? I get covering overheads and R&D etc but how much of a premium does that really command? $600 for a genuine vintage pickup, sure, if that's your thing go for it but for a copy? Get outta here. It used to be a case of: Billable hours + materials + margin = cost to consumer. People got stupid though and started paying more for things because they cost more, you know, because expensiver is betterer......
I have found that this is true with trying to make Pedals with new resistors and caps. It's kinda weird to think we want to use inferior materials to get a better sound but thats the way it seems. Thank you for sharing. c]8-)
I dissected 6 PAF pickups. The difference between all were very noticeable. The TpL's on each were very close to consistency but there was variations between the slug and the screw coils on all of them. As if they were wound on two different machines. The main difference on all of them was the gause readings on the magnets and 3 of the 6 were Alnico 2's, one was an Alnico 3 and the other 2 based on my testings were Alnico 4 magnets. DCR and the Henries on all were between 2-3% plus or minus from one another. The wires were different thicknesses but two with the A2's were consistent with each other. All the wires were very rough feeling and brittle. All were a very dark blackish purple enamel coatings. As for making replicas, it is impossible because even PAF pickups were all over the place on the wires and magnets. The key for me is to have an open sounding pickup with a great bite and mid punch and bass. I've learned that the TPL's, the tension on the wire is very important. Magnet gause is very important as well as the type. There is more regarding the slugs and screws. But you can get close to a PAF style pickup today. You just have to use your ears to see what fits in the guitar you are using them in. I have no skin in the game because I am not a business in making these. I make them now for myself and friends.
The thing is, with today’s digital technology, you can easily make a cheap humbucker sound like any vintage PAF. Heck, you make a cheap single coil sound just like a 1959 PAF humbucker.
Yes .. This is the kind of Fact that I wish I had had available back in my youth .. Because ( & I am only telling this story for amusement purposes lol ) In 1974/75 My older Brother came home with an electric Guitar I think it was a Vox ? Futurama ? .. Any way it looked like a fried egg shape & similar to something Brian Jones ( Rolling Stone's ) had once played .. it was really cheap & really lightweight But it all worked & My Brother was really excited to play it so we went to a friends House who was a Qualified Electrical Engineer & who was always Tinkering with Amplifiers & Radios early FX pedals etc Now Rhys was a lovely Guy & a bit of an " out there " Genius type who had several amplifiers about & Soon my Big Bro' was enthusiastically playing his new guitar .. all was going well until he stood up not noticing he had his right foot on the Guitar Lead & Stripping the Jack right out of the Body .. So Rhys very kindly offered to fix it for free as he had lot's of Guitar parts from other jobs laying around .. Well a Month or so went by & eventually a Proud Rhys displayed his work .. So he had replaced the cheap machine heads with Grover Tuners & the pickups with two PAF 's from a broken necked Les Paul .. Now as soon as My Brother put the Guitar on the strap slid & the weight of the Grovers kept the Guitar head down .. No problem said Rhys & promised a quick Fix .. The following weekend this Genius ( ? ) Had put a solid lump of Lead ? Iron painted Black ? on the tail of this monster ... It was hard to be Mad at Rhys he was so please with his wiring & the switching he had done & all for free .. So My Brother took it home .. Disconsolate . In vain I tried to explain to him that the machine heads alone were worth more than he had paid for the Guitar in the 1st place & that just one of the Original PAF's was worth twice as much .. Sadly he took it to a Guitar shop & used for a trade in & got £10 of his 2nd hand Strat ' .. which didn't last Long .. But if he had only let me I would have gladly given him £20 for the parts .. But it was a done deal & so I missed out on the chance for two original PAF's & a set of Grovers from an ( reportedly Black Beauty Les Paul that had being Trashed By a jealous Girlfriend ) .. LOL It takes Artistry as well as Technical skill to build a nice Guitar .. But in those day's people were yet to appreciate that & New was always Better . Hope this makes you smile Cheers .
I like my ReWind pickups. Wizz are also cool. I had old wire Wizz and new wire, no difference in sound. Magnet to me makes the most difference in sound to me.
I just inherited an early 65 sg with patent sticker humbuckers. I believe these are among the last of the real deals and I'm so stoked to have them. They make every other pickup I have access to sound soulless.
I have one myself and as much as I tried to find similar ones/clones, there is just something with these pickups. Clear and bright, dynamic, not really hot but the drive they produce is bitey, grindy, mean with just enough hair without being too loose. Anyway, one of my favourite PAF/guitar combinations I've tried, they are so versatile! Stocked is the word!
I bought a paf clone from bootstrap pickups, they said they order period correct materials - at a minimum. They sounded fantastic and I was happy to have it. I don't think it was identical in sound or anything like that (they didn't claim that anyway), but I thought it was killer that they put the effort fourth.
Had their very first set of squeaky means, silly low introductory price for a set, had to. Turns out a 10k Jazzmaster pickup still won't really cut it if you want P90, but they were well made, a bit innovative in the nouse blocking cover material, and totally worth twice the price.
What I know about copper wire (and possibly what makes modern processing of it different)- audio wire is made oxygen free and single crystal. If that's the difference that makes the important difference, then it seems there should be processes to oxygenate it and perhaps make it crystallize. Perhaps the insulation applied after processing would need to contain an anti-corrosive agent to prevent further oxidation.
Hmmm, I wouldn't be surprised if some modern insulation does that, but it pretty much seals the wire anyway. I can't imagine there would be significant deterioration in a human lifetime. Even if there were, a 50% increase in DCR from 8k to 12k results in only ~1/4dB output loss and no change in the tonality.
Great video. It would be interesting to know what effect the old wire would have. More or less inductance/resistance/capacitance? Different effect on the properties of the resulting magnetic field... obviously though the ultimate point is that which you make - you just get a good example of one, measure everything about it's specification and behaviour then recreate the figures, rather than the individual components.
Dear Chris, when we're talking of the tone of a humbucker or any other pickup, I think there are only a few parameters that really count: Inductance L and capacitance C of the coil (and cable to the amplifier) and damping. Since a pickup is in fact a low pass filter with a cutoff frequency that equals: 1/2/pi/square root L*C , which is also the resonance frequency of the pickup with more or less damping. Less damping boosts the cut off frequency means that one has to control those 3 parameters - The inductance L is proportional to the square of the number of windings, which in turn is proportional to the pickup output. - The capacitance increases with the number of windings probably linear, the thickness of the insulation and the scattering. Unless one uses a buffer amplifier in the guitar (active pickup) this capacitance adds up with that of the connection cable to the guitar amplifier - Damping increases with the load of the pickup (potentiometer, input impedance amplifier...) AND the use of a pickup cover in which eddy currents are induced when metal As a result: by manipulating such parameters as L, C and damping it must be possible to create any sound with modern materials and wire, even any vintage sound.
Be aware that this information only benefits the professional pickup maker or manufacturer who strives for repeatability. The hobby builder who is only interested in making one set of pickups for their project isn't going to know the numbers for L and C until after the pups are wound.
Chris, I agree. Although I'm a professional builder, my aim is to build PU's with an as high as possible frequency range. Bright sounding. In order to achieve that, I have to wind more PU's than I really need and on which I perform some measurements: - Measurement of the impedance curve which shows very clearly the resonance frequency. - Measurement of L and C with an LCR-meter. Then I apply the formula mentioned earlier. This also returns the resonance frequency Both measurements are pretty well close to each other. So I assume I can rely on them In order to get an as high as possible frequency range both L and C have to be as low as possible. But, of course, there's a trade-off. A lower L means less windings, thus less output. After having done some experimental PU's I'm able to esteem L beforehand The only thing that rests is C which is much harder to control. I'm trying different scattering speeds but the transverse movement is done manually. As a result, I don't have the control needed. (I purchased your plan for a PU winder, simple version giving me some inspiration to build my own version but without traverse system) Thus far I didn't succeed to control C very well. I have to do some more experiments
Before I watch this my prediction is this isn't possible because either parts that no longer exist OR because OG PAF winding was extremely inconsistent. LETS FIND OUT
Throbak can do it. They have 3 of gibosns old winding machines and they have plain enamel custom made the exact same way . They old old plain enamel analyzed and cloned and they have the wire custom made using the old methods. There is still one manufacturer who makes PE the old way using the old methods but you have to pay a steep premium to get the wire made they do the same with their magnets and metal components. They are examined for alloy content and replicated. Gibson had 3 machines. The lessona the meteor and the geo Steven's winder and throbak owns all 3 . They actually got the very same machines gibosm had . Not just the same matches but the ones that actually wound gibosn pafs in Kalamazoo.
