Whats under the covers?

[Stratz]

Hi all. I've built tons of single coils in my days but not nearly as many HB's so I find myself in need of some opinions/advice from builders that know Humbuckers.
The sound I've been aiming for are the Duncan Antiquity, Gibson Burstbucker neck pickups.

Take a listen to the video in this link for the BB and the Duncan)

They have that Strat like tone and chime to them that I cant seem to get too.
I've tried both newer and vintage #42 PE, different screw, slug, keeper alloys, different magnets, Gauss levels etc, and I'm not even close. The HB's I build usually sound closer to a '57 classic. Very sweet and articulate but not as Stratty as the BB and Antiquity.

So, would anybody be willing to share their expertise on this topic and help me get a little closer? I'm getting tired of wasting wire.
Thanks
Rob

[Ward]

What you describe is what I consider a good paf to sound like, I've never played one mind you but IMO you're looking for the grail tone in humbuckers and I for one have NO IDEA how to roll em up n I tell you now, no one is gonna tell you either. Come on heros, prove me wrong. Never gonna happen.

[Stratz]

What you describe is what I consider a good paf to sound

I agree Ward, it is a good tone to my ear but I'm sure there are many players that wouldn't want it for free.

I just cant bare to use the term P*F..... even the HB's that I build fall into that category. The term is so insanely over used and many times priced that way as well. I'm just trying to build a "humbucker" that sounds similar.

[Ward]

I hear you mate, I built a humbucker set using wood for the bobbins so I could make the coils taller to see if that would help. I posted pics and a clip of the result and I had absolutely no interest. I have read that if you hand wind you will never get there but then Dave Schwab reckons if you wind neat by hand you can but I have had no luck. Besides, IMO there are WAY better pickups to get that tone than hummers, you just have to put up with the hum. It's a black art lookin for the paf tone though it would seem and those that can do ain't tellin, fair enough. For me, P-90s have more tone than those Antiquities n Burstbuckers n such but again, the hum, it doesn't bother me, I love P-90s.

[Stratz]

It's a black art lookin for the paf tone though it would seem and those that can do ain't tellin

Well, since there's hundreds of different "PAF" tones, maybe someone could get lucky hand winding. I'm sure you've seen pictures of the different coil shapes of the late 50's-early 60's Gibson HB's. Looks like it was pretty much anything goes as long as it made sound back then.

I'll get very close to the clip I posted soon enough

[Ward]

Whatever it is I have no idea.

[LtKojak]

Hi all. I've built tons of single coils in my days but not nearly as many HB's so I find myself in need of some opinions/advice from builders that know Humbuckers.
The sound I've been aiming for are the Duncan Antiquity, Gibson Burstbucker neck pickups.

Take a listen to the video in this link for the BB and the Duncan)

They have that Strat like tone and chime to them that I cant seem to get too.
I've tried both newer and vintage #42 PE, different screw, slug, keeper alloys, different magnets, Gauss levels etc, and I'm not even close. The HB's I build usually sound closer to a '57 classic. Very sweet and articulate but not as Stratty as the BB and Antiquity.

So, would anybody be willing to share their expertise on this topic and help me get a little closer? I'm getting tired of wasting wire.
Thanks
Rob

Try this recipe: #42 AWG PE, nickelsilver baseplate, raw nickelsilver covers, 1018 slugs and keeper bar, 1022 polepiece screws, Mojotone butyrate bobbins, 117 TPL, 30-34 grams tension, little to no scatter, 4750 turns screw coil, 4875 turns slug coil, fully-charged A2 mag for vintage-y, UOA5 mag for fuller vintage-y and/or A4 mag for all-around.

Let me know how it went.

HTH,

[Stratz]

Thanks Lt. Kojack, I cant do much about the tension or the TPL with my setup so it will have to wait until the next time I visit my Father.

Rob.

