PAFs that sound like sh*t

[JGundry]

There's a thread on MLP forum about PAFs. Here's a quote from one of the senior members ( BCR Greg ). :

"I have three PAFs sitting here that have virtually NOTHING in common except the construction. The pickups were wound rather haphazardly, some are hot and fat, others weak but articulate. I have owned a significant number of PAF equipped guitars, and work on them for others on a regular basis. The only thing that is consistent on PAF pickups is the inconsistency."

Maybe someone forgot to use the Leesona the day those were made.

Spence,

I think the variation in PAF's may actually be proof that they were done on a Leesona 102. The Leesona 102 has 3 stations each with their own start switches. The drive shaft runs the entire time but the switch for each station engages the gears that start the bobbin moving individually. So the variation may just be a simple matter of the routine established by the machine operator. It might go something like this. The machine is switched on after the bobbins are mounted, the start lead is attached to the bobbin closest to the motor and the run switch is turned on for that station when it is set to go, then on to the next station to do the same, then on to the third... So now you have 3 bobbins that are running but all started at different times. The operator then lets the machine run until the last bobbin started reaches around 5000 turns then switches the entire machine off to swap bobbins. So what you end up with is 3 bobbins two of which have progressively higher turn counts. The finished bobbins are then put in a box for later random assembly. I won't really know what the logical routine for efficiently running the 102 is until I get it in hand but I suspect that some variation on this operator routine is the explanation for the varied turn counts of PAF bobbins.

[R.G.]

Hey, R.G., what do you say to the hypothesis that any guitar pickup can be modelled by a second-order lowpass filter cascaded with a comb filter and gain coefficient? That's where I'd start if I was writing a DSP PAF simulator. ;-)

If you agree with the above hypothesis, you can then devise a set of experiments to do parameter extraction on any pickups you might be interested in.

I firmly don't know.

My EE background tells me it's true, but the testimony of people who have lots of experience tells me there's more to it. That kind of puts it where DSP simulation of distortions are today. They can be shown to have the same transfer as the circuits they model, but they don't sound the same. Very close, but not the same.

That tells me that there is something that's not understood in the modelling.

I am going ahead with the CNC winder and pickup test bed, similar to the ones I put up the link to on my web site. When I'm able to wind a coil which can be replicated, even a modest amount of testing will let me isolate effects: magnet charge from material; scatter from coil capacitance; pole piece material issues; coil material insulation issues; potting capacitance change; frequency response curves, etc. It'll take a while, but I think it will result in some very interesting views of what changes what - if anything! - in a pickup.

Like I said, all these years later I finally found a thesis topic.

[David Schwab]

I'd agree with that. Frankly, I think a good British bitter is more of a marvel than Budweiser, but as you say...

Or a good Belgian Ale!

I recently saw some show that was talking about making beer, and they showed the Anheuser-Busch brewery. The thing is they make such huge vats of the stuff! It was interesting to watch, but I would hardly call that beer!

[David Schwab]

I was a single coil guy too until I started working with humbuckers and the ones I make now are very single coil sounding which is what attracted me to PAFs in the first place

Now you just answered a question I always have... what does a PAF really sound like? Everyone has an opinion.

I was surprised how single coil-ish my first humbuckers were. I liked the tone though. But now I see you are saying the same thing.

As for asking questions... I say why reinvent the wheel? If someone knows the answer it can save you time and money from doing something that was done already, maybe only to find out it doesn't work.

[Spence]

Spence,

I think the variation in PAF's may actually be proof that they were done on a Leesona 102. The Leesona 102 has 3 stations each with their own start switches. The drive shaft runs the entire time but the switch for each station engages the gears that start the bobbin moving individually. So the variation may just be a simple matter of the routine established by the machine operator. It might go something like this. The machine is switched on after the bobbins are mounted, the start lead is attached to the bobbin closest to the motor and the run switch is turned on for that station when it is set to go, then on to the next station to do the same, then on to the third... So now you have 3 bobbins that are running but all started at different times. The operator then lets the machine run until the last bobbin started reaches around 5000 turns then switches the entire machine off to swap bobbins. So what you end up with is 3 bobbins two of which have progressively higher turn counts. The finished bobbins are then put in a box for later random assembly. I won't really know what the logical routine for efficiently running the 102 is until I get it in hand but I suspect that some variation on this operator routine is the explanation for the varied turn counts of PAF bobbins.