I'm fairly certain that the biggest stockpile for that wire is likely owned by Seymour Duncan. He's purchased an unreal amount of old stock parts and machines, to include the old pickup winders from Gibson's Kalamazoo factory. I haven't placed an order with their custom shop so I'm not certain what kind of access they offer to their NOS stockpile, but in theory I think you could get a PAF made completely from NOS on the same exact machine the rest of those original PAFs were wound if you can get the Seymour Duncan custom shop to make it for you
This is a valid theoretical point, but if you had 100 pickups made with actual NOS wire, and 100 made with modern wire, and shuffled them all together, I think you could safely offer a $1 Million bounty to anyone who could tell them apart better than chance using only their ears, without ever having to worry about a payout.. This is more about chasing Hedge Fund Manager buyers and marketing, than an actual significant audio difference that could be detected by a blindfolded listener in a blind test.
The operative word in your comment would be "think." That means someone might be able to tell all 200 pickups apart. However, more important in my opinion, is that ALL of the pickups will sound good. Different, but good. The difference is subjective. A pickup that you think sounds modern, I might call out as vintage and vice versa. Put enough people in a room and ask them separate the modern from the vintage and in the end, each of the 200 pickups will be identified as both modern and vintage.
Not to mention the slugs and keepers that where made from soft iron….not the cheap steel stuff they’re using today, I use pure iron making my pickups and the difference is unreal. Iron has more magnetic lines per square inch than steel giving more tone and bass response and dynamic feel.
Where do you get your iron parts? I've been looking at different materials to stand out from other companies. I've been considering using aluminum and silver magnet wire and iron slugs.
The whole point magnets are not like fine wine that gets better with age. The whole PAF thing makes me laugh, figure the magnetic flux has leached out of these alnico bars for the last 60+ years. What we are after is the PAF sound of the late 60's and 70's a 6 to 20 year old Alnico magnet, early Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane and Dickey, Peter Green, Paul Kossoff the list is endless. You will chase your tail forever, just find that one thats close and call it a day. No one ever mentions amps, choice of speakers, speaker cabinets players style that go's with that PAF sound.
I clicked on this video without my reading glasses and for a moment, I thought I had opened a video about Langley from The Lone Gunmen; you've gotten your hippie on since the last time I watched one of your videos... ;-)
I think wind pattern snd TPL are overlooked. I shake my head anytime someone claims they’re selling a scatter wound PAF. To me, the best result come from uniformly wound wind patterns and TPL.
It's not the wire that needs to be replicated It the whole electric circuit... And that is possible.... I have BK, Monty's and Cream T and Gibbo CustomBuckers PAF types and I'm very happy with them, With a crunchy Fender tweed amp they chirp and bite and chime and moan... The Cream T's are the best of the bunch... And they are made from modern materials... check them out
Sadly there are fewer, and fewer of us who understand what Analog tone truly means---my first rig was a mid-sixties Strat, and a '71 Bandmaster Reverb head. I just thought it was a beat up old Guitar with rusty screws, and I loved it anyway!
I can make a single coil vintage Strat sound like a 1959 Les Paul by playing it through Amplitube and I can't tell the difference. Analog is quaint and romantic, but digital is the now and the future.
@@HighlineGuitars Heck, I thought playing through my BOSS GT3 with the humbucker simulation sounded really great, and that's ancient tech compared to today's modelers. ;) If it sounds good, it is good!
Funny thing is 99.9% of guitar players have never heard or ever will hear a real PAF pickup. It’s all in your head what you think its supposed to sound like. And everyones idea of good tone is different. You can buy into the hype and spend tons of money on false claims of who’s pickup is better than who’s -whatever. But if anyone really think things like the plastic bobbins contribute to the tone I think they are nuts! As the late great Bill Lawrence has said, magnets have no sound, its in the design of the pickup. There are alnico pickups that sound harsh and ceramic used in pickups that sound warm and sweet. Without Bill Lawrence there would not be people like dimarzio, duncan, kent armstrong etc He knew more about magnetism and pickups then all of them combined. Once it is realized most of the tone come from your hands, you can then realize that a pickup is not that big of a deal. Thats why is you were handed EVH or SRV’s guitar plugged into their amps you would not sound like them, you would sound like you. There are plenty of good pickup choices out there today no need to spend big bucks to get good tone like some people want you to believe. Just my $.02 thanks for listening.
What about finding something that was wound with wire around the same time, not an unused spool but just a coil in some other electrical thing and unwind it?
Go to your local thrift shop and find yourself old light fixtures, should be able to recover several feet of wire from them and there's extruders you can find online to thin it out to the right size. Hardest part will be enamel coating your extruded wire
@@HighlineGuitars I mean if the issue is finding vintage wire spools it's a work around 🤷, they do similar stuff to find pre-Trinity steel for scientific instruments as nuclear contamination makes the instruments less accurate
Although I highly agree, I believe PAF's today are just as good as they ever were. All that truly matters is that Gibson continues to put forth the effort to keep producing them their way without any unnecessary changes to the formula. I'll say the same thing about the guitar. There's no sense trying to get a real '59 LP over a spec by spec replica (and having it age naturally). I prefer the replicas. They do just what they can do -- just as they've always done since '59 -- use the best-possible sourced materials of today and the best craftsmanship, and use their abilities to produce the best guitar possible. You might just have something that's better than an original '59, or you might not. That's the exciting part.
I think where some people are confused is in hearing what you're saying and thinking "but there's a million good-sounding pickups around, some based on the PAF pattern, many very reasonably-priced" which is true, but also not something I think you're denying. The question is whether the higher-priced "replica" vendors can do what they claim to do (they can't), and whether they would necessarily be making the best sounding pickups around even if they could (they wouldn't). I didn't interpret any of that as saying a competent pickup designer can't take a given value of "PAF" as a starting point today and build something using modern materials that strongly evokes a given vintage pickup, or alters its performance for a specific application.
I don't know much about dcr, gauss, etc., but I know what I like. Totally speaking, (not economically, of course) I would rather play my guitar with $35 GFS Fat Pats through Duane Allman's rig than Duane's 59er through my amp.
Honestly Gibson 57 Classic sound so good on it’s own all better and closer replicas are just there so “boutique” could roll out their part. But just IMO and you can buy and play what you want, I own pair of SD Seth Lover set and that ones sounds good also.
So let me get this straight... To make an exact replica of some vintage pickup is difficult because the manufacturing techniques of both the wire and the pickups would pretty much guarantee a much wider tolerance than happens today and thus variation between pickups back then. In other words, it sounds like there's no one target to hit but rather a big hole to shoot an arrow through. This is only confusing because you're trying to hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time.
There’s a difference between a replica and a clone. A replica looks like the original. A clone is an exact duplicate. If you market your pickup as a PAF clone, it had better be exact down to ALL of the materials used and the method of construction. If not, you’re deceiving your customers.
Great video, like always 👍💪. I want to ask you if a wire plein enamel, for exemple, buy in one shop is the same that a enamel buy in another shop ? I mean, is there differences on the quality, or conception or any other factor that can change the result of making a pickup with the same type of wire, but who s from 2 differents shop ?
I think trying to replicate a paf build wise, like say throwbak, using even the same winding machines. Does not make the best paf style tone, very separate issues, Virgil arlo, Tom Holmes, dole coils, Ron Ellis, and um stephens, all have excellent paf tone pickups very close to real vintage pafs, long wait times, and expensive, the inpatient need not apply. I have a Virgil arlo set that was a special wind that got scary close to a real 58 les Pual, I have access to. He is not winding anymore though, the point is build materials and tone, are very separate issues, throwbak gets very close in materials, really like the covers they make, but tone wise they are outclassed by the top paf winders. They have been at it a long time, and learned for others who did the same.