[Possum]

If you're using stock commercial parts from the suppliers, you're just not going to get anything like Duncan does, though Duncan doesn't make an authentic PAF nor does Gibson (nor does anyone). The alloys they use are unbelievable. The commercial bobbins are nothing like Duncans, nothing like PAF's either. PAF's and Duncans and Gibson's are all machine wound, you can't do by hand what a machine does, its just not gonna happen, and where it shows up the most is in the neck. For years I tried to get a real clear sounding P90 by hand winding and never could until I started machine winding. In fact the first coil I wound on my machine was a P90 and the increase in clarity was amazing. Probably the closest you can get is by winding a real low power version a little over 6K, with the brightest alnico 5 you can find.

[big_teee]

If you're using stock commercial parts from the suppliers, you're just not going to get anything like Duncan does, though Duncan doesn't make an authentic PAF nor does Gibson (nor does anyone). The alloys they use are unbelievable. The commercial bobbins are nothing like Duncans, nothing like PAF's either. PAF's and Duncans and Gibson's are all machine wound, you can't do by hand what a machine does, its just not gonna happen, and where it shows up the most is in the neck. For years I tried to get a real clear sounding P90 by hand winding and never could until I started machine winding. In fact the first coil I wound on my machine was a P90 and the increase in clarity was amazing. Probably the closest you can get is by winding a real low power version a little over 6K, with the brightest alnico 5 you can find.

That's confusing!
Wasn't the PAF shootout won by a winder using store bought parts?
T

[Ward]

That's confusing!
Wasn't the PAF shootout won by a winder using store bought parts?
T

It's more than confusing IMO. Black art from hell.

[LtKojak]

That's confusing!
Wasn't the PAF shootout won by a winder using store bought parts?
T

That's NOT confusing.

It just shows you that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and that good tone is good tone, no matter HOW's done, stock over-the-shelf parts or custom made to spec.

The "Last PAF shootout" was NOT a contest, BTW. There where no winners or losers, just different products shown under the same setup. People voted their favorite sounding ones, and the first two most voted, RD-59s by Bill Megela of Electric City Pickups and OTPGs, both had very similar specs and ground tone. Bill's are machine wound (I think?) and OTPGs are handwound.

See?

PS: for the record: most people were voting what they've believed they were the OTPGs, just because they're the most hyped...

[Ward]

Try this recipe: #42 AWG PE, nickelsilver baseplate, raw nickelsilver covers, 1018 slugs and keeper bar, 1022 polepiece screws, Mojotone butyrate bobbins, 117 TPL, 30-34 grams tension, little to no scatter, 4750 turns screw coil, 4875 turns slug coil, fully-charged A2 mag for vintage-y, UOA5 mag for fuller vintage-y and/or A4 mag for all-around.

Let me know how it went.

HTH,

Koj, I've got everything you mention in your recipe except the butyrate bobbins, how would you tweek this recipe for 53mm bobbins and would the mojo 53mm bobbins be OK? Cheers.

[LtKojak]

Koj, I've got everything you mention in your recipe except the butyrate bobbins, how would you tweek this recipe for 53mm bobbins and would the mojo 53mm bobbins be OK? Cheers.

I haven't done any 53mm bobbins, ever. The recipe I've posted was for a neck p'up.

Anyway, without changing the basic recipe, just use your 53mm bobbins and give a 12,5% more turns and take it from there. Plus, add an A8 mag to the mix.

HTH,

[Possum]

The results of those shootouts that include a REAL PAF SET, are always the same. The real PAF's never score at the top because very few have ever played or heard a real set in person, so they can't identify them and don't know what real ones sound like. The pickups that score highest in general humbucker comparisons are usually darker sounding pickups and most often hand wound. PAF's aren't dark pickups, nor were they ever hand wound. I did such a test myself on the MLP years ago, posted some prototype audio clips in my PAF research and without telling anyone I also posted sound clips of my real PAF set. Very few liked the real PAF's and only one guy, who also happens to know alot about and plays real PAF's identified them.

