Tim Shaw PAF reissue interview

[David Schwab]

Call me a Philistine , but I just can't feel all warm inside about a Tim Shaw PAF. It's so inaccurate. Just look at the photo and that's before you get to the wire etc... The Les Pauls though, yup I can get misty eyed over those; especially the Black Beauty. Still miss my old '74. I parted with that because I couldn't face the price of a refin back in the mid 80's.

I had an '83 Les Paul Standard. I thought the pickups sounded ok, but I did end up replacing the bridge unit (I think with a 70's DiMarzio Super Distortion, just because I had it laying around). The only reason I don't have the guitar anymore was it suffered a fall, and the neck came off. That wasn't a problem, I glued it back on, but the neck also suffered a long fracture, from the side of the nut, to about the 12th fret. I reglued that too, but the guitar just wasn't the same after that... so I traded it for an Oberheim Matrix-6.

My friend doesn't really care what the pickups sound like, although he doesn't think they sound bad. He's more interested in getting the guitar back to correct period hardware. I suppose the Shaws were an improvement over the Gibson pickups at the time. It's also apparent that he really didn't have much to work with at the time.

Seems both Gibson and Fender like to say they have reissues, but they never get the small details just right, especially the pickups.

[Spence]

You're dead right there. I toyed with the idea of investing in one of the Clapton blackie replicas. They're so inaccurate it makes me sick listening to the bollocks about how much effort Fender have put in. They've put in slightly less than the bare minimum.

[soundmasterg]

Seems both Gibson and Fender like to say they have reissues, but they never get the small details just right, especially the pickups.

Yeah, not many of the older guitar maker companies have a good product at heart anymore it seems, at least unless you pay through the nose. Fender has done a pretty good job distributing Gretsch, and Fred Gretsch has made sure to get some moderately accurate reissues. The other good one is Rickenbacker, which never really stopped making their older guitars, although they did change some things over the years like the pickups. Their newer C-series guitars are probably the most accurate reissues of a vintage model around.

[NightWinder]

kudos here. The wire just can't be replaced with solderon or poly. What a biff! T.S very well may make decent pickups.....but when you have issues with your work dieing......MAkes one wonder. Surely ALL the proper components are the magic cheezewhiz!! Hogs ass on the magic magnets.....When theres things like protools and repeatable clips with the exact same equipment, exact mic placement etc, just swaping magnets out of the same bucker with change the Eq, but the character of the tone of the humbucker is relatively the same. Coil shape and material are the best research...........

[David Schwab]

[I]Fender has done a pretty good job distributing Gretsch, and Fred Gretsch has made sure to get some moderately accurate reissues. The other good one is Rickenbacker, which never really stopped making their older guitars, although they did change some things over the years like the pickups. Their newer C-series guitars are probably the most accurate reissues of a vintage model around.

I agree! Rickenbacker has changed a few things, like the truss rods, but that's a good thing. As the owner of two 1972 4001 basses, I didn't like the changes they made in the 4003's... the bodies where different, and of course they changed the pickups and got rid of the checker binding even before that.

But their reissue basses are very nice... except for the horseshoe pickup.

[Dominik]

@Possum:

Are you sure you mean Herbie Hancock?

I have an album from Herbie Mann called "Push Push" that features Duane Allman. Very nice!

Cheers,

Dominik

[Possum]

f*king cool, thanks!!!

Damn, thats gotta be it!!! No wonder that guitar sounded so familiar, do you know what year it was done? I'll look on amazon too, man what a distinctive tone that guy had, I wonder what amp he was using?

[Dominik]

Hi Possum,

it says 1971 on the album. Cornell Dupree and Duane Allman on guitars. The great Richard Tee on keys. And not to forget Bernard Purdie on drums.

A great album.

Cheers,

Dominik

[madialex]

Hi Possum

I think the song you are talking about is what'd I say. or it's at least one of them.