It would be difficult for anyone,even the manufacturer to 100% replicate a pickup from the past. When Fender Custom Shop ma de a limited addition of George Harrison’s rosewood telecaster that he used on the rooftop concert that was the last with the Beatles they pulled the woman that made the original pickups out of retirement to make a number limited to 200 of them. The replica came out in two editions. It was the chambered one which were made 1000 pieces of and then was the very limited series that were as close to the original as possible. That is why they used this retired worker to make the pickups. This guitar was not chambered and felt very heavy. I had the chance to checkout one of these limited edition guitars but it was way over my budget.😁😁😁
Don't personally get the hype around a PAF (never mind how inconsistent they are). I feel like Gibo were just doing what they could with what they had vs what they could afford rather than aiming for some holy grail tone. Players love to romanticize this stuff. Not to mention that a lot of what people think is the PAF tone is in reality coming out of a pickup that's 70 years old at this point. My guess is that some of the early DiMarzio's and Duncan Pups are sounding different or "vintage" at this point in time to some ears also. Honestly, there are pickup manufacturers out there who can dial in a tone much more accurately to what an artist or engineer wants. I guess if people like that sound, great, but to me, PAFs aren't some gold standard by which every other humbucker should be compared against. Frankly, it's all they had.
According to those that own P.A.F's they all say since they were so inconsistent there is no one P.A.F sound. There is a specific character according to these owners. Seems the general consensus is the very best ones are by DOYLE COILS, WIZZ, REWIND,THROBAK, STEPHENS DESIGNED,HÄUSSEL and a few others so pick your flavor there are no bad ones in this group IMHO. Typically these are pretty expensive with sets start at about $400 a set.
If a pickup maker describes their "PAFs" as "clones," they are lying unless the wire they are using was made in the late 1950s-early 1960s. Wire made today is not the same. Not even close. A clone is an exact duplicate. The correct term for these pickups is "replica." Some of the makers use the correct term while others "clone" and that is deceiving. What you're paying for is the PAF look. In the end, they sound no different than any other pickup. What's that old saying about a fool and his money?
Should we care or try thugh I'm sure original Gibson pup designers would have loved the consistancy in the wires. I mean if some manufacturor like fishman comes with a really really good sounding one with their printed silicon boards, which would be rplicatable each time, isn't that the dream?
Magnet and wire are the two biggest factors. Wite wasnt as consistent and those wires made thr guitars unique. And the guitars after 50 years have magnets which are much weaker. Aged magnets are the ticket.
Best PAF copy is a early patent number pickup , pretty simple but still quite expensive, I screwed up two years ago failing to aquire a pair of 63's for a grand , what an idiot I am
I spent a bit and bought original 70s T Tops..... then I thought, ahhh maybe gibson T Types are better.... then i thought, Ahhhh I'm 60, I like the old crap, it's my placebo comfort
perhaps I'm misundertsnafding and if I am someone correct me.. But if the copper wiring on the orignal PAF's were inconsistent ( as opposed to now), wouldnt that then mean that the quality and consistency of the original PAF's were hit and miss too? seems like based on what youre saying that infact it would be easier to replicate said pick up because of modern technology and consistant build, with access to materials
It's already been established that PAFs were all over the place in terms of consistency. With that in mind, would you pay $600+ for a so-called replica, especially knowing the wire is probably wrong?
That particular company claim that they take readings from each spool and match that reading to a particular style of PAF and say that’s as close as you can get with wire these days. Would I pay $600 for a set, not a chance!! Sales talk only goes so far, some people love that. I’m gonna start selling tone that you rub on your fingers!!
I'm thinking replication of the deteriorating of the Gauss on the alnico5 that happens with a whole myriad of conditions through 50+ years would also be key... But. As you stated. Once you found exactly which tonal properties You wish to replicate. You could probably get a fairly consistent pickup build. ... Now. Just find the one. Or 5 tones that 70% of Guitarists agree are the Divine PAF tone??! Lol. Good luck on That....lol
It’s very easy to precisely charge or degauss an alnico magnet. That’s not the issue. The issue is the coil wire. My point in this video was to encourage skepticism toward those who have claimed to offer exact physical replicas.
It cracks me up Chris this debate why pay E vessive amounts of money for a pickup. And those early pafs which actually were the original humbucker design and those pickups were noisy as hell too. Just like fender single coil pickups. It seems like marketing madness but typical of guitar manufactures. Ohh and by the way bill Lawrence who was mentioned in the comments designed the rail style humbucker that dimebag darl from pantara had in his dean guitars for which the Seymour duncan dimebucker pickup was copied and designed from. It cracks me up over original pafs when guys like Tony iommi were getting them potted in wax or Eddie van Halen was getting his paf pickup that was in his Frankie potted in wax and getting them rewound by Seymour duncan or guys like Larry dimarzio just so they would sound the way they like. But here the thing everyone now is starting to want those 1980s pickup tones now like the Seymour duncan jb pickups or the dimarzio super distortions or Eddie's Frankie tone. Well guess what I actaully have an actual 1980s pickup lying around which is my yamaha rgx stock bridge pickup which is more probably like a, Seymour duncan jb but maybe not as hot. I can't wait until some clown will try to market the emg 81 and 85 active pickup set clone and try akd charge 800 dollars for the pickup set. And if you ask me Chris clowns like the guitar center ceo does not help when he says nonsense like people will pay high dollar amounts for a brand name like Gibson or fender while not me and neither would Joe satraini. Akd thus clown ceo like the clowns at Gibson would rather spend time suing people instead of making great guitars so sick of those ceos and colecters who care more about dollar amounts but know nothing about actual guitars. So I will end on this if you want to spend high dollars on colecters items to hang on your wall fine but to any real guitar player it's about comfort and how it sounds and playing it. And a brand name guitar does. Me no good when our of the box it will never meet my specs or play exactky how I want or sound the way I like put of the box. I guess I am In the minority with my Eddie van Halen yngwie malmsteen Steve vai syndrome. But just wait they will romp o. That too.
Pickups are only ever similar, never really the same. A good oscilloscope can confirm that. In any production the tolerances are exactly just that, tolerances within a range from component to component in the guitar. But this is a great mental exercise nonetheless. Old Rickenbacker pickups were notorious for being all over the place, but went on the same body builds. I don't really want a sound that brings me back to Elvis's rhythm guitar players using old PAF's, but if I did, I would go find old crappy soviet era wire stock undoubtedly sitting around somewhere in eastern Europe. Hell, the stuff they produce today would probably be similar, but I won't spend a dime on anything Russian while Putin is still in power for ethical reasons, and not just because of it's crap QC and production capabilities. China more than likely has some bad production facilities too for low grade less than consistent wire that they pawn off for low end stuff. I'm just riffing now, but I'm really just saying that there is no real reason to chase phantoms. It's being done to death with wave form replicators anyway. Every snowflake is unique, etc...
the moral of the story, stop living in the past and just design new pickups already! seriously people, PAFs where hit and miss. with todays quality consistent material, we can come up with new amazing sounding designs and consistently replicate it. which was really hard back in the 50s so make something new that sounds great and enjoy it instead of pulling your hair out over the madness of PAF replication syndrome. =)
Alnico magnets are not the same in nowadays, right? I think cobalt is forbidden to be used in industry,in order to protect the health of the workers ...so ... there is no way to catch that tone.....
There would have to be a LOT of demand to make building replica manufacturing equipment financially feasible. Not to mention, said process would definitely be less efficient than the modern one.
Totally correct: if you want a replica product, you need a replica process. You would need to manufacture the equipment first. That's a lot of work and money.
What you would be asking is for wire manufacturers to make a flawed product for a very small market. We like the properties that poor processes/materials created. The electronics industry wants flawless product. I think this ship has sailed.
Way to stir the pot! I don't think most people would notice the difference because all of the signal is still going into different amps, different electronics, different tubes and different speaker materials from the differently spec'd pickups. Cork sniffers chasing their tails again...
