Story of the Suhr pickup magnets :

[RedHouse]

...Skinny insulation means higher capacitance only when you bundle the wires
but not when you have "flying" leads...

So true, and I'd only like to add that even then those bundled wires need to run parallel for some distance (several inches) to create the kind of capacitance that would cause noticable (audible) effects.

Personally I swap out the cheap-ass wire because I've noticed over time it seems to decay in a weird way.

For instance I had a Floyd Rose guitar in the shop a while back (one of those speed loader jobs), the guitar was build in Redmond (USA) before they moved their operation offshore, anyway despite the USA mfr they were using that cheap-ass grey coated thin wire just like you see in those $99 china-cheepies and the exposed areas where the insulation was stripped for soldering you could see the wire had already turned a dark grey and become barely solderable. BTW the problem was indeed solder joints, the wire that went to the output jack was fraying and causing intermittent problems.

[RedHouse]

... Gotta keep the blues alive I guess...

YEAH BABY!

And just for some additional perspective, lots of Blues isn't done on PAFs:

Muddy Waters (Tele)
Albert Collins (Tele)
Freddie King (P90 LP)

John Lee Hooker (Epi)


Buddy Guy (Strat)
Jimi Hendrix (Strat)
Rory Gallagher (Strat)

Not to mention the real old blues players like Robert Johnson, Son House, Elmore James etc.

Even BB King wasn't a PAF guy;


But I do relate to your PAF-blues notion, I too love the PAF laden Les Paul slingers of the 60's.

[David Schwab]

I saw Freddie King open for Grand Funk back in '72.

[David Schwab]

Weird, when I first posted that, all the pics were aligned under their names, now the Freddy pic is at the bottom, wtf.

I don't even see the picture of BB unless I click on the link.

[rjb]

I don't even see the picture of BB unless I click on the link.

Now I can't even do that. Get sent to a page saying "Invalid attachment specified."

Was the pic one of these?

[RedHouse]

There, I re-uploaded, looks right now.

[RedHouse]

Now I can't even do that. Get sent to a page saying "Invalid attachment specified."

Was the pic one of these?

No, but I like those, thanks for posting them.

[Possum]

BB King probably did use PAF's and Freddie King too, anyone who bought the first humbucker equipped guitars was playing PAF's. BB went through lots of guitars, so whatever was being sold at the time is what they bought, same for Freddie. But they also used TTops because their later guitars had those in them too. Personally for blues, P90's RULE! Its often hard to tell by recordings if someone is playing P90's or PAF's as they have very similar characteristics and used identical parts. Alot of these artists sounded the same no matter what, I was listening to Mike Bloomfield on one recording, coulda sworn it was PAF's, then suddenly he hits a whammy bar ;-) Bloomfield also played 12-13's on his guitars so that was part of his sound. The one guy who's tone deteriorated in my opinion when he left PAF's behind was Albert King. His original Flying V was THE tone for me, his Erlwine guitar just lost all that great stuff the Gibson V had.

[Possum]

As far as hookup wire sounding different, in Dave Funk's book he has detailed information on what he uses for hookup wire in amplifiers and why. Each type of insulation contributes different sonic qualities to amps. Plastic coated wire in guitars, is something I rip out, but its also usually smaller gauge wire too, which is just bad.

[RedHouse]

BB King probably did use PAF's and Freddie King too, anyone who bought the first humbucker equipped guitars was playing PAF's....

Ok (so here we go again) I tried to chime-in but chimed unaccordingly....

The reason I included the pics was to avoid all that eternal (bickering) but none-the-less anyone can see in the pics what guitars they used in their early recording careers, no doubt they were not using PAF loaded guitars for the recordings that made them famous.

YMMV

BTW, I will take you up on that beer deal, ...if it's still on the table.

I'd like to emphasise (spell check aint workin) the earlly P90 tone, and early PAF tone, is not the same as todays tone.

I much like the Bloomfierd (Cooper) stuff although it was indeed a flash-in-the-pan thing, but yes-sir-eee the PAFs in question are often (easily mistaken) for P90 tone or otherwise.
(not saying you, just saying)

[Possum]

Well yeah, early in their careers, because PAF's didn't exist that early ;-) I like Bloomfield too, he used Fender Twins and Super Reverbs, JBL's. Played basically pretty clean.
I only found out last year that he was using really thick strings, there's a really great Bloomfield website that has a 3 hour radio documentary on him and alot of his music, full songs, you can download the whole thing for free. This is one of my favorite videos of him, pretty rare, if you really focus on his guitar you can how thick those cables were ;-

OK, so Bud Lite?

[Telemachos]

......... I have 3 silverface amps and the reissue amps Fender made of them are harsh and nothing like the originals. .

Ansolutely second that.

.........These old amps are really easy to work on too. The silverface Fenders are still a bargain when compared to modern hand wired boutique products. Who would of thought when we were kids that the amps we played as teens would still alive and kicking butt here almost 50 years later. I wonder how many modern printed circuit amps will still be around 50 years from now ;-)

Truely unchallanged. I too got three early to mid 70ies SF amps. As the jam host of a local club I provide my equipment to the crowds. Although the Vibrolux Rev. being the amp doing most of the shifts all the other SF and the 59 bassman too btw, never ever failed or left anybody disapointed. That's a great performance taking all the pounding into account they're going through since we started the weekly jam 6 years ago

......... but a vintage amp just has something the modern ones are missing.........

Well, I'm not sure about that. I think that it's not all in the components that most vintage guys think is responsible of a good tone. I assume that it's a random mix of worn and due to higher manufacturing tolerances, it's imperfectly working components that can give an old amp some nice mojo tone. Not all sound good, but some do just like some contemporary amps can too, once they wear into a nice direction. Some amps might even sound good to your ears w. worn tubes or a mismatched set of tubes can make you hear some magic .

[Telemachos]

YEAH BABY!

And just for some additional perspective, lots of Blues isn't done on PAFs:

That's right and in the end you got to use your fingers.

[Telemachos]

Most guitar players in those days were playing whatever they could afford or even borrow for some particular show nor recording. I doubt if they had a choice or even cared. They might have cared to some extend, maybe regarding size and color. It's just that banal I think. But wait a minute wouldn't those aspects be more reasonable than what me nerd likes read freakin' forum chat about P90 vs. PAF at 4 o' clock in the morning?
Only thing in life that matters is girls, cars and a nice looking guitar, right? Those cats knew what is good.