[Possum]

found it.....

found it on Limewire (naughty naughty...) yes its called Push Push, Duane's solo is tasty nothing spectacular but love that tone, no wonder my ears perked up when that song came on the radio, good ol' Duane tone. He actually recorded this as session guitarist right before they became famous. Any idea what amp he was using in '71? 50 watt Marshall? You can hear him switch from neck to bridge and back, sometimes his bridge pickup was kinda shrill on the video I've seen from the Fillmore. Cornell, eh? Thought I heard another picker in there somewhere, didn't sound like Duane. Thanks for the heads up....

[David Schwab]

updates...

OK, I spent a few minutes with the pickup today, and here's some info and pictures.

First, someone asked if the slugs touch the baseplate. Yes they do. And of course they touch the magnets.

In the first picture, you can see a side view of the pickup before I took the slug coil off. The slugs are on the left coil, and look like white plastic, and in fact, from the side I had no idea what they were, until I took the bobbin off. It turns out they have oxidized.

Below either coil is a white plastic spacer. It looks like poly-styrene. It was just bent and snapped off to length.

The magnet has a rough finish except on the faces where it touches the keeper and the slugs.

The screws are threaded into the baseplate.

Both coils read open on my meter. The hookup wires were still connected to the magnet wire. The paper tape was very dry, and pretty much impossible to peel off without breaking. Also, either peeling the tape broke the coil, or it was broken under the tape. I suspect the former.

The '83 Shaw pickup I had read 7.62K.

I was interested on how the hookup wires were done. You can see in one of the pictures that they did not leave them under the wrap of the coil. They ran a length of magnet wire out and after the coil was wound, tucked the hookup wires on the outside of the coil, under the paper tape.

The last pictures is the coil with the tape removed.

I'll see if I can borrow a digital mic to try and measure the wire. I don't have a gauss meter, so I wont be able to take a measurement of the magnet.

[Possum]

cool....

well your pic doesn't actually show the slugs touching the baseplate the pickup is tilted up too far to see that. The Shaw I have there is a tiny gap between the slugs and baseplate. Don't forget to count winds per layer. Those magnets are cool wish we could get similar, those were alnico II in the Shaws pretty sure. If this isn't neck space would like to know the magnet length used as well as the other dimensions. Mine is neck spaced so the magnet is shorter, the thickness is more than 1/8" as he mentioned in the article and I also found this in most 50s alnico bars too.

[Possum]

forgot...

I forgot to mention it might be possible to steam old paper tape like that off without damaging it. RiteAid has these "as seen on TV" small electric steam cleaner things kinda a cheap version of what jewelers use to steam clean jewelry, the steam would soften the adhesive and paper enough probably for it to come easily off and be reused.

[Possum]

more PAF tone recordings....

I listened to some Michael Bloomfield on the radio last nite, he has a similar tone to Duane's but I think he used a different kind of amp but you can plainly hear the classic PAF thing happening. Also heard the original version of Black Magic Woman with Fleetwood Mac and Peter Green on guitar. This is the first time I really recognized a good recording of him playing in the out of phase position because of his reversed magnet in the neck, pretty cool tone. I goofed on a test bucker in my LP and left it out of phase for a couple jams, liked that tone alot in that guitar.....

[JGundry]

Thanks David! I think the slug info is very useful.

I did the magnet flip on the neck pickup of my Les Paul last week as well as switching the wiring over to 50's specs.. The 50's wiring makes a big difference in how clear the humbuckers sound when you roll the volume back. The out of phase sound is also very useful as you can blend it in and out with the bridge or neck volume pot. One great tone is to have the middle position on and back the bridge pickup back a bit to retain some honk but increase the volume as the neck pickup becomes more dominant. The middle position ends up louder than the bridge but with the 50's wiring you still have a very clear sounding bridge pickup with the volume rolled back. I can't believe I didn't switch it over earlier. I think a big part of a good Les Paul tone is 50's wiring.