Of course it’s subjective. After 7:00 in the video he describes the process by which you could clone a PAF with a reasonably objective process. The thing that makes it kind of pointless is that PAFs are not consistent, so at best you can clone one particular PAF.
if you hear a modern wire coiled pickup and a formvar scaterwound wire pickup with A2 magnets non potted the difference makes you not want modern pickups the modern pickups are the real mass produced pickup but there again there are some better sounding PAF pickups from that era i dont think the original machine really makes a difference or the seat the person sat at in the day.
'You can't replicate them' ok fair, what can you do instead? You can find one you like the sound of to copy as it turns out they were no two were really the same. So lets just go back to the start of the video and ask yourself what you were trying to copy before you spent 5 mins talking about wire. You copy your original PAf then bring it over and compare the copy to my original, when they don't sound the same (because the originals didn't) I'll call you out for not being able to copy a PAF. Gets worse when we get to a '95% sounding PAF' 30 seconds after saying they all sound different and we've hypothetically decided not to copy the 'bad' original PAF, So that copy is what 60% of the rejected one that actually is an original? But wire yeah? Why wouldn't that 95% copy be 100% the same as another original that has less/more turns (or any of the other things that could change it very slightly) than the one you copied? Forget the wire stuff and start out with defining what you want to copy, I don't think I'd want to be part of trying to work out what is or isn't a 'Good' PAF, There are too many people with too many views all wanting a slightly something different, not one of them is wrong about what a PAF is or what it sounds like and that's why you can't copy a PAF because there isn't 'A' PAF.
I don't buy it. Copper wire is copper wire. If the inductance and resistance of the coil is the same, then the copper itself will not cause a sound difference.
Buy what? Wire from 1955 was made using different manufacturing techniques than wire made today . Therefore a replica PAF made using modern wire is not a 100% accurate replica. Also, magnet wire is not 100% pure copper. It is an alloy and wire made today has a much higher degree of consistency. A thousand feet of 42 awg plain enamel wire made in 1955 will have a different level of resistance and inductance than a thousand feet of the same spec wire made today.
People also state that HiFi speaker wire from Home Depot sounds the same as more expensive options, but that is for sure not the case. It can make a world of difference.
I never understood why people search for a pickup that will make their Les Paul sound like a 1959 Les Paul. Even if you install a real PAF in your guitar it won't sound like that. The pickup is only one part of your sound. You must get all parts correctly to get "that sound". Wood, glue, finish, Tail piece, Bridge, bridge posts and even wire harness. If one of these is not correct the tone will change.
Here's the thing: Gibson humbucking pickups were a part of a guitar. Gibson was not a pickup maker but a guitar maker and pickups were a part of a guitar. So the manufacturing had more to do with pumping out enough pickups to meet guitar demand and thus, they were not only mass produced by 1950's standards, but the specs had to change with the availability of wire/magnets/black plastics, etc. Seth Lover didn't design his pickup and the specs for the pickup with "constant changing type/quality/consistency of wire and magnets" but had a certain number of turns of 42GA wire with AlCiNo V magnets, the most stable and powerful magnet available. But PAF's based on changing specs based on material availability, had all kinds of magnet grades and a variety of wire within the 42GA spec. So trying to nail "THE" PAF sound is impossible but making pickups based on the specs, as closely as you can, gets you close enough. There are so many variables and individual PAF variants, the one you wind probably has an old clone of that pickup sitting in closet somewhere in Ohio. Who knows? The chasing some ghost of "the perfect PAF" is silly but also saying you can't get the basic sound of the early Gibson humbucking pickup if you follow Seth Lover's formula, just because today's wire is more consistent, is also silly. If anything, it allows you to produce a more consistent product for your customer.
Who says you can’t get the basic sound?
Paul Reed Smith claims to have tracked down the original PAF wire machine from the original factory. They apparently found the original machine sitting idle in storage for years with some original copper ready to be fired up again. He talks about signing an exclusive deal with them on buying wire from that machine in a few interviews you can find online. I have a meteor 301b winder from an old factory and have spent a fair amount of time making PAF clones for personal use. In general, I think it would be easier to just find PAFs that sound amazing, run a lot of tests on them on the actual output and response curves by signal sweeping in the right way to get a numeric baseline for what a great sounding pickup actually sounds like. Then set about creating a recipe for that sound using modern materials. There are so many ways that you can tweak the way a pickup sounds that you wouldn’t need to source original materials. Just some time and R&D. On my winder alone, there are so many different settings that affect the tone and none are anywhere near precise. There is no way one machine could exactly match another without some serious side by side tuning. Better to start with the sound you want and work backwards to build a pickup recipe that gets you there rather than try to replicate the manufacture in every minute detail, I think.
The owner of throbak pickups has 3 of the original Gibson winding machines from the Kalamazoo factory
Sell me that machine
Yeah but tone sniffers will argue that you need vintage Kalamazoo area Americans who eat burritos from the joint across the street because the farts got into the windings after lunch and that's when Gibson made the best PAFs
I bought two Meteor 301's in Ohio years back, along with a couple of Gorman Bobbineer winders and an old REA desktop winder with the heart shaped cam. I lucked out and got them all for $1600, I rented a truck and drove the 800 miles there and back to pick them up. All were in perfect condition...I like the Meteor winders but I use the Bobbineer and the REA winder more. I love making pickups but I do for a few people a year now. It's been 38 years of pickup tinkering. I never get sick of it.
@@MichaelSotoCEI doubt anyone would make a claim that ridiculous.
The PAF pickups in my 1961 Les Paul sound great but i like the sound of the 57 classics in my 2013 sg just as much. They don't sound exactly alike but i enjoy the difference.
That's all true. The inconsistent wire/insulation and winding tension produced very inconsistent pickups with varying degrees of high-end and output loss. The Late Bill Lawerence tested hundreds of vintage pickups when he was chief engineer at Gibson, Nashville in the 70s. He found little consistency and high internal capacitance. You'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference even if the same gauge wire somehow varied by 50% DCR (and it wouldn't), as long as the coil dimensions are close for the same winds. A 50% increase in DCR from 8k to 12k results in only ~1/4dB output loss and no change in the tonality.
You want reduced highs with a PAF? Use a 250k for one of the pots and a relatively high C cable to increase the peak level and lower the freq. I think Gibson actually used 330k pots for a while. AlNiCO IV magnets were largely responsible for the coveted mid 60s-era PAF sound. HF wire and AlNiCo, II, III or weak AlNiCO V was the 50s sound. I follow Bill Lawrence's lead on this. The PAF mystique is BS.
As you said in your video, there is a fair bit of difference from pickup to pickup in the original PAF's, some sounded great, some not so much. Therefore the sensible approach is to forget about replicating PAF tones, and just seek a pickup that sounds great to you in the way you intend to use it. It's the same thing I say to people who try to nail a specific artists tone through gear. Don't try to sound like Gilmour or SRV, try to find the tones that you like the sound of when you play that style of music. No matter how much you spend, you will never have their fingers.
Many years ago an EE friend of mine, as part of his post grad, made 3 phono preamps; valve, discrete transistor, and opamp topologies, and did a double blind test with a bunch of people. IIRC, the only trend he found in listening preference was to do with the age of the subjects. Getting a stack of 50s PAFs and a bunch of musicians and working out which they prefer the tone of would actually be interesting if done as a true double blind.
Also people forget that the pickups are just one element of a passive high z resonant circuit. And 1950s pots were well made physically, but electrically were all over the shop.
Actually 50s pots held better tolerance that they do today. And were built in the USA, and as a very old engineer, I know this as fact.
Funny that people say modern pots are very inconsistent. Every 250k guitar pot I've measured in the last 10 years has been 220k~250k. It hardly matters considering everything that makes up electric guitar tone. My new cheap Fleour P/P pots all seem to be ~220k.
Snake oil. Not only that in 999,9 percentile the listener cannot make the difference between the PAF and "PAF", the rest is also important: cable, amp, valves... And NONE OFE THOSE can be recreated in full, so let's all just get back to 2023. and accept the pafs are behind us and we do sound good today, as well
One great pickup is the Gibson Classic 57 which does not attempt to exactly replicate the original PAF materials and winding process but it does follow Seth Lover’s specs just to modern standards rather than try to build in the flaws of 1950s manufacturing. My test is, does the pickup sound good rather than does it try to replicate the old ones.