Sounds like a bit of a potch. let me know how you get on. Personally I can't imagine the machine operator would be trying to attach the hookup with a wildly flailing bobbin so close at hand. It only makes sense to have all three ready to go before you engage any of them. But I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of it with your new aquisition. Just one question; are you 100% sure that the Leesona you've bought is set up the same as the one at Gibson????

[kevinT]

Just one question; are you 100% sure that the Leesona you've bought is set up the same as the one at Gibson????

...can always conduct some industrial spying during one of SD's customer tour days (or whatever they call it). ...actually from the good things that i hear about seymour, he'll probably tell you if you ask. I believe they have two Leesonas. One that is operational and one that they use for parts when the one that's working breaks down.

I'm surprised that SD is such an open company with all the videos and photos of their factory etc..as opposed to DiMarzio. Do you think we'll ever see the inside of DiMarzio's shop?

[JGundry]

Sounds like a bit of a potch. let me know how you get on. Personally I can't imagine the machine operator would be trying to attach the hookup with a wildly flailing bobbin so close at hand. It only makes sense to have all three ready to go before you engage any of them. But I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of it with your new aquisition. Just one question; are you 100% sure that the Leesona you've bought is set up the same as the one at Gibson????

I agree it is not the safest approach but each station is separated by a gear box and almost 1.5' of clearance. Workplace safety practices are much different now than they were in the 1950's. There are plenty of shortcuts that were done that would never be done now due to safety concerns. But if you look at the video of Seymour Duncan's Leesona being set up you can see that they have the machine running while they are doing the final bobbin set-up. Obviously Leesona felt there there was some need for each station to have it's own clutch gear box with start lever. Maybe the tensioners require a bit of adjustment each time? I think the Seth Lover interview even hints at the tension adjustment thing. Again I really won't know until I use it. But I think a staggering of the start of each bobbin is a real possibility. There are photos and video of later Gibson winders where up to 10 bobbins are stacked and started and run off the same drive all at once. I think the switch to this type of machine in favor of the Leesona 102 is the logical explanation as to why pickups became more consistent after the PAF era.

I am pretty optimistic that I can set up the Leesona 102 I bought to Gibson specs.. The main variable is the turn per layer count which I think I can duplicate since my machine has a variable speed replacement to the original gear box that stepped the traverse speed up and down. So I don't need to find the right gear combos which would be impossible. The only other adjustments are tension and the bobbin RPM. The tensioners on my machine are original Leesona tensioners and the manual gives tensioning guidelines for 42awg wire so I have that covered. There is a little aliigator clip with felt in it that Seymour Duncan has on his Leesona 102 so I may have to do that retrofit but I will experiment without it first. The bobbin RPM is really only a tension issue as the turn per layer count stays constant no matter what the bobbin speed is. But I do have a very educated guess as to the bobbin speed. But even after that there some variables with how the operator sets the machine up that still have an effect on the coil. But again I already have that one worked out through experiments with computerized winder.

This all assumes it works at all. If it doesn't I'm sure I'll be making several trips to a machine shop.

[kevinT]

the manual gives tensioning guidelines for 42awg wire so I have that covered.

this is what i was hoping that the manual would have in it.....nice bits of info that perhaps can be applied to modern machine setups. I'm looking forward to reading it when it arrives.

[Spence]

I agree it is not the safest approach but each station is separated by a gear box and almost 1.5' of clearance. Workplace safety practices are much different now than they were in the 1950's. There are plenty of shortcuts that were done that would never be done now due to safety concerns. But if you look at the video of Seymour Duncan's Leesona being set up you can see that they have the machine running while they are doing the final bobbin set-up. Obviously Leesona felt there there was some need for each station to have it's own clutch gear box with start lever. Maybe the tensioners require a bit of adjustment each time? I think the Seth Lover interview even hints at the tension adjustment thing. Again I really won't know until I use it. But I think a staggering of the start of each bobbin is a real possibility. There are photos and video of later Gibson winders where up to 10 bobbins are stacked and started and run off the same drive all at once. I think the switch to this type of machine in favor of the Leesona 102 is the logical explanation as to why pickups became more consistent after the PAF era.

