Fake PAFs

[Possum]

Thats a big problem in the pickup business, hype. While everyone else was trying to out-hype each other, I quietly did my research on PAF's, I have 13 years into it now, did more research than any of the big companies ever got into, and had help from top specialists in two materials fields who helped me for free with full access to their labs and staff, plus a gazillion experiments and my own small machine shop to build anyting I want. What I offer, I use one method only, and thats to put real vintage PAF's in my own guitar, and then put my replicas in the same guitar and let customers judge for themselves on Youtube. You really have to really be brutally honest and let buyers see if you did your homework or not. Plus, we dont have those vintage materials or vintage technologies anymore, so there will always be a small percentage difference that just can't be bridged. I don't use effects, just a guitar into a vintage amp and learned the correct way to do a good clean recording of the results and don't use much distortion other than slight breakup from the amp itself. Honestly its a small group of players who can actually identify the true sound of a vintage PAF, and its because they have played them, and/or owned or own vintage PAF equipped Gibson guitars. So, for me its a pretty small niche market. But vintage PAF's are an object of total love for me, everything else that came afterwards just sound rather souless to my ears.

Freefrog, no that keeper isn't correct, I can't tell from the blurry photo if its a Duncan or not, the Duncan one I had also did not have the larger four holes that PAF keepers have, but he did hand file debur the holes like PAF's did. As for the alloy, well you'll have to have it destroyed / analyzed if you want to know what it is, but why bother since its not an original part anyway. We analyzed a complete 40 year time span of every pickup Gibson made up to late 70's and the earlier alloys don't exist anymore, mainly because the Bessemer steel process died off in '68. They used alot of manganese as a de-ox treatment that ended up in the steel as well as higher percentages of other chemicals you don't find identical in modern steel. Some of the alloys they used had different alloy names back then too. But alloys don't make PAF tone, either. The total is the sum of every part, you can't isolate any one thing and say thats where those magical tones come from.

[Possum]

Thats a big problem in the pickup business, hype. While everyone else was trying to out-hype each other, I quietly did my research on PAF's, I have 13 years into it now, did more research than any of the big companies ever got into, and had help from top specialists in two materials fields who helped me for free with full access to their labs and staff, plus a gazillion experiments and my own small machine shop to build anyting I want. What I offer, I use one method only, and thats to put real vintage PAF's in my own guitar, and then put my replicas in the same guitar and let customers judge for themselves on Youtube. You really have to really be brutally honest and let buyers see if you did your homework or not. Plus, we dont have those vintage materials or vintage technologies anymore, so there will always be a small percentage difference that just can't be bridged. I don't use effects, just a guitar into a vintage amp and learned the correct way to do a good clean recording of the results and don't use much distortion other than slight breakup from the amp itself. Honestly its a small group of players who can actually identify the true sound of a vintage PAF, and its because they have played them, and/or owned or own vintage PAF equipped Gibson guitars. So, for me its a pretty small niche market. But vintage PAF's are an object of total love for me, everything else that came afterwards just sound rather souless to my ears.

Freefrog, no that keeper isn't correct, I can't tell from the blurry photo if its a Duncan or not, the Duncan one I had also did not have the larger four holes that PAF keepers have, but he did hand file debur the holes like PAF's did. As for the alloy, well you'll have to have it destroyed / analyzed if you want to know what it is, but why bother since its not an original part anyway. We analyzed a complete 40 year time span of every pickup Gibson made up to late 70's and the earlier alloys don't exist anymore, mainly because the Bessemer steel process died off in '68. They used alot of manganese as a de-ox treatment that ended up in the steel as well as higher percentages of other chemicals you don't find identical in modern steel. Some of the alloys they used had different alloy names back then too. But alloys don't make PAF tone, either. The total is the sum of every part, you can't isolate any one thing and say thats where those magical tones come from.

[Jim Shine]

I had alot of fun doing the silk screen stuff because I use to silk screen as a kid, and being in the art business for 33 years, any time I can add some art element to the work it makes it more fun. My decals now are water based acrylic inks and next I'm going to take a shot at the old solvent based inks, which are messy to use but the decals will look even more real. Everyone has their niche, do what you love and there you go...

The only tip I can give you in that area is to track down the original font and build the art from there. The "look" of the lettering on the old labels is created by the small text on somewhat large screen mesh. Once you get the mesh count where you want it, these are easy to screen. If you try and use the already distorted image on a screen, it will get even more distorted.

[freefrog]

]But alloys don't make PAF tone, either. The total is the sum of every part, you can't isolate any one thing and say thats where those magical tones come from.