Having owned many vintage gibsons and some with PAFs i think the 57 classic is a fantastic sounding humbucker.
@@FrankMacDonell That's interesting to hear because I have never tried a guitar with actual PAFs. I'm left handed which limits the number of guitars I can play anyway.
I have two Les Paul style guitars. A Gibson and a Heritage. The Gibson sounds quite dark and muddy and the Heritage is bright. The Heritage had Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers and the Gibson has Classic 57s. I thought I didn't like the Classic 57s. I tried them in an SG guitar which is brighter and they sounded fantastic. So then I tried them in the Heritage. Also great. Classic 57s won't hide a bad guitar and I think this is what is going on with pickups and people constantly swapping them for expensive clones to try to kill the muddy tone in so many guitars. I took the Seymour Duncans and tried them in the Les Paul. It seems like the Seymours were made for a Les Paul because a lot of the mud was gone but the Heritage with the Gibson Classic 57s wins easily.
Best to get Classic 57s on ebay while you can because Gibson seem to be limiting the supply, probably because they know that you can take any decent guitar and make it sound good with these pickups.
They have a lovely dynamic feel. Very expressive. i find myself playing guitars for hours when they have these pickups.
This one will get the cork sniffers worked up for sure! Lest we forget people all throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s were swapping out PAFs for "upgraded" pickups.
I'm hoping to raise the ire of the guys who are charging $600+ for what they claim are vintage repro PAF humbuckers.
Be prepared: In 25 years those replika PAFs will get swapped out for replika SuperDistortions. :D
@@oozede9035 Ain't that the truth!
@@HighlineGuitars Love it. Pickups are cheap things, the material cost is minimal and the process is largely automated these days. Charging anything more than $100 a pickup is just ripping it. If even Gibson only charges about that much for a PAF copy then where do they get off? I get covering overheads and R&D etc but how much of a premium does that really command? $600 for a genuine vintage pickup, sure, if that's your thing go for it but for a copy? Get outta here.
It used to be a case of: Billable hours + materials + margin = cost to consumer. People got stupid though and started paying more for things because they cost more, you know, because expensiver is betterer......
@@oozede9035 Absolutely. The super distortion is the best sounding humbucker anyone’s ever made anyway
I have found that this is true with trying to make Pedals with new resistors and caps. It's kinda weird to think we want to use inferior materials to get a better sound but thats the way it seems. Thank you for sharing. c]8-)
I dissected 6 PAF pickups. The difference between all were very noticeable. The TpL's on each were very close to consistency but there was variations between the slug and the screw coils on all of them. As if they were wound on two different machines. The main difference on all of them was the gause readings on the magnets and 3 of the 6 were Alnico 2's, one was an Alnico 3 and the other 2 based on my testings were Alnico 4 magnets. DCR and the Henries on all were between 2-3% plus or minus from one another. The wires were different thicknesses but two with the A2's were consistent with each other. All the wires were very rough feeling and brittle. All were a very dark blackish purple enamel coatings. As for making replicas, it is impossible because even PAF pickups were all over the place on the wires and magnets. The key for me is to have an open sounding pickup with a great bite and mid punch and bass. I've learned that the TPL's, the tension on the wire is very important. Magnet gause is very important as well as the type. There is more regarding the slugs and screws. But you can get close to a PAF style pickup today. You just have to use your ears to see what fits in the guitar you are using them in. I have no skin in the game because I am not a business in making these. I make them now for myself and friends.
The thing is, with today’s digital technology, you can easily make a cheap humbucker sound like any vintage PAF. Heck, you make a cheap single coil sound just like a 1959 PAF humbucker.
Thank you!
Right on Trygve! Very much appreciated. Thanks!!
Yes .. This is the kind of Fact that I wish I had had available back in my youth .. Because ( & I am only telling this story for amusement purposes lol ) In 1974/75 My older Brother came home with an electric Guitar I think it was a Vox ? Futurama ? .. Any way it looked like a fried egg shape & similar to something Brian Jones ( Rolling Stone's ) had once played .. it was really cheap & really lightweight But it all worked & My Brother was really excited to play it so we went to a friends House who was a Qualified Electrical Engineer & who was always Tinkering with Amplifiers & Radios early FX pedals etc Now Rhys was a lovely Guy & a bit of an " out there " Genius type who had several amplifiers about & Soon my Big Bro' was enthusiastically playing his new guitar .. all was going well until he stood up not noticing he had his right foot on the Guitar Lead & Stripping the Jack right out of the Body .. So Rhys very kindly offered to fix it for free as he had lot's of Guitar parts from other jobs laying around .. Well a Month or so went by & eventually a Proud Rhys displayed his work .. So he had replaced the cheap machine heads with Grover Tuners & the pickups with two PAF 's from a broken necked Les Paul .. Now as soon as My Brother put the Guitar on the strap slid & the weight of the Grovers kept the Guitar head down .. No problem said Rhys & promised a quick Fix .. The following weekend this Genius ( ? ) Had put a solid lump of Lead ? Iron painted Black ? on the tail of this monster ... It was hard to be Mad at Rhys he was so please with his wiring & the switching he had done & all for free .. So My Brother took it home .. Disconsolate . In vain I tried to explain to him that the machine heads alone were worth more than he had paid for the Guitar in the 1st place & that just one of the Original PAF's was worth twice as much .. Sadly he took it to a Guitar shop & used for a trade in & got £10 of his 2nd hand Strat ' .. which didn't last Long .. But if he had only let me I would have gladly given him £20 for the parts .. But it was a done deal & so I missed out on the chance for two original PAF's & a set of Grovers from an ( reportedly Black Beauty Les Paul that had being Trashed By a jealous Girlfriend ) .. LOL It takes Artistry as well as Technical skill to build a nice Guitar .. But in those day's people were yet to appreciate that & New was always Better . Hope this makes you smile Cheers .
I like my ReWind pickups. Wizz are also cool. I had old wire Wizz and new wire, no difference in sound. Magnet to me makes the most difference in sound to me.
I changed my pick ups with pick ups made in Germany. He uses old wire comming from old speakers. Sounds awsome.
Who is the German Maker?
@@kroadster3249 I would bet money they are by a maker named "HÄUSSEL" 👍
I just inherited an early 65 sg with patent sticker humbuckers. I believe these are among the last of the real deals and I'm so stoked to have them. They make every other pickup I have access to sound soulless.
I have one myself and as much as I tried to find similar ones/clones, there is just something with these pickups. Clear and bright, dynamic, not really hot but the drive they produce is bitey, grindy, mean with just enough hair without being too loose. Anyway, one of my favourite PAF/guitar combinations I've tried, they are so versatile! Stocked is the word!
Got a set of OX4 pickups for Xmas. Gonna put them in an Explorer I’m building. Hoping they have the Mojo
I bought a paf clone from bootstrap pickups, they said they order period correct materials - at a minimum. They sounded fantastic and I was happy to have it. I don't think it was identical in sound or anything like that (they didn't claim that anyway), but I thought it was killer that they put the effort fourth.
Had their very first set of squeaky means, silly low introductory price for a set, had to.
Turns out a 10k Jazzmaster pickup still won't really cut it if you want P90, but they were well made, a bit innovative in the nouse blocking cover material, and totally worth twice the price.
Great video! I'm almost 60 and my ears are not what they use do be. I just want my guitars to be LOUD and pretty. (All three chords!)
What I know about copper wire (and possibly what makes modern processing of it different)- audio wire is made oxygen free and single crystal. If that's the difference that makes the important difference, then it seems there should be processes to oxygenate it and perhaps make it crystallize. Perhaps the insulation applied after processing would need to contain an anti-corrosive agent to prevent further oxidation.
Hmmm, I wouldn't be surprised if some modern insulation does that, but it pretty much seals the wire anyway. I can't imagine there would be significant deterioration in a human lifetime. Even if there were, a 50% increase in DCR from 8k to 12k results in only ~1/4dB output loss and no change in the tonality.
