OTPG -what is that?

[big_teee]

My hasn't this turned into quite the Soap Opra.
This Thread has been more entertaining than watching my daily Soaps!!!
It sounds to me, that we still don't know but a small part of the tangled web we weave!
Terry

[David Schwab]

You know I've also read articles by Les Paul where he claimed to have invented the electric guitar! Historians have other takes on that too.

I think he would have said the solid body electric guitar, and even then, there were others, like Bigsby. And George Beauchamp applied for a patent on the horseshoe pickup in 1934. We also hear that Fender invented the electric bass, even though Rickenbacker had electric uprights, and then there is that Audiovox bass made by Paul Tutmarc who also made electric guitar way before most of the other makers.

History is always kind of selective.

[Rick Turner]

Lloyd Loar...

Solid body "Spanish Guitar" in 1933; brand name ViviTone. I've got one of his electric/acoustic Spanish/Hawiians from '33. Magnetic pickup coupled to the bridge. Single coil. Same year...electric bass, electric viola, electric mandolin, and electric clavier...as in keyboard. Google Roger Siminoff and read up on Loar.

Pickups (perhaps) in 1923/'24

[David Schwab]

Yes, I forgot about Lloyd Loar. He designed a lot of very unusual instruments.

[Rick Turner]

The more you pay for a PAF clone, the more you'll want to believe it's the best...

Don't forget that it all comes down to digital tone controls...



Five digits on each hand unless you're Jerry Garcia or Django...

Pickups are but a window into the soul of the guitar...

[LtKojak]

The more you pay for a PAF clone, the more you'll want to believe it's the best...

Exactly! Blues Lawyers are everywhere!

[LtKojak]

Five digits on each hand unless you're Jerry Garcia or Django...

Well... they're both DEAD, I don't think they'll care that much about a PAF replica these days...

[Possum]

Rick you're right, players buy into "perceived value" more than they will actually take time to really listen to what they bought, especially before they bought it. Good example, the buying frenzies on certain forums because someone says "these sound amazing." Then like sheep going to slaughter they all plunk their money down so they can tell each other they are cool because they own that product. Talk to these guys a year later and they usually tell me "what was I thinking," and what they bought are gathering dust in some drawer or selling on Ebay for cheap.

I highly disagree with playing ability and fingers etc. as the be-all and end-all to tone. Good case in point, Albert King on his original Gibson Flying V, that guitar was Godlyke in tone, the V he played later just didn't have anything approaching those tones. Thats the difference between PAF's and something that came much later. Another example, there is someone supposed to be making some of the "best PAF repros on earth," so I found a sound clip of a guy playing a Zeppelin riff on one of these bridge pickups. Well, his playing could do the Page thing, but the pickup had zero PAF qualities, there was simply nothing there. I traded for a set of these and the thing was full of AllParts pieces, literally almost nothing in it was PAF accurate. No amount of playing ability is going to recreate the tones of a uniquely voiced electromagnetic audio device made using vintage technologies and materials, can't be done. Knowing the science and physics of what went into making those parts, how they actually perform and why, you can get awful darn close, but never 100%. Butyrate bobbins and Gibson's actual PAF winder, well, Seymour has those.

[Rick Turner]

Be all and end all? Maybe not, but...the best guitarists I can think of can all deliver their signature tone on anything. I don't care whether it's a PAF equipped Les Paul or a screwed up Stella birch funk acoustic with a DeArmond in it (the guitar that Robbie Robertson played at the first post-neck break Dylan gig at Town Hall in NYC in '67 or '68...) Or BB King visiting the Gibson plant and playing a J-200 acoustic...that somehow sounded just like Lucille. Real tone is in the fingers. Pickups, electronics, and amps merely filter it.

If you think you can sound just like Peter Green or Danny Kirwin by using their same guitar set ups, prove it to me...

Or Clapton with the Bluesbreakers or early Cream. Or Jimi.

Sorry...tone is from the heart to the fingers to the guitar. The guitar and pickups merely shape what's already there.

When I listen to the radio and suddenly hear SRV, it's not the pickups I hear, it's SRV. Ditto too few others...

We as pickup makers can only hope to provide a medium for the guitarists to establish their signature tone. We are NOT the most important link in the whole thing.