My limited experience of pickup parts swapper suggests me that a pickup as a whole can be MORE or LESS than the sum of its parts. Yes, a wrong part can kill its tone. But the sum of several supposedly "wrong" parts can generate a mutual correction feeding a “right” synergy… while a sum of theoretically “right” elements can be lacking of “something” undefined and remains a lifeless whole.

Anyway: is it possible to obtain a “correct” tone from a “fake” PAF?… Picture below: the blue line shows the response of a PAF clone.



The red line translates the response of a real vintage Early Pat.

WYSIWYG.:-)

[LtKojak]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28544[/ATTACH]

The red line translates the response of a real vintage Early Pat.

The discerning tell is: by 4500 hz there's a dip of 9 db, exactly where the early Pat# has a small peak of 6db, making a 15db difference.

I'm almost certain that this alone would make more than possible to hear a difference, making one p'up "fine" and the other "outstanding".

At least, that's my more and less educated guess.

HTH,

[freefrog]

The discerning tell is: by 4500 hz there's a dip of 9 db, exactly where the early Pat# has a small peak of 6db, making a 15db difference.

I'm almost certain that this alone would make more than possible to hear a difference, making one p'up "fine" and the other "outstanding".

At least, that's my more and less educated guess.

HTH,

Having stuffed my archives of screenshots like that since 2003, I'll reply: it's as close as you can get with 2 PU's featuring different magnets mounted in different guitars.

As a matter of fact, the spectrum stacks the frequencies produced along a played track. Almost all the PAF clones that I've here produce a way different response, even in the same guitar... :-)

[JGundry]

My limited experience of pickup parts swapper suggests me that a pickup as a whole can be MORE or LESS than the sum of its parts. Yes, a wrong part can kill its tone. But the sum of several supposedly "wrong" parts can generate a mutual correction feeding a “right” synergy… while a sum of theoretically “right” elements can be lacking of “something” undefined and remains a lifeless whole.

Anyway: is it possible to obtain a “correct” tone from a “fake” PAF?… Picture below: the blue line shows the response of a PAF clone.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]28544[/ATTACH]

The red line translates the response of a real vintage Early Pat.

WYSIWYG.:-)

There is not one single P.A.F. tone. There are common P.A.F. traits but the original manufacturing and materials specs. have a wide enough variation that there is not one true P.A.F. tone to use as a benchmark. A dead on repro of an individual P.A.F. can be done. But you have to trash the original magnet, trash some original pole screws and peel off enough of the wire from the original pickup to know what you have. Then remanufacture the parts and wind the pickups on the correct machines and charge the magnets properly. I have done this but the cost is very high.

I make all my own parts in the USA and make them vintage accurate. I wind with vintage machines used for P.A.F.'s.. The variation in vintage specs. are the palette for making a P.A.F. repro. Within an accurate palette you can make a wide variety of 100% accurate repros within the P.A.F. framework.

[freefrog]

There is not one single P.A.F. tone. There are common P.A.F. traits but the original manufacturing and materials specs. have a wide enough variation that there is not one true P.A.F. tone to use as a benchmark. A dead on repro of an individual P.A.F. can be done. But you have to trash the original magnet, trash some original pole screws and peel off enough of the wire from the original pickup to know what you have. Then remanufacture the parts and wind the pickups on the correct machines and charge the magnets properly. I have done this but the cost is very high.

I make all my own parts in the USA and make them vintage accurate. I wind with vintage machines used for P.A.F.'s.. The variation in vintage specs. are the palette for making a P.A.F. repro. Within an accurate palette you can make a wide variety of 100% accurate repros within the P.A.F. framework.

I know.

The humble freefrog has passed many time to absorb silently "all he could eat" about PAF's & their replicas on the Net & elsewhere. I know by heart miles of online discussions about it

I even know who will react and how, when such or such member has contributed to a topic. :-)


That said and to reply to your post...

In one of my replies above, I was precisely defending boutique winders, saying that several of them could nail the PAF tone(s) IMHO. Fortunately, there's many ways for a potential customer to select someone among these winders, according to his preferences. The shoot out done by Jamman on MLP in a great ressource for that, among many others.

Now, as far as I'm concerned...

-several winders make their own parts according to vintage correct recipes and offer technically authentic replicas; most of they are members here so I don't need to name them. They'll chime if necessary;

-I've said above that a pickup as a whole can be LESS or MORE than the sum of its parts because IME of musician/hobbyist guitar tech/pickups geek, there's no systematic correlation between the "vintage correctness" of the recipes / process used and the authenticity of the tone obtained.