[LtKojak]

The results of those shootouts that include a REAL PAF SET, are always the same. The real PAF's never score at the top because very few have ever played or heard a real set in person, so they can't identify them and don't know what real ones sound like. The pickups that score highest in general humbucker comparisons are usually darker sounding pickups and most often hand wound. PAF's aren't dark pickups, nor were they ever hand wound. I did such a test myself on the MLP years ago, posted some prototype audio clips in my PAF research and without telling anyone I also posted sound clips of my real PAF set. Very few liked the real PAF's and only one guy, who also happens to know alot about and plays real PAF's identified them.

If that's so, what's the point of keep on making'em?

Or to claim "my PAF is more accurate than yours?

Or to go all those lenghts to get the most accurate materials when the bottom line is, people don't like real ones, but the different takes on them? It all seems to me an exercise on futlility...

[Ward]

If that's so, what's the point of keep on making'em?

Or to claim "my PAF is more accurate than yours?

Or to go all those lenghts to get the most accurate materials when the bottom line is, people don't like real ones, but the different takes on them? It all seems to me an exercise on futlility...

A man's gotta have a vice.

[Possum]

Its an exercise in getting tones I've loved since I was a kid. Its also an attempt to keep them alive and introduce them current and future generations who've not had the opportunity to play the real thing. It was a 9 year journey to study the materials in real labs in great detail and to replicate what we found as close as humanly possible. They don't fare well in shootouts because players don't realize that all those classic recordings used those exact same pickups, the recordings don't show you what its like to play in person. Its a good idea to study how those recordings were made, they used many techniques and the tones you hear are studio engineer art, they aren't accurate to what you'd hear had you been in the room. Once you play a real set it comes as a shock how bright they are, but also how amazingly soulful and expressive and full of character they are, very dimensional and dynamic. The tones are the results of many ingredients that are just missing in modern products, every part has to do its part in the same manner as the vintage part. You can't isolate the steel and claim its the SECRET, or anything other part. If I didn't love them I wouldn't have done an inhuman amount of work and spent so much money figuring them out. I have yet to see any person or company do even a tenth of the work and research I did, everyone wants easy answers unfortunately, well it wasn't easy. Its actually rather sad to me to see them not score well in shootouts, modern players seem to like really dark sounding pickups, my own real vintage PAF's are rather low wound as many were and they are great. I saw a guy on YouTube with a '59 Les Paul and he uses a 50-100 foot guitar cord just so he can dumb down the PAF's and warm them up, pretty sad to see that kind of thing....

Back to the original question, you can't really copy those products with commercial parts and with hand winding, I wouldn't even try, but Kojak can probably point you into getting a more clear neck than the kit parts will though you're highly limited by that stuff. Anyway, I've said my piece, I expect the the hijackers and trolls will show up any moment as they always do, LOL......

[Ward]

Yes mate, sad indeed, I think it's a similar thing with single coil pickups and why a lot of people play humbuckers, because they think they can't get a good tone out of say a strat coz it's too thin and weak, they just don't know how to work with such pickups and it sounds like the exact same thing with the Pafs.

[David Schwab]

...but Kojak can probably point you into getting a more clear neck than the kit parts will though you're highly limited by that stuff. Anyway, I've said my piece, I expect the the hijackers and trolls will show up any moment as they always do, LOL......

It's very easy to get a clear tone from the kit parts.

Here's a Stew-mac kit. I might have even used their wire.

PAF style neck

Recorded direct, which accounts for some of the edginess. But it's nice and bright and snappy.

[Possum]

Strat pickups are one of the hardest to master, I'd say it took me a good 6 years or more to make sets I'm happy with, most make them wrong. I just did a new strat set I'm really liking alot, it was one of the most difficult to do. If you read the TPL thread I made some comments there. I did about 7 or 8 bridge tests with different patterns. Weak is ok but thin sound they shouldn't be. Like PAF's you gotta do the harness right and look at the various values of tone caps they used thru the years. Dig around on my YouTube channel and you'll see the new ones....

[Steve Conner]

I'm done trolling and hijacking, I respect whatever black magic Possum is working in his lab. Having said that, I think the hand vs. machine wound controversy makes a certain amount of sense in the context of the recent thread we had on scatter.