Great video.
It would be interesting to know what effect the old wire would have. More or less inductance/resistance/capacitance? Different effect on the properties of the resulting magnetic field...
obviously though the ultimate point is that which you make - you just get a good example of one, measure everything about it's specification and behaviour then recreate the figures, rather than the individual components.
Dear Chris, when we're talking of the tone of a humbucker or any other pickup, I think there are only a few parameters that really count:
Inductance L and capacitance C of the coil (and cable to the amplifier) and damping.
Since a pickup is in fact a low pass filter with a cutoff frequency that equals:
1/2/pi/square root L*C , which is also the resonance frequency of the pickup with more or less damping. Less damping boosts the cut off frequency
means that one has to control those 3 parameters
- The inductance L is proportional to the square of the number of windings, which in turn is proportional to the pickup output.
- The capacitance increases with the number of windings probably linear, the thickness of the insulation and the scattering.
Unless one uses a buffer amplifier in the guitar (active pickup) this capacitance adds up with that of the connection cable to the guitar amplifier
- Damping increases with the load of the pickup (potentiometer, input impedance amplifier...) AND the use of a pickup cover in which eddy currents are induced when metal
As a result: by manipulating such parameters as L, C and damping it must be possible to create any sound with modern materials and wire, even any vintage sound.
Be aware that this information only benefits the professional pickup maker or manufacturer who strives for repeatability. The hobby builder who is only interested in making one set of pickups for their project isn't going to know the numbers for L and C until after the pups are wound.
Chris, I agree. Although I'm a professional builder, my aim is to build PU's with an as high as possible frequency range. Bright sounding.
In order to achieve that, I have to wind more PU's than I really need and on which I perform some measurements:
- Measurement of the impedance curve which shows very clearly the resonance frequency.
- Measurement of L and C with an LCR-meter. Then I apply the formula mentioned earlier. This also returns the resonance frequency
Both measurements are pretty well close to each other. So I assume I can rely on them
In order to get an as high as possible frequency range both L and C have to be as low as possible.
But, of course, there's a trade-off.
A lower L means less windings, thus less output. After having done some experimental PU's I'm able to esteem L beforehand
The only thing that rests is C which is much harder to control.
I'm trying different scattering speeds but the transverse movement is done manually. As a result, I don't have the control needed.
(I purchased your plan for a PU winder, simple version giving me some inspiration to build my own version but without traverse system)
Thus far I didn't succeed to control C very well. I have to do some more experiments
Chris, sorry I've lost your comment by doing something wrong.
Anyway, my answer on yours follows right hereafter
Of course, above. (don't know TH-cam very well)
Don't forget to add the magic in there too. ;-)
Before I watch this my prediction is this isn't possible because either parts that no longer exist OR because OG PAF winding was extremely inconsistent. LETS FIND OUT
Throbak can do it. They have 3 of gibosns old winding machines and they have plain enamel custom made the exact same way . They old old plain enamel analyzed and cloned and they have the wire custom made using the old methods. There is still one manufacturer who makes PE the old way using the old methods but you have to pay a steep premium to get the wire made they do the same with their magnets and metal components. They are examined for alloy content and replicated. Gibson had 3 machines. The lessona the meteor and the geo Steven's winder and throbak owns all 3 . They actually got the very same machines gibosm had . Not just the same matches but the ones that actually wound gibosn pafs in Kalamazoo.
I'm fairly certain that the biggest stockpile for that wire is likely owned by Seymour Duncan. He's purchased an unreal amount of old stock parts and machines, to include the old pickup winders from Gibson's Kalamazoo factory. I haven't placed an order with their custom shop so I'm not certain what kind of access they offer to their NOS stockpile, but in theory I think you could get a PAF made completely from NOS on the same exact machine the rest of those original PAFs were wound if you can get the Seymour Duncan custom shop to make it for you
The key is to use wire that was manufactured in the 1950s and 1960s. Wire made today is not the same because of modern manufacturing techniques.
This is a valid theoretical point, but if you had 100 pickups made with actual NOS wire, and 100 made with modern wire, and shuffled them all together, I think you could safely offer a $1 Million bounty to anyone who could tell them apart better than chance using only their ears, without ever having to worry about a payout.. This is more about chasing Hedge Fund Manager buyers and marketing, than an actual significant audio difference that could be detected by a blindfolded listener in a blind test.
The operative word in your comment would be "think." That means someone might be able to tell all 200 pickups apart. However, more important in my opinion, is that ALL of the pickups will sound good. Different, but good. The difference is subjective. A pickup that you think sounds modern, I might call out as vintage and vice versa. Put enough people in a room and ask them separate the modern from the vintage and in the end, each of the 200 pickups will be identified as both modern and vintage.
For me, This is all a little silly. Why bother. Tons of great sounding pickups being made today.
It IS kinda like sourcing black powder for your Elmer Fudd gun.
Not to mention the slugs and keepers that where made from soft iron….not the cheap steel stuff they’re using today, I use pure iron making my pickups and the difference is unreal. Iron has more magnetic lines per square inch than steel giving more tone and bass response and dynamic feel.
Where do you get your iron parts? I've been looking at different materials to stand out from other companies. I've been considering using aluminum and silver magnet wire and iron slugs.
@@voodoocustompickups2547
Go with your iron slugs, I make my own on a lathe from pure iron rod, it’s very hard too source.
I see what you mean. Today’s wire is a more consistent diameter down the length. Back then the tolerances were higher. More variables to deal with.
The whole point magnets are not like fine wine that gets better with age.
The whole PAF thing makes me laugh, figure the magnetic flux has leached out of these alnico bars for the last 60+ years.
What we are after is the PAF sound of the late 60's and 70's a 6 to 20 year old Alnico magnet, early Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane and Dickey, Peter Green, Paul Kossoff the list is endless.
You will chase your tail forever, just find that one thats close and call it a day.
No one ever mentions amps, choice of speakers, speaker cabinets players style that go's with that PAF sound.
150k pounds of wire? That would be one HOT pickup!!
People always ask me if I make PAFs and I tell them no. I will do something PAF spec'd but I don't do PAFs
I clicked on this video without my reading glasses and for a moment, I thought I had opened a video about Langley from The Lone Gunmen; you've gotten your hippie on since the last time I watched one of your videos... ;-)
I think wind pattern snd TPL are overlooked. I shake my head anytime someone claims they’re selling a scatter wound PAF. To me, the best result come from uniformly wound wind patterns and TPL.
It's not the wire that needs to be replicated
It the whole electric circuit...
And that is possible....
I have BK, Monty's and Cream T and Gibbo CustomBuckers PAF types and I'm very happy with them,
With a crunchy Fender tweed amp they chirp and bite and chime and moan...
The Cream T's are the best of the bunch...
And they are made from modern materials... check them out
Sadly there are fewer, and fewer of us who understand what Analog tone truly means---my first rig was a mid-sixties Strat, and a '71 Bandmaster Reverb head. I just thought it was a beat up old Guitar with rusty screws, and I loved it anyway!
I can make a single coil vintage Strat sound like a 1959 Les Paul by playing it through Amplitube and I can't tell the difference. Analog is quaint and romantic, but digital is the now and the future.
@@HighlineGuitars Heck, I thought playing through my BOSS GT3 with the humbucker simulation sounded really great, and that's ancient tech compared to today's modelers. ;) If it sounds good, it is good!
Funny thing is 99.9% of guitar players have never heard or ever will hear a real PAF pickup. It’s all in your head what you think its supposed to sound like. And everyones idea of good tone is different.
You can buy into the hype and spend tons of money on false claims of who’s pickup is better than who’s -whatever. But if anyone really think things like the plastic bobbins contribute to the tone
I think they are nuts! As the late great Bill Lawrence has said, magnets have no sound, its in the design of the pickup. There are alnico pickups that sound harsh and ceramic used in pickups that sound warm and sweet. Without Bill Lawrence there would not be people like dimarzio, duncan, kent armstrong etc He knew more about magnetism and pickups then all of them combined. Once it is realized most of the tone come from your hands,
you can then realize that a pickup is not that big of a deal. Thats why is you were handed EVH or SRV’s guitar plugged into their amps you would not sound like them, you would sound like you. There are plenty of good pickup choices out there today no need to spend big bucks to get good tone like some people want you to believe. Just my $.02 thanks for listening.