I've found "my" favourite replicas of old pickups after long, patient and careful comparisons side by side between them and real vintage PU's. It comes out that none of my personal favourite "clones" can be demystified by an analysis of its parts or building process. The skills and ears of the maker appears to be something important too. FWIW. :-)

[JGundry]

Freefrog,

Your question is was it possible for a fake P.A.F. to sound like a really one. The answer is yes and my reply spelled out how it is done. It has everything to do with materials, processes and methods that are accurate to vintage. If you want that level of accuracy there are no shortcuts or work arounds that will get you there any other way. It is an elusive goal to many because they do not want to face this reality and instead want to pick and choose the "important" elements of a P.A.F. in their builds instead of taking full ownership of every detail.

There are many, many, many good pickups at every price level with a P.A.F. theme. There is something for everyone. But the number of makers worldwide that can come close to meeting the challenge your question puts forth can be counted on one hand. And very, very, very few P.A.F. style makers make all their own parts.

I have yet to see a truly informative shootout for P.A.F. style pickups. The MLP one is cool and well done for what it is. But just as an example of the problems that crop up with these, many of the pickups in the MLP shootout had no pickups covers supplied and the solution was to put a ThroBak cover on the pickups that were not sent with a cover. So right there you don't have an accurate tonal representation of what your dollar will actually buy with many of the pickups in the shootout. A useful shootout would have clearly stated ground rules for submission. Something like stating the resistance for neck and bridge pickups at specific temperature, specify magnet type, magnet length, specify unpotted and with covers. Then compare what makers send.

Freefrog, do you know what magnets were in your reference vintage P.A.F.'s, were they covered or potted, what was the resistance? Do you think these details matter?

[freefrog]

Freefrog,

Your question is was it possible for a fake P.A.F. to sound like a really one. The answer is yes

Jon,

My "question" was a rhetorical one. I.E.: an assertion "relativized" by its interrogative form, in order to keep the part of doubt that I personally find necessary when it comes to answer a so simple AND complex question.

and my reply spelled out how it is done. It has everything to do with materials, processes and methods that are accurate to vintage. If you want that level of accuracy there are no shortcuts or work arounds that will get you there any other way. It is an elusive goal to many because they do not want to face this reality and instead want to pick and choose the "important" elements of a P.A.F. in their builds instead of taking full ownership of every detail.

Although doubt is a constant basis of my learning process, my limited experience of hobbyist guitar tech since the 80's doesn't match your statements.

I've disassembled PAF copies supposedly made exclusively of "vintage correct" parts and whose sound was still NOT totally authentic to my ears.

I've also compared side by side theoretically "vintage correct" PAF clones with the Seymourized mentioned in this topic. And you know what? There was practically NO difference in tone [that being said to stay a bit on topic in this discussion that we pollute].

There are many, many, many good pickups at every price level with a P.A.F. theme. There is something for everyone. But the number of makers worldwide that can come close to meeting the challenge your question puts forth can be counted on one hand. And very, very, very few P.A.F. style makers make all their own parts.

Yes. It doesn't make false my statement above: several winders build their parts for "P.A.F." clones (I write "PAF" just because I type fast, BTW).

I have yet to see a truly informative shootout for P.A.F. style pickups. The MLP one is cool and well done for what it is. But just as an example of the problems that crop up with these, many of the pickups in the MLP shootout had no pickups covers supplied and the solution was to put a ThroBak cover on the pickups that were not sent with a cover. So right there you don't have an accurate tonal representation of what your dollar will actually buy with many of the pickups in the shootout. A useful shootout would have clearly stated ground rules for submission. Something like stating the resistance for neck and bridge pickups at specific temperature, specify magnet type, magnet length, specify unpotted and with covers. Then compare what makers send.

There's hundreds of online clips whose patient confrontation become meaningful for an impassioned listener, especially when compared to a direct experience at home. There's also a few online testimonials from those who have already done this initiatic path. An example among many others is the post 28 here:

Best PAF sound - Les Paul Forum

Freefrog, do you know what magnets were in your reference vintage P.A.F.'s, were they covered or potted, what was the resistance? Do you think these details matter?

Let's edit out the moral rant that I had done here (tongue in cheek) for more concrete replies...
Yes, I know these details.
Yes, I find them important, to some extent - although an inductance value or a Gauss reading matters to me more than a DCR, frankly.
No, I don't find them essential. A real vintage PU and a modern clone can measure 7.8k & 4.2H, include the same mag and exhibit the same magnetic charge, they'll still sound different. IME at least.

