Cream "Gibson" Color Survey?

[Spence]

I would imagine when Mr Duncan started making pickups people said he couldn't be taken as seriously as the giants on whose shoulders he was standing. He has proven himself I would say. How much research he did in those days only he can answer. But I suspect he read a lot of stuff and asked people who knew the answers.
No one on this forum has done everything by themselves. We all owe some of our knowledge to others who were kind enough to share information that they absolutely didn't have to. Being a privileged recipient of someone else's knowledge isn't research. Observation isn't really research either.
I owe a great deal of what I know about the details of vintage Fender and Gibson pickups to a very generous, kindly and unselfish, mild mannered friend who really does know all this stuff.

[Possum]

Spence, of course I owe a huge debt of gratitude to you know who. But I never asked anyone "how do you make those, how do you get that tone?" Mostly I ask people who have access to real parts other than what I've encountered, what do they measure. All the rest I had to figure out myself, even the industry guy who helped me didn't help me with anything to do with tone, that all came from grinding hours of sweat. Seth Lover was really no genius, he didn't invent humbucking, it already existed and there were already pairs of single coils installed and wound to be humbucking when used together in guitars not made by Gibson. The biggest detour down the wrong road was trying to figure out what he meant by "we used soft iron." That literally means nothing, there are hundreds of alloys that come under that heading, I don't think he really knew what was used. I had access to a Gibson employee from that period and he didn't quite understand my questions, to those guys iron was any stock you bought from a hardware store or steel supplier. It certainly wasn't "electrical iron," I wasted about $1,000 buying and making parts from that stuff, it sounded great but it missed the mark. No disrespect to Duncan and company, they do what they do well making factory pickups. And I never said all PAF's sound alike, I said all PAF's share the same tonal characteristics. Where are these PAF's that sound "bad," I haven't personally heard one anywhere. Send me one and I'll tell you why it does, they are most likely partial coil shorts, ones that are about to go dead, maybe a batch of metal that went in the wrong direction, wound too hot with dark wire, I dunno, I'm not studying ones that suck, I study the ones recorded in the classic rock era, when most of them were about ten years old, and the aged ones I own and have been priveleged to test from generous customers. Good research means knowing what questions to ask, then spending the time to see if its just a theory or it works in real life. PAF's aren't that hard to recreate, figuring them out was, and I make them the hard slow way so you don't get a woofy neck with a great sounding bridge, or a great neck and a weak bright bridge. Those creme bobbins look great

[frankfalbo]

The problem with companies is that once you start employing people and grow larger you build a bureaucracy and lose focus...you have to keep your employees doing their job instead of slacking off and pretending to be busy...my experience with groups of employees working on something is that it becomes design by commitee and breeds mediocrity...

That's pretty sad. I'm sure it's the prevailing method, and I'm sorry that you've had those life experiences. It's nice to know it hasn't happened here. We're like a big family. Those attitudes you describe don't occur here. It's pretty cool actually. You should be here during one of our dance breaks, especially when it's someone's birthday.

A big company can't put in the kind of efforts I've gone too, and they can't spend the time making sure each single pickup is right in the pocket...do you think some larger company is going to tell one of their wage slaves to spend 8 years to find out why those old pickups sound like that? In yer dreams..... Bottom line at any company is make it cheap, sell it steep, make money...

Jeez I hope you're not talking about us with the wage slaves and the cheap/steep stuff. I'm sure you meant other big guitar companies, etc.

No disrespect to Duncan and company,

Oh of course not, you should put all this stuff on your website.

...they do what they do well making factory pickups.

Aren't PAF's and vintage Fender pickups factory pickups? Also good to know we do a lot more than that between our two Custom Shops, Shop Floor Customs, etc.

Spence, of course I owe a huge debt of gratitude to you know who...

What's the matter, you can't thank him by name? Tell you what, we'll just refer to him as "S.D."

Sorry this went off topic. Of course I'm kidding around Dave, back on topic, I think cream is a moving target at best. You can say you've got the original cream and that's cool, but the rest of the cream on the guitar has probably aged, or it's brand new, or it's brand new but under various tints of lacquer, etc. I just saw a couple of Gundry's creams today and they look great to me, both versions. On our production floor I can't ever see a difference between any of our HB creams, whether they're butyrate or polycarbonate. But then I see some older ones (really old, but also as recent as 8 years) that look different. I don't know if it's age or if we have color migration over time. I can tell you what does disappoint me: Gibson's current cream, but moreso the mismatch to their other creams. It seems like between the binding, pickguard, rings, pickups, and plate covers they don't have a single match!