What about finding something that was wound with wire around the same time, not an unused spool but just a coil in some other electrical thing and unwind it?
😂
Go to your local thrift shop and find yourself old light fixtures, should be able to recover several feet of wire from them and there's extruders you can find online to thin it out to the right size. Hardest part will be enamel coating your extruded wire
Or just by a spool in the size you need that's already insulated!
@@HighlineGuitars I mean if the issue is finding vintage wire spools it's a work around 🤷, they do similar stuff to find pre-Trinity steel for scientific instruments as nuclear contamination makes the instruments less accurate
What about ripping out wiring from old appliances and houses to reform?
You do you.
Although I highly agree, I believe PAF's today are just as good as they ever were. All that truly matters is that Gibson continues to put forth the effort to keep producing them their way without any unnecessary changes to the formula. I'll say the same thing about the guitar. There's no sense trying to get a real '59 LP over a spec by spec replica (and having it age naturally). I prefer the replicas. They do just what they can do -- just as they've always done since '59 -- use the best-possible sourced materials of today and the best craftsmanship, and use their abilities to produce the best guitar possible. You might just have something that's better than an original '59, or you might not. That's the exciting part.
The majic is when a pick up ages, some do it well
Another silly myth with no basis in reality.
I think where some people are confused is in hearing what you're saying and thinking "but there's a million good-sounding pickups around, some based on the PAF pattern, many very reasonably-priced" which is true, but also not something I think you're denying. The question is whether the higher-priced "replica" vendors can do what they claim to do (they can't), and whether they would necessarily be making the best sounding pickups around even if they could (they wouldn't).
I didn't interpret any of that as saying a competent pickup designer can't take a given value of "PAF" as a starting point today and build something using modern materials that strongly evokes a given vintage pickup, or alters its performance for a specific application.
My goal is to simply get people to think about what they are getting before they shell out $600+ for a "vintage repro PAF humbucker."
@@HighlineGuitars the next time a guitar player thinks twice before dumping a pile of cash on a box of unicorns will be the first time!
I don't know much about dcr, gauss, etc., but I know what I like. Totally speaking, (not economically, of course) I would rather play my guitar with $35 GFS Fat Pats through Duane Allman's rig than Duane's 59er through my amp.
Honestly Gibson 57 Classic sound so good on it’s own all better and closer replicas are just there so “boutique” could roll out their part. But just IMO and you can buy and play what you want, I own pair of SD Seth Lover set and that ones sounds good also.
So let me get this straight...
To make an exact replica of some vintage pickup is difficult because the manufacturing techniques of both the wire and the pickups would pretty much guarantee a much wider tolerance than happens today and thus variation between pickups back then. In other words, it sounds like there's no one target to hit but rather a big hole to shoot an arrow through.
This is only confusing because you're trying to hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time.
There’s a difference between a replica and a clone. A replica looks like the original. A clone is an exact duplicate. If you market your pickup as a PAF clone, it had better be exact down to ALL of the materials used and the method of construction. If not, you’re deceiving your customers.
Great video, like always 👍💪.
I want to ask you if a wire plein enamel, for exemple, buy in one shop is the same that a enamel buy in another shop ? I mean, is there differences on the quality, or conception or any other factor that can change the result of making a pickup with the same type of wire, but who s from 2 differents shop ?
Yes, but it’s negligible.
Doesn’t ThroBak have the original winding machines?
I think trying to replicate a paf build wise, like say throwbak, using even the same winding machines. Does not make the best paf style tone, very separate issues, Virgil arlo, Tom Holmes, dole coils, Ron Ellis, and um stephens, all have excellent paf tone pickups very close to real vintage pafs, long wait times, and expensive, the inpatient need not apply. I have a Virgil arlo set that was a special wind that got scary close to a real 58 les Pual, I have access to. He is not winding anymore though, the point is build materials and tone, are very separate issues, throwbak gets very close in materials, really like the covers they make, but tone wise they are outclassed by the top paf winders. They have been at it a long time, and learned for others who did the same.
Vintage PAFs all sound different. That’s why I think the whole replica idea is hokum.
It would be difficult for anyone,even the manufacturer to 100% replicate a pickup from the past. When Fender Custom Shop ma de a limited addition of George Harrison’s rosewood telecaster that he used on the rooftop concert that was the last with the Beatles they pulled the woman that made the original pickups out of retirement to make a number limited to 200 of them. The replica came out in two editions. It was the chambered one which were made 1000 pieces of and then was the very limited series that were as close to the original as possible. That is why they used this retired worker to make the pickups. This guitar was not chambered and felt very heavy. I had the chance to checkout one of these limited edition guitars but it was way over my budget.😁😁😁
Don't personally get the hype around a PAF (never mind how inconsistent they are). I feel like Gibo were just doing what they could with what they had vs what they could afford rather than aiming for some holy grail tone. Players love to romanticize this stuff. Not to mention that a lot of what people think is the PAF tone is in reality coming out of a pickup that's 70 years old at this point. My guess is that some of the early DiMarzio's and Duncan Pups are sounding different or "vintage" at this point in time to some ears also. Honestly, there are pickup manufacturers out there who can dial in a tone much more accurately to what an artist or engineer wants. I guess if people like that sound, great, but to me, PAFs aren't some gold standard by which every other humbucker should be compared against. Frankly, it's all they had.
According to those that own P.A.F's they all say since they were so inconsistent there is no one P.A.F sound. There is a specific character according to these owners. Seems the general consensus is the very best ones are by DOYLE COILS, WIZZ, REWIND,THROBAK, STEPHENS DESIGNED,HÄUSSEL
and a few others so pick your flavor there are no bad ones in this group IMHO. Typically these are pretty expensive with sets start at about $400 a set.
If a pickup maker describes their "PAFs" as "clones," they are lying unless the wire they are using was made in the late 1950s-early 1960s. Wire made today is not the same. Not even close. A clone is an exact duplicate. The correct term for these pickups is "replica." Some of the makers use the correct term while others "clone" and that is deceiving. What you're paying for is the PAF look. In the end, they sound no different than any other pickup. What's that old saying about a fool and his money?
Should we care or try thugh I'm sure original Gibson pup designers would have loved the consistancy in the wires. I mean if some manufacturor like fishman comes with a really really good sounding one with their printed silicon boards, which would be rplicatable each time, isn't that the dream?
I think the magnets and wire are key. The result is a crap shoot. paf’s were notoriously inconsistent. I wish the spendy guys would allow returns.
Magnet and wire are the two biggest factors. Wite wasnt as consistent and those wires made thr guitars unique. And the guitars after 50 years have magnets which are much weaker. Aged magnets are the ticket.
Oh no, not the aged magnet nonsense. That’s almost as bad as tone wood.
Best PAF copy is a early patent number pickup , pretty simple but still quite expensive, I screwed up two years ago failing to aquire a pair of 63's for a grand , what an idiot I am
I spent a bit and bought original 70s T Tops..... then I thought, ahhh maybe gibson T Types are better.... then i thought, Ahhhh I'm 60, I like the old crap, it's my placebo comfort
perhaps I'm misundertsnafding and if I am someone correct me.. But if the copper wiring on the orignal PAF's were inconsistent ( as opposed to now), wouldnt that then mean that the quality and consistency of the original PAF's were hit and miss too? seems like based on what youre saying that infact it would be easier to replicate said pick up because of modern technology and consistant build, with access to materials
It's already been established that PAFs were all over the place in terms of consistency. With that in mind, would you pay $600+ for a so-called replica, especially knowing the wire is probably wrong?
That particular company claim that they take readings from each spool and match that reading to a particular style of PAF and say that’s as close as you can get with wire these days. Would I pay $600 for a set, not a chance!! Sales talk only goes so far, some people love that. I’m gonna start selling tone that you rub on your fingers!!