Footnotes:

1-Although frequency response doesn't show all the aspects of a tone, I was not far to post a frequency chart involving a real Early Pat Sticker and 8 PAF clones, all played direct to the board by myself. It would certainly be instructive to analyse this comparison and to discover if the best imitation has been obtained with a vintage correct replica.

2-I've recently swapped pickups and parts from various origins... It turns out that I've obtained what I consider as the most convincing PAFish tones from assemblies which were NOT totally vintage correct. It could be true only for my two last poor experiments among millions of other situations in the world. It doesn't make false my experience (which is translated partly by the screenshot in my previous answer, BTW: real Early Patent Sticker played by me vs hybrid PAF clone played by me = almost exactly matched responses).

3-I know that you've spent many time and money in making convincing PAF replicas, Jon.
I know that you, Dave Stephens and some other winders have put their life, heart and soul in this quest.
As a pickups geek, I've a total respect for that.
Fortunately, each of you has loads of satisfied users to sing the virtues of his products, no? Invasive advertising can be counter productive sometimes.

It was my "Sunday" post. I wish you a nice day.

[David Schwab]

2-I've recently swapped pickups and parts from various origins... It turns out that I've obtained what I consider as the most convincing PAFish tones from assemblies which were NOT totally vintage correct. It could be true only for my two last poor experiments among millions of other situations in the world. It doesn't make false my experience (which is translated partly by the screenshot in my previous answer, BTW: real Early Patent Sticker played by me vs hybrid PAF clone played by me = almost exactly matched responses).

I used to have a set of early patent label pickups. They were removed from a Les Paul because frankly they weren't all that special. At the time (the mid 70s) the owner replaced them with the first version of the DiMarzio PAF pickups, which actually did sound better.

Wish I still had that set of pickups...

Not saying whether or not it's a good sounding pickup, but I was fascinated by the newer DiMarzio PAF pickup, precisely because it didn't follow any vintage methods; both bobbins had essentially screw poles, but one set was made to look like slugs. In between the poles were steel slugs to raise the inductance. Then they used their air gap magnet thing.

So rather than try to replicate the original design, they used a around about way to get to the desired tone, which was supposed to be one of Larry D's LPs.

Since there is no single reference for a PAF tone, this way is as good as any.

[JGundry]

Not saying whether or not it's a good sounding pickup, but I was fascinated by the newer DiMarzio PAF pickup, precisely because it didn't follow any vintage methods; both bobbins had essentially screw poles, but one set was made to look like slugs. In between the poles were steel slugs to raise the inductance. Then they used their air gap magnet thing.

So rather than try to replicate the original design, they used a around about way to get to the desired tone, which was supposed to be one of Larry D's LPs.

Since there is no single reference for a PAF tone, this way is as good as any.

How many parts can you subtract from the original design and still call it a P.A.F.? I think none is the correct answer.

[big_teee]

They are all just Copies, and the PAF Repro phenonena, IMO is just a ploy to sell pickups, at a high Price.
If you look up the word fake in a thesaurus you get this.

Bogus. counterfeit, fabricated, fictitious, forged, fraudulent, mock, phony, spurious, assumed, concocted, invented, make-believe, pretended, pseudo, reproduction, sham, simulated, and last but not least, artificial.

That's why I just call all modern full sized Buckers, Humbuckers!
They are all Fakes, and Copies, taken from an old design!
However, I'm sure there are some good Fakes out there!
I like to think mine are!
YMMV,
T

[freefrog]

Not saying whether or not it's a good sounding pickup, but I was fascinated by the newer DiMarzio PAF pickup, precisely because it didn't follow any vintage methods; both bobbins had essentially screw poles, but one set was made to look like slugs. In between the poles were steel slugs to raise the inductance. Then they used their air gap magnet thing.

So rather than try to replicate the original design, they used a around about way to get to the desired tone, which was supposed to be one of Larry D's LPs.

Something like that, so?

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/pvc1984/at-1.jpg

My humble mind understands the fascination... but my anonymous ears are not seduced by the DM 36th Anniversary: even hidden under tons of gain in online samples, it hasn't that orgasmic P.A.F. "zing" produced by the vintage Larry D's LP and that I've found in a few pickups only - including the Early Pat.'s mentioned in my posts and a few replicas built by some folks who are members here. :-)
Just my two Cents... YMMV.

[David Schwab]

How many parts can you subtract from the original design and still call it a P.A.F.? I think none is the correct answer.

Well, it won't be a reproduction, but if it sounds the same it doesn't really matter. And most people don't really know what a PAF sounds like, but they think they do.