I am pretty optimistic that I can set up the Leesona 102 I bought to Gibson specs.. The main variable is the turn per layer count which I think I can duplicate since my machine has a variable speed replacement to the original gear box that stepped the traverse speed up and down. So I don't need to find the right gear combos which would be impossible. The only other adjustments are tension and the bobbin RPM. The tensioners on my machine are original Leesona tensioners and the manual gives tensioning guidelines for 42awg wire so I have that covered. There is a little aliigator clip with felt in it that Seymour Duncan has on his Leesona 102 so I may have to do that retrofit but I will experiment without it first. The bobbin RPM is really only a tension issue as the turn per layer count stays constant no matter what the bobbin speed is. But I do have a very educated guess as to the bobbin speed. But even after that there some variables with how the operator sets the machine up that still have an effect on the coil. But again I already have that one worked out through experiments with computerized winder.

This all assumes it works at all. If it doesn't I'm sure I'll be making several trips to a machine shop.

My educated guess is that they just found the Leesona an absolute pig to use until several changes were made to the way they wound the bobbins. Consistency seems to come in with T-Tops where both inner and outer are taped to the outside of the coil. That for me is a clear indication of Gibson using the Leesona exclusively.

[David Schwab]

If the steel is plated with anything bright and shiny (other than Chrome), beware the fumes while heating the steel to a red heat for annealing. Do not breath the fumes. They can make you quite sick. Look up "zinc fever". Older stuff may be plated with cadmium, which is far worse.

Most of it has been zinc plated.... I'll keep that in mind!

David. The stuff from depot files way differently that say 1002. The shavings are different too . I have some annealed low carbon too, and it is harder to file than C.R.L.C.
This is interesting that the annealed has a stronger pull from the magnet, it wants to go right back to it as the C.R.L.C.(crlc breaks the same, but has less pull, if that makes sense?)

I really don't know what the stuff is, and I don't plan on using it much longer, but it was convenient at the time. So far it has worked well, but I haven't used a whole lot of it. I bought a few bars and rods to experiment with. I'm curious to try some other types of steel and make comparisons.

Years ago I made some steel blades for a Schaller Bassbucker pickup (the one that looked like a DiMarzio Model G) out of steel from a shelf unit. I was just tinkering around and looked in the basement for raw materials. It was the X straps from one of those metal shelves everyone seem to have in their workspace. It worked well, so this time around I figured let me find some steel that seems magnetic and give it a try.

I want to try some laminated steel, so I guess I'm going to have to try my hand at gluing some together. I also just got some much thinner sheets to use for blades. The high inductance of the thicker stuff is fine for pickups with less windings, but I won't like what I'm getting when I wind more wire on it.

I haven't had a chance to get things like gaussmeter, so to get a relative idea of some of the magnets I have been using, I see how they feel sticking to a known object as compared to other pickups I have.

So I assemble some coilforms, wind some pickups, and then decide what I like or don't like about them and what might change that. It's very by the seat of my pants at the moment. I'm looking forward to having more test equipment to make measurements of the pickups that are coming out good.

Personally I think this is all very exciting... much like when I first started messing with transistors and stuff. I like reading what everyone else is doing, even if most of it doesn't apply to what I'm doing. Always good info in there somewhere!

And everyday I think "magnets are just too weird"

[JGundry]

My educated guess is that they just found the Leesona an absolute pig to use until several changes were made to the way they wound the bobbins. Consistency seems to come in with T-Tops where both inner and outer are taped to the outside of the coil. That for me is a clear indication of Gibson using the Leesona exclusively.