[Possum]

So you force your employees to dance at lunch? Man, thats harsh. I just never was a company guy, all my employed efforts basically helped keep someone rich, while I lived in horrible apartments. I only had 3 real jobs, there's no security in any job I found out, so I like being my own boss and have been for about 35 years, my work hours are about the same as Dracula's. Gibson's cremes don't match? Now, there's a classic corporate tragic story, that company was voted by its own employees recently as being the worst company in the US to work for. I had some dealings with one of their satellite companies years ago as a graphic designer, the definition of "suits" comes to mind, I'll refrain from using swear words....it was a very unpleasant experience, the short end of a stick comes to mind...

Yeah PAF's were factory products, but from our standpoint they were a time capsule photograph of an era of technologies that are long gone. Thats where the challenges come from.....

Oh forgot, I don't mention my mentor's name because he likes his privacy, and he's not really a pickup maker by profession, but has a long history in the music world and has alot of examples of different vintage pickups etc. Very nice man. I think he likes me because I'm weird....

[Spence]

Spence, of course I owe a huge debt of gratitude to you know who.

What a shame Frank doesn't know who 'You Know Who' is. It certainly isn't Mr Duncan. He's never helped me or anyone else I know. It would be way easier to list the ones who have not helped in any way but that's one hell of a list. Sam Lee Guy's helped Possum out for the record Frank.

[RedHouse]

Dave it's just bad form to keep downing successful (or other) people while elevating ones self. Your pickups will speak for themselves _if_ indeed they are the best PAF's as you insist, they won't if it's all hyperbole. When you were a graphics designer was the dis'n the competition business strategy working for you to get your clients and jobs?

[David Schwab]

Nope they didn't get it right. There's no polite way to say that. Play an outstanding real PAF then play a Duncan. Its not there.

Since hardly anyone will EVER play an "outstanding real PAF", and the fact that Seymour's pickups sound really good, the point is moot. And actually his antiquity pickups really do sound like the old pickups. Look at Stew-Mac... people really like their Golden Age pickups, and they aren't even a "real" pickup maker! Plus that's not the only sound a humbucker can make. You are putting WAY too much importance in the whole PAF thing, as are a lot of other people, including players. They never heard one, and yet everyone wants one?

A big company can't put in the kind of efforts I've gone too, and they can't spend the time making sure each single pickup is right in the pocket. Just because a company is big doesn't mean they've done all their homework. In in my opinion, to me it means they are less likely to do the amount of research needed to accurately reproduce a vintage product. Name ONE reissue pickup product that totally nails a vintage pickup, you can't.

Big companies don't work that way. The boss decides what's going to be made. The employees do things the way they are trained to do it. We all know that Seymour used to take old pickups and unwrap them by hand and count the turns, etc. It's up to him, and I'd assume Kevin Beller, to decide on models to make. I haven't heard a bad Duncan pickup. PLus every Duncan I ever heard of a particular model was in the pocket. I do a lot of guitar repair. I get to install and play just about every pickup out there. I've installed so many Duncans and DiMarzios that I know what to expect from each model I have had contact with. They are consistent in their tone. You don't have clunkers. Plus they do get inspected.

Don't all your pickups of a particular model sound the same?

If you're making 5,000 of something they are going to be clunkers among those because you can't control materials in quantities like that.

That's nonsense. You get to the point where you have consistency. I don't make 5000 pickups, but I also don't have to check every pickup I make because I know it's in spec and will sound like it should.

[David Schwab]

Which Duncan? an SH55 or an Antiquities, or a Duncan 59 or is that sweeping statement covering everything they make?

And right there you have three examples of the range of tones from a real PAF. I'd even throw the Duncan Jazz in there. Depending on the guitar and the sound you like, you can't miss. My buddy has about 17 Les Pauls. Most of them are early 80's with Shaws. He generally replaces the pickups in the guitars he plays with Antiquities. He tried a lot of the PAF style pickups out there, and he thinks they sound great. So someone seems to like them.