David, isn't direct recording the pickups kind of cheating? Of course it's going to sound nice and clear that way, but when someone buys a pickup, they want it to interact well with a typical guitar amp.

[SonnyW]

That's confusing!
Wasn't the PAF shootout won by a winder using store bought parts?
T

After visiting quite a while with Bill recently at the Dallas Show, I can tell you that a bunch of R and D went into those RD-59's -that's why they are called RD, and not everything is store bought either. He does more rewinds than most, and has done his homework about as well as anyone here. BTW, he also came in third in that same shootout with the Fatty Arbucker. Not trying to speak for him or start anything, Just Sayin.

[copperheadroads]

Bill from ECP makes his own keepers

[Bill M]

Bill from ECP makes his own keepers

Yes I do. I don't want to be a troll, but I also make my own slugs, have screws made, and even some of my own magnets. I have another batch of screws in another alloy I have discovered coming in a few weeks. Yes, there is more than 1. I've documented 4 now, and this is not BS, as there is a lot of that, that certain winders want you to believe. Well, it isn't true. Also they use many of the same off the shelf parts that I use.

My rd-59 set was modeled off of a REAL set of paf's in a awsome sounding 59 ES-335, and I completely replicated the tone of those pickups. Not all paf's are bright like some would lead you to believe. Some are really balanced tone wise and sweet. They either are being misleading or they just haven't heard enough paf's to know this. I own, have owned paf's, early pat. stickers, and have many friends and clients who own them also. There are warm ones,balanced ones, bright ones, muddy ones, high DCR ones, low DCR ones, etc. I just chose to replicate, in tone, the ones I like, or ones that I own. I have a new model that I just debuted this past weekend at the Philadelphia guitar show, and all they are is a recreation of the pickups in my Jan. 1964 SG standard. I bought a 1990's Sg that has good wood to show case them at Philly, and on top of that I brought my original 64 for people to compare, and the 2 guitars sound literally identical. Needless to say that was the 1st model of pickup to sell out there. The point I am trying to make is that I replicate specific pickups in certain guitars, so if someone wants to say my pickups don't sound like real paf's then I guess the real guitar with the real pickups that I modeled after doesn't sound real either. Troll Over.

[Steve Conner]

There are warm ones,balanced ones, bright ones, muddy ones, high DCR ones, low DCR ones, etc. I just chose to replicate, in tone, the ones I like, or ones that I own.

Doesn't this imply that any humbucker sounds like a PAF? Or conversely, the ultimate period correct PAF clone should be made out of random parts. Troll over

[Bill M]

Doesn't this imply that any humbucker sounds like a PAF? Or conversely, the ultimate period correct PAF clone should be made out of random parts. Troll over

Well, not really. A lot of modern humbuckers do not have the frequency range of the paf's. The brighter paf's still had a broad frequency spectrum, as do the warmer sounding ones. Also there is, I want to call it, a compression or dynamics to them that I haven't found in many modern counterparts. Now this is just a generalization.

[Steve Conner]

Interesting, and you reckon it takes machine winding and a careful choice of steels to achieve this?

I've heard (owned ) some dreadful muddy, constipated sounding, overwound buckers, and my mental image of a "PAF" is just the opposite of those.

[Bill M]

Interesting, and you reckon it takes machine winding and a careful choice of steels to achieve this?

I've heard (owned ) some dreadful muddy, constipated sounding, overwound buckers, and my mental image of a "PAF" is just the opposite of those.

Yes, and more importantly a carefull choice of magnets.

[David Schwab]

David, isn't direct recording the pickups kind of cheating? Of course it's going to sound nice and clear that way, but when someone buys a pickup, they want it to interact well with a typical guitar amp.

No, the input of my Roland mixer is set up for a high-z guitar, so it's the same as an amp. Also as you can hear in the clip, there are amp like tones. This is from the built in COSM amp modeling. This was not a dry guitar into board recording. That would sound duller. The mixer does include speaker simulation, which is what smooths out the tone on an amp. But as with any recording of a guitar, you don't just stick a mic in front of an amp and expect it to sound like the records you hear. So it's a bit raw and edgy.