I'm thinking replication of the deteriorating of the Gauss on the alnico5 that happens with a whole myriad of conditions through 50+ years would also be key... But. As you stated. Once you found exactly which tonal properties You wish to replicate. You could probably get a fairly consistent pickup build. ... Now. Just find the one. Or 5 tones that 70% of Guitarists agree are the Divine PAF tone??! Lol. Good luck on That....lol
It’s very easy to precisely charge or degauss an alnico magnet. That’s not the issue. The issue is the coil wire. My point in this video was to encourage skepticism toward those who have claimed to offer exact physical replicas.
It cracks me up Chris this debate why pay E vessive amounts of money for a pickup.
And those early pafs which actually were the original humbucker design and those pickups were noisy as hell too.
Just like fender single coil pickups. It seems like marketing madness but typical of guitar manufactures. Ohh and by the way bill Lawrence who was mentioned in the comments designed the rail style humbucker that dimebag darl from pantara had in his dean guitars for which the Seymour duncan dimebucker pickup was copied and designed from. It cracks me up over original pafs when guys like Tony iommi were getting them potted in wax or Eddie van Halen was getting his paf pickup that was in his Frankie potted in wax and getting them rewound by Seymour duncan or guys like Larry dimarzio just so they would sound the way they like.
But here the thing everyone now is starting to want those 1980s pickup tones now like the Seymour duncan jb pickups or the dimarzio super distortions or Eddie's Frankie tone. Well guess what I actaully have an actual 1980s pickup lying around which is my yamaha rgx stock bridge pickup which is more probably like a, Seymour duncan jb but maybe not as hot.
I can't wait until some clown will try to market the emg 81 and 85 active pickup set clone and try akd charge 800 dollars for the pickup set.
And if you ask me Chris clowns like the guitar center ceo does not help when he says nonsense like people will pay high dollar amounts for a brand name like Gibson or fender while not me and neither would Joe satraini. Akd thus clown ceo like the clowns at Gibson would rather spend time suing people instead of making great guitars so sick of those ceos and colecters who care more about dollar amounts but know nothing about actual guitars.
So I will end on this if you want to spend high dollars on colecters items to hang on your wall fine but to any real guitar player it's about comfort and how it sounds and playing it. And a brand name guitar does. Me no good when our of the box it will never meet my specs or play exactky how I want or sound the way I like put of the box.
I guess I am In the minority with my Eddie van Halen yngwie malmsteen Steve vai syndrome.
But just wait they will romp o. That too.
I have a '69 Fender Tele Thinline reissue with near-correct period pickups and it's HUUUMMMMMMBUZZZZZ! Beauty guitar, though.
Doubt if my cloth ears (vintage 1950's) could tell the difference, and I've never found a spreadsheet that sounded nice. A good modern pickup will do.
Pickups are only ever similar, never really the same. A good oscilloscope can confirm that. In any production the tolerances are exactly just that, tolerances within a range from component to component in the guitar. But this is a great mental exercise nonetheless. Old Rickenbacker pickups were notorious for being all over the place, but went on the same body builds. I don't really want a sound that brings me back to Elvis's rhythm guitar players using old PAF's, but if I did, I would go find old crappy soviet era wire stock undoubtedly sitting around somewhere in eastern Europe. Hell, the stuff they produce today would probably be similar, but I won't spend a dime on anything Russian while Putin is still in power for ethical reasons, and not just because of it's crap QC and production capabilities. China more than likely has some bad production facilities too for low grade less than consistent wire that they pawn off for low end stuff. I'm just riffing now, but I'm really just saying that there is no real reason to chase phantoms. It's being done to death with wave form replicators anyway. Every snowflake is unique, etc...
yep, cant make them anymore, because nowadays everything gets wax potted..
the moral of the story, stop living in the past and just design new pickups already!
seriously people, PAFs where hit and miss. with todays quality consistent material, we can come up with new amazing sounding designs and consistently replicate it. which was really hard back in the 50s
so make something new that sounds great and enjoy it instead of pulling your hair out over the madness of PAF replication syndrome. =)
Alnico magnets are not the same in nowadays, right? I think cobalt is forbidden to be used in industry,in order to protect the health of the workers ...so ... there is no way to catch that tone.....
I haven't heard that.
@@HighlineGuitars check it out....!
If there was enough demand, they most certainly could do it.
However, there's no demand.
There would have to be a LOT of demand to make building replica manufacturing equipment financially feasible. Not to mention, said process would definitely be less efficient than the modern one.
Just like the steel laminates used in transformers.
Totally correct: if you want a replica product, you need a replica process. You would need to manufacture the equipment first. That's a lot of work and money.
Same with the Apollo program--all hand-built as part of a closed-ended program. No means to replicate that equipment today.
well if we can convince major guitar building companies, but probably they won't find it valuable, they try to cut on costs, not make them
What you would be asking is for wire manufacturers to make a flawed product for a very small market. We like the properties that poor processes/materials created. The electronics industry wants flawless product.
I think this ship has sailed.
But can you hear the difference?
Way to stir the pot! I don't think most people would notice the difference because all of the signal is still going into different amps, different electronics, different tubes and different speaker materials from the differently spec'd pickups. Cork sniffers chasing their tails again...
why would you want to do a period correct replica? copper is copper.
Subjective
Of course it’s subjective. After 7:00 in the video he describes the process by which you could clone a PAF with a reasonably objective process. The thing that makes it kind of pointless is that PAFs are not consistent, so at best you can clone one particular PAF.
Here's the REAL problem. People are chasing the tone from a record. I don't need to tell you how many variables there are in that chain.
if you hear a modern wire coiled pickup and a formvar scaterwound wire pickup with A2 magnets non potted the difference makes you not want modern pickups the modern pickups are the real mass produced pickup but there again there are some better sounding PAF pickups from that era i dont think the original machine really makes a difference or the seat the person sat at in the day.
I think along with the manufacturing, the material just isn't the same. Metals have been recycled so many times that all you have now is mush.
'You can't replicate them' ok fair, what can you do instead? You can find one you like the sound of to copy as it turns out they were no two were really the same. So lets just go back to the start of the video and ask yourself what you were trying to copy before you spent 5 mins talking about wire. You copy your original PAf then bring it over and compare the copy to my original, when they don't sound the same (because the originals didn't) I'll call you out for not being able to copy a PAF. Gets worse when we get to a '95% sounding PAF' 30 seconds after saying they all sound different and we've hypothetically decided not to copy the 'bad' original PAF, So that copy is what 60% of the rejected one that actually is an original? But wire yeah? Why wouldn't that 95% copy be 100% the same as another original that has less/more turns (or any of the other things that could change it very slightly) than the one you copied? Forget the wire stuff and start out with defining what you want to copy, I don't think I'd want to be part of trying to work out what is or isn't a 'Good' PAF, There are too many people with too many views all wanting a slightly something different, not one of them is wrong about what a PAF is or what it sounds like and that's why you can't copy a PAF because there isn't 'A' PAF.
No, no, no! You can copy and replicate them, but you can’t CLONE them. Big difference.
I don't buy it. Copper wire is copper wire. If the inductance and resistance of the coil is the same, then the copper itself will not cause a sound difference.
Buy what? Wire from 1955 was made using different manufacturing techniques than wire made today . Therefore a replica PAF made using modern wire is not a 100% accurate replica. Also, magnet wire is not 100% pure copper. It is an alloy and wire made today has a much higher degree of consistency. A thousand feet of 42 awg plain enamel wire made in 1955 will have a different level of resistance and inductance than a thousand feet of the same spec wire made today.
The coat also made a difference, lots of well know pickups winders says that the nos wire is a special ingredient.
People also state that HiFi speaker wire from Home Depot sounds the same as more expensive options, but that is for sure not the case. It can make a world of difference.
But really expensive.
I never understood why people search for a pickup that will make their Les Paul sound like a 1959 Les Paul. Even if you install a real PAF in your guitar it won't sound like that. The pickup is only one part of your sound. You must get all parts correctly to get "that sound". Wood, glue, finish, Tail piece, Bridge, bridge posts and even wire harness. If one of these is not correct the tone will change.
:)
Stop standing so close to the camera
oh hogwash
There’s nothing in this video about washing hogs.