The pigtail on the outside is actually more evidence for switching away from the Leesona 102 to another style of winder. I am able to attach a pigtail to my multibobbin winder easily but I am constantly rotating it back and forth to tape the solder joint etc.. This is a problem since you can easily get the magnet wire of the adjacent bobbin off of it's bobbin so you end with a bobbin that has the magnet wire off the bobbin from the beginning. So you have to be VERY CAREFUL to avoid this. But if you do away with the pigtail when you are stacking bobbins this is no longer much of factor. But each bobbin on a Leesona 102 had it's own independent base so attaching the pigtail to just one bobbin was not much of an issue because rotating it does not rotate the bobbin you already set up.. If you start stacking them space to work in also becomes a problem. If you find the video of their multi bobbin winder at work you can see why Gibson did away with the pigtail. There is also another very obvious indicator of a different machine for T-Tops than PAF's that you should already know.

[R.G.]

Now you just answered a question I always have... what does a PAF really sound like? Everyone has an opinion.

What's interesting is that I have read here the basis for believing that they are all correct in their opinions. With the magnet, coil, and materials variations I've read about here, Everyone could be right about what a PAF sounds like.

Some observations come to mind.
(1) this is very much like the status of real vintage Fuzz Face pedals. The variation in sound from those things is huge. I dug out the rationale for why thats true, and later found evidence that famous players went through box after box of them looking for good ones.
(2) the most vicious, damaging disagreements happen not when one party is evil and malevolently wrong, but when both parties have an honest, true basis for believing they are correct and supported by the facts. True believers cannot and will not compromise. They cannot surrender, only be destroyed.

The blind men and the elephant also comes to mind. We are all blind men when it comes to a windowed view of a complex object. We all see less that completely.

[David Schwab]

My business partner collects Les Pauls. I've sat and played a handfull of them ... most are early 80's vintage. There is such a large difference in tones from each guitar... even unplugged. Some are great, and other's so-so.

What I might like, someone else would hate, and vice versa. I know the old recording many of us grew up listening to, and to me it was always that's what a guitar sounds like! Now it's the "PAF" sound. That doesn't count the strings, recording studio, amps, etc., that were used to get that tone. And people play differently now too.

I think the best we can do it try and capture one flavor of a PAF. Some winders like Possum really nail vintage tones. You can hear the work Dave put into some of those pickups. Duncan's another guy who I think makes great pickups. I've never heard one I didn't like. I like some DiMarzios, and I hate others. It is amazing the wide range of tones you can get from a similar design.

I wouldn't even know where to start trying to replicate a vintage tone. To me it' all the same... vintage, modern, what ever. Just different sounds. Good thing I'm not trying to do that.

[Spence]

The pigtail on the outside is actually more evidence for switching away from the Leesona 102 to another style of winder. I am able to attach a pigtail to my multibobbin winder easily but I am constantly rotating it back and forth to tape the solder joint etc.. This is a problem since you can easily get the magnet wire of the adjacent bobbin off of it's bobbin so you end with a bobbin that has the magnet wire off the bobbin from the beginning. So you have to be VERY CAREFUL to avoid this. But if you do away with the pigtail when you are stacking bobbins this is no longer much of factor. But each bobbin on a Leesona 102 had it's own independent base so attaching the pigtail to just one bobbin was not much of an issue because rotating it does not rotate the bobbin you already set up.. If you start stacking them space to work in also becomes a problem. If you find the video of their multi bobbin winder at work you can see why Gibson did away with the pigtail. There is also another very obvious indicator of a different machine for T-Tops than PAF's that you should already know.

You think I should already know seeing as I'm such a know-it-all asshole?

I wonder if someone showed you really how it was done whether you would still stand there and say that's wrong. Probably you would.

Frankly I'm disappointed.

[JGundry]

Spence,

Methinks thou dost protest too much. I feel no need to smooth your ruffled feathers. And lets be clear I never called you an asshole. You are obviously most interested in proclamations rather than discussion. Feel free to take this all as personally as you care to or are prone to.

Frankly I don't take it personally. I think people often get carried away with how they act in forums like this. It is possible that you are a reasonable, mild mannered guy in person. Showing some of that here would be a plus if it is the case.