It wasn't so long ago you were arguing on this board that PAF's were generally all the same and all just like the patent number example you had "studied" doing all your research. As I recall many here (myself included) had to vigorusly debate that was not true there were plenty of dud's and they (PAF's) didn't all sound the same, yeah it was back when you were winding your research perfect pickups and testing them in your Epiphone Les Paul with the opinion the wood doesn't make any difference. What ever happened to all those youtube vids you had up there of you and your Epiphones demo'ing your research perfect PAF's anyway?

I had a very early set of patent label pickups. There were from a 50's gold top that had been refinished and had the P-90s replaced with the humbuckers, probably when they first became available as aftermarket pickups. So what's that, 1960? The owner of the guitar replaced them with the original DiMarzio PAF pickups when they first came out. Guess what? The DiMarzio's sounded better.

I was in possession of those patent labels for a long time, and had one, along with a 70's PAF I rewound, in a cheap LP copy. They were nothing to write home about, just some old pickups.

[Possum]

You are misinterpreting my statements as dissing. I've examined a lot of commercial PAF repros and sorry but they are all made wrong. Which suggests, the research was poorly done, they didn't understand what they were researching and made big judgement errors, or they tried to "improve" what they did find in research. Ain't my fault if they can't get it right, I was hoping to learn something from the ones I examined, all I learned is WTF are these companies claiming they're making PAF's?

You can't really take a PAF apart, get a lab report, make copy parts and expect to nail it, there's stuff there thats not obvious and takes alot of experiments to understand whats really happening. I've personally never played any modern factory buckers I ever liked, my old Patents put them all to shame. If you think PAF's sound just like old humbuckers, well thats too bad, you entirely missed the point and any DiMarzio product will do you fine. But, Clapton, Page, all those classic players wouldn't have sounded the same playing Super Distortions on those old records A '60 is not a Patent, but the early Patents up to '63 were correct, in '63 they went to poly wire, but still the tones were there more or less, some other differences in Patents I won't mention.

Its real obvious to me that probably a majority of guitar players can't tell a real PAF from a handwound StewMac kit bucker, they don't know what to listen for and when they play or hear the real thing they fail to notice the differences. This makes them easy prey for any company who puts a PAF label on any product, or associates a product with a classic era artist. How many guitar players actually understand that a 16K humbucker is not a PAF repro? I actually proved to myself in a blind audio clip test on the MLP forum that few know what to listen for. I didn't tell anyone there was a real PAF in amongst my test samples of what I was working on at the time. Sam Lee caught it right away, the others missed it and rated it low on the scale. But PAF's ARE the pickups that made all those classic tones from great artists, can you imagine Duane Allman without those pickups? No way.

I'll admit they are in modern times probably an acquired taste. Much of my research was just plain collecting every recorded example of classic rock and blues examples of real PAF's and studying what was really obviously different about them. So, everyone thinks, Page, Clapton, etc. etc. but they miss BB King, Albert King, Freddie King; to me those guy's tone sounded way better when they were playing PAF equipped guitars. Albert King's original Flying V sounded tons better than what he used later.

Here's a really good example of one thing that goes completely over the head of the handwinders, when I mention the "resonant peak" characteristics of PAF's, they don't don't have a clue what I'm talking about, probably because hand winding mostly wipes it out. This characteristic in this clip is right in your face, do you hear it?
http://www.sdpickups.com/ebay/59%20PAF%20bridge.mp3

I'm not putting myself on a pedestal here, just calling it like it is, blows my mind that I don't see anyone with the driving obsessive inquisitiveness to have figured these pickups out, in the commercial world, but its understandable that few would want to do the massive amounts of work I've done myself, often to the detriment of sleep and profits, but the work is starting to pay off...

[JGundry]

I don't think you have a clue how much research I've done on PAF's. I pretty much don't have anymore questions about PAF's, the last pieces of the puzzle came together about six months ago, and everything just works. I proved to myself that you don't need a vintage winder, I did a whole series of experiments on PAF coil geometry, how far you can push it before it loses the characteristics etc. Hand winding completely loses it, varying too far from the recipe TPL starts to lose it pretty rapidly.