[Possum]

I'm sorry you're not able to hear it, this is one of my main interests of study and research and to me the differences between the early work of those guys and later work with non-PAF equipped guitars was huge to my ears. Well, Hendrix on a Gibson Les Paul didn't sound like Hendrix on a strat, yeah same style but different tones, he never sounded that great on Gibson guitars and always seemed to be fighting them to me. Pickups are the voice of the guitar, to me they make or break the guitar, thats how I got into this business, a set of "boutique" strat pickups in a custom $2500 custom Koll Tele I had made, I literally couldn't play that thing, lifeless and sterile....sent me on a quest......

Are you related to Rob Turner? I did all EMG's graphics/ads/NAMM show graphics back in the erly 80's, for 12 years. I see they are finally running ads again, finally after 15 years, funny the first one they did looks exactly like the stuff I was doing for them, LOL....

[Peter Naglitsch]

I found a sound clip of a guy playing a Zeppelin riff on one of these bridge pickups. Well, his playing could do the Page thing, but the pickup had zero PAF qualities, there was simply nothing there.

Let me guess; Its the clip with this guy is playing thru an Orange amp and the only thing I can hear is the very distinct sound of that heavily overdriven Orange amp, no Zep tone what so ever, no sound from the pickup at all, only amp distortion.

Unfortunately the guy is a well respected winder (have posted some good tips here from time to time) and that YT clip doesn't make him or his pickups justice IMHO.

[Possum]

No not him, I think I know who you mean. One of the best Page tone references I've found, an MLP guy turned me onto, is BBC Live Sessions on disc two. Those are the original PAFs in Number One before the bridge died. They played at what sounds like lower volumes so you can really hear details in the pickup that get somewhat lost in concert footage. A gold mine for me....

[David Schwab]

Good case in point, Albert King on his original Gibson Flying V, that guitar was Godlyke in tone, the V he played later just didn't have anything approaching those tones. Thats the difference between PAF's and something that came much later.

Yeah, but the later V was totally different in construction too. I'm assuming you are talking about the Dan Erlewine V. That was made of walnut for one thing. His original was a '59 Korina. Then he had the Erlewine and a mid 60's Korina. Even two identical Vs might sound different.

Also people change the amps they use and even their tone over the years. Pickups play a big part in tone, but it's not the only part.

[David Schwab]

When I listen to the radio and suddenly hear SRV, it's not the pickups I hear, it's SRV. Ditto too few others...

Exactly, and he wasn't using the same guitar and pickup on every track, but he still sounds like SRV. Even with the amps... sometimes he had 10 amps running all at the same time in the studio!

Another example is Jimmy Page. A lot of the tracks he did on a Tele. Some were on the LP, and some were on a Strat. But you know it's Page when you hear him. Or Pete Townshend playing Gretschs in the studio and Les Pauls live. It still sounded like Townshend.

It's easy to prove this too. Take your own personal guitar (or bass even) and amp, etc., and play it with your usual tone, and then hand it to another player. They will sound totally different from you. You learn how to get the tones you like in your technique, and they learned to get the tones they like.

I do this all the time when I have customers here. I let them hear a new pickup, or maybe I've been working on their guitar. When I play their guitar, I sound like me. When they play it, they don't sound like me! same with my guitars.

The last thing about pickups is they don't all work well in particular guitars. I end up with some odds and ends, and I had a Duncan Jazz neck pickup that sounded very nice in my Charvel Frankenstrat, but when I put it in a FirstAct Garagemaster, it was too boomy in the low end. So I had to wind a neck pickup with a tighter low end for that guitar. When the Jazz was in a customer's jackson with a Floyd, it was very lifeless sounding because of the tone of that guitar. But a DiMarzio Evo neck sounded great. Go figure!

So even though a PAF might sound great on one guitar, it might not gel on another. In the end it's a magic combination that makes a truly special guitar.

[Possum]

PAF's in the original V were a huge part of that tone Albert had, I spent too damn many years just listening to PAF's and the beautiful quirky things they do, Erlwine's guitr didn't cut it for me. Erlwine's guitar pickups were Gibson 49T and R or whatever those were called, its in his book, they don't have any of what PAF's did. PAF's sound like PAF's no matter what guitar they're in, the guitar has an enfluence, of course you can watch that in my videos, my warmer guitar makes the pickups sound warmer etc. Its just too bad Erlwine didn't find some PAF's to use in his V, would have made a big difference, but I think that guitar was built when PAF's were considered good dumpster food. He always had wonderful tone no matter what but go on YouTube and watch him play the original V then watch later videos, to me, its like something really good fell out of his guitar...