This pretty much proves my point Dave about you having no experience with vintage PAF era winding machines. It is totally cool that you don't feel the need to have a vintage PAF era winding machine to get the tone you want. But the fact is there are tonal implications to having experience with these vintage winding machines that your research simply has not and cannot cover. Like it or not it is the truth. Just because you have no more questions does not mean you know all of the answers.

Of course I have an idea of what your research entails. The PAF has a finite number of variables. Many variable to experiment with and research but finite to be sure. If you are working within the PAF parameters many of us know what your research entails as we have done it also. If you are doing something outside of those parameters we might have no idea of what you are up to but then you would not be making a PAF style pickup.

The audio clip you posted is cool. I'm not sure what guitar you recorded that with but I have one of those cheapie Stellas that you demo with. And for the price they are okay but they stray very far construction wise and tonally from a Vintage Les Paul or Historic Les Paul. For starters the mass of the tailpiece studs and anchors is much less than with a Vintage Les Paul. Also the bridge on the Stella has metal anchors into the top and also the bridge and saddles are way different than an ABR-1. Add all of this up and you get a much different treble response and much less complex low end with the Stella than with a real Les Paul. On top of all of this my Stella was sold to me as having a "real Maple top". It is in fact a pine top though. Honestly you need to get a Historic Les Paul or a 52'/57 conversion to test your pickups in if you are doing the kind of hyper critical listening tests that you sound like you are doing. On the one hand the theory that if they sound good in a cheapie guitar they will sound amazing in a Historic may hold up. But logically it really is flawed as they are way different sounding guitars. When you drop the same set from the Stella into a 52'/57' conversion or even a Historic the tonal problems of the Stella are obvious. This is even with a Stella that has been well set up with vintage correct wiring, pots and caps.

[Possum]

I've pretty much answered all this before. The sound clip is Tom Petty's guitar player, that is a '59 Les Paul bridge. My guitars aren't stock, you want 50's tone you have to do the wiring harness exactly right, both mine have identical harnesses and other parts changed, etc.. etc.

[David Schwab]

If you think PAF's sound just like old humbuckers, well thats too bad, you entirely missed the point and any DiMarzio product will do you fine. But, Clapton, Page, all those classic players wouldn't have sounded the same playing Super Distortions on those old records A '60 is not a Patent, but the early Patents up to '63 were correct, in '63 they went to poly wire, but still the tones were there more or less, some other differences in Patents I won't mention.

Well then they were 61's... and the guy who was a great player liked the DiMarzio pickups better.

Its real obvious to me that probably a majority of guitar players can't tell a real PAF from a handwound StewMac kit bucker, they don't know what to listen for and when they play or hear the real thing they fail to notice the differences.

Then what's the point? You can't make people like something.

This makes them easy prey for any company who puts a PAF label on any product, or associates a product with a classic era artist.

Which is what I said. Most people never heard one, but they think they want it because of the hype. But if they can't hear the difference, then I guess it doesn't matter to them, right? And which PAF are we talking about anyway? They were all over the map.

How many guitar players actually understand that a 16K humbucker is not a PAF repro?

More then you seem to think. I deal with a lot of players. Every single one of them uses some kind of hot pickup in the bridge position. The typical pickups I install are Duncan JBs, Duncan Customs, Duncan Distortions, DiMarzio Tone Zones (ack!), etc.

One of the guitarist I play with bought three brand new PRS guitars and put JBs in all three, and left the stock neck pickups. The other guy in the band has a '74 LP Custom and has Joe Barden Two/Tones in it. Before that he had Lawrence L-500s. These are all great players.

One of the guys who's guitars I work on, Maurice Pringle, won GC's King of Blues competition and was sent all over the place playing. And the funny part is he's not a blues player! He was a metal guy. He won that with guitars equipped with high output pickups. The Strat I made him has a Duncan Custom Custom at the bridge and his Tele has a ToneZone T.

I actually proved to myself in a blind audio clip test on the MLP forum that few know what to listen for. I didn't tell anyone there was a real PAF in amongst my test samples of what I was working on at the time. Sam Lee caught it right away, the others missed it and rated it low on the scale. But PAF's ARE the pickups that made all those classic tones from great artists, can you imagine Duane Allman without those pickups? No way.

Then they obviously don't care! Duane Allman played what came with the guitar. What choice did he have? He would have sounded great on anything. He played a bunch of guitars including Strats. He played a '61 SG for slide. Did that have PAFs? Dicky Betts ain't no slouch either, and he was a Duncan endorser for many years. What would Duane be playing now? Probably a PRS!

Clapton used a LP and all that back in the day, and meanwhile he was running through a Dallas Range Master. Why is that, if the PAFs were his tone? (the Beano tone is both pickups on with the tones rolled off and the Range Master through that Marshall Combo)

Here's a really good example of one thing that goes completely over the head of the handwinders, when I mention the "resonant peak" characteristics of PAF's, they don't don't have a clue what I'm talking about, probably because hand winding mostly wipes it out. This characteristic in this clip is right in your face, do you hear it?
http://www.sdpickups.com/ebay/59%20PAF%20bridge.mp3

Yeah, I hear it, that shrill almost upper octave thing. That's a nice tone, but it's ONE tone you can get from a guitar. I wouldn't want to use that all the time.

Now here's something for you... here's that old patent label pickup in an all mahogany 60's Sekovia LP copy through an old Silvertone amp. Totally different tone, huh?

The Jetsonz - American Standard (punk/new wave warning! )

I'm not putting myself on a pedestal here, just calling it like it is, blows my mind that I don't see anyone with the driving obsessive inquisitiveness to have figured these pickups out, in the commercial world, but its understandable that few would want to do the massive amounts of work I've done myself, often to the detriment of sleep and profits, but the work is starting to pay off...

Well Dave, you said it yourself several times here. Most players don't care. And with the tones and styles people play today, they want hotter pickups. You make nice sounding pickups, but don't obsess over something that most people can't even hear and don't seem to care about, and its not cool to bad mouth other builders. Just make something you are happy with, and others will be too.

[Dave Kerr]

Then they obviously don't care! Duane Allman played what came with the guitar. What choice did he have? He would have sounded great on anything.

Well, according to this (near bottom of page), Allman thought enough of the PAFs in his Goldtop to pull them when he swapped guitars.

[Spence]

Here's a really good example of one thing that goes completely over the head of the handwinders, when I mention the "resonant peak" characteristics of PAF's, they don't don't have a clue what I'm talking about, probably because hand winding mostly wipes it out. This characteristic in this clip is right in your face, do you hear it?
http://www.sdpickups.com/ebay/59%20PAF%20bridge.mp3

I'm not putting myself on a pedestal here,

Most people, upon finding themselves in a hole, stop digging.
Can anyone else smell burning bridges?

[David Schwab]

Well, according to this (near bottom of page), Allman thought enough of the PAFs in his Goldtop to pull them when he swapped guitars.

But they both would have had PAF pickups, right? So he just liked that particular set of pickups. And that goes back to which PAF is anyone talking about?

Plus this guy says this is the guitar he played slide on, but he used the SG which was set up for slide and given to him by Betts. That's not the say he didn't use other guitars for slide, but he set the SG up for slide.

10 Things You Gotta Do to Play Like Duane Allman, Jesse Gress

Unfortunately, it’d cost a not-so-small fortune to reassemble Allman’s lineage of vintage axes today. His first electric was a cherry-red 1959 Gibson Les Paul Junior, but Allman soon moved on to a Fender Telecaster with a Stratocaster neck, a 1957 Gibson Les Paul gold-top, a circa-1961 Gibson Les Paul/SG (used for slide), a dot-neck sunburst Gibson ES-335 (dated between 1958 and 1962), and, ultimately, a tobacco sunburst Gibson Les Paul of indeterminate origin acquired in June of 1971. (Though one of his earliest electric guitars was a heavily modified ’56 or ’57 Stratocaster, Allman apparently never modded any of his own gear.) His favorite acoustic was a pre-war Gibson L-00, and for session work, Allman rendered his magic on a three-tone sunburst 1961 Stratocaster.

What pickups are in this '61 SG?







So... which guitar (and pickups) got Duane's tone?????

Oh and the guy who has his gold top said at the bottom of the page:

Remember, though, the most important part of a guitar's tone is two things... the instrument itself and the player... the pickups are less important than the wood, but nobody, Duane included, knew that then.