Japan PAF's fetch $600 easy ( Dry Z's by Greco)

[dai h.]

so those clips would be true to "PAF sound"?

re:the Gregor Hilden clip, (subjectively) it sounds good to me but maybe could use a more more top and also seems a bit "round" in the high end too (maybe a Fender amp thing?). The top end of the "betts toler Les Paul" clips are more to my liking with more bite, aggressiveness (maybe the Marshall's influence).

re: very old pots, I've read of some guys measuring pots on old Marshalls and getting measurements way off the stated value such as 1.5Meg on a 1Meg pot, etc. I've bought some old looking NOS pots and often they seem to be poor tolerance too compared to newer pots. So that (non-stated, inconsistent values in high impedance circuits) could be a small part of the big picture when trying to reproduce an old sound (i.e. use actual measured values to be more accurate).

[Rosewood]

well.. I bought them - call me crazy..

but theres some history there - worth investigation - as they were said to be Sublime - and way better the the Greco factory installed Duncan 59's and Dimarzio PAF..

Worth having installed in my Greco - cause I only paid 675.00 for my Les Paul
the Dry Z's are costing me 525.00 ( off the ebay)
means I'll have 1,200.00 in my Greco if I install the Dry Z's into it.. and A greco with Dry Z's fetch 1200-2000 - so I guess I'm going to do Ok on this risk taking -

should be here soon - I'll gently pull the covers and measure coil separation - look at the wire coating and magnet --

anything else I should look into deeper - please advise..

this will be fun if nothing else comes out of it..

funny how the Japan maker beat Dimarzio and Duncan back in the early 80's
Don

I love to learn on someone else's money. You are dedicated, thanks for sharing.

[David Schwab]

funny how the Japan maker beat Dimarzio and Duncan back in the early 80's
Don

You don't know that for sure... yet.

I'll be shocked if it's true.

[pupoholic]

You don't know that for sure... yet.

I'll be shocked if it's true.

well the reviews indicate its true- I don't know if I can tell much between PAFs at all.

PAFs sound like two coils competing for one note to me - and its as if Im hearing double notes in stereo milliseconds apart - it makes me nuts- I'm just not a fan.

but I'll share the inside guts with everyone - should be fun if nuttin else..
Don

[Possum]

...

Yeah, that guy is using a couple Fender amps, this is precisely why you need to listen to alot of different examples of real PAFs, the amps themselves really color their tone. You may actually find you dont like PAFs once you discover what they are really like.
Here's Peter Green's bridge pickup only through an Orange amp, one of my favorite clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxux5LdmjQU
Here's another one, both guitars are bursts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVmsPv6_Ic

The bridge pickups often have a noticeable resonant peak and you can hear it in the second clip where they aren't playing very loud. I'll try to get my list of clips together tonite and post them in a seperate thread maybe.....

[JGundry]

That gold top Les Paul of Gregor Hiden's is actually a 1968 Les Paul that has been routed out to accept humbuckers. I believe that is has one PAF and one Pat. sticker pickup in it. The body has also been hogged out from the back with a cap glued over the back to cover up some major chambering.

[JGundry]

Yeah, that guy is using a couple Fender amps, this is precisely why you need to listen to alot of different examples of real PAFs, the amps themselves really color their tone. You may actually find you dont like PAFs once you discover what they are really like.
Here's Peter Green's bridge pickup only through an Orange amp, one of my favorite clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxux5LdmjQU
Here's another one, both guitars are bursts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVmsPv6_Ic

Peter Green and Danny Kirwan are both playing through Dual Showman Fenders in the first clip. The Orange amps are for John McVie. You can see Peter Green's Showman head directly behind him on a chair at the end of this clip. I love this clip it shows great a duo Kirwan and Green were. Plus you get two examples of PAF lead tones in one clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ8AcEYTEFY

[Possum]

...

Yeah the real early patent stickers are the same as PAFs, thats what my '62 (probably earlier actually) is. So the Hilden video is still good reference tones.
Here's some more PG, it looks like they are using stacks of deluxe reverbs, I read about them doing that I think somewhere. Funny part where the lame bongo riff gets muffed and cracks Peter up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE4HG...eature=related
Whatever happened to cool double lead player bands, these guys really kicked ass, wish I had seen them live back then, not even sure they ever came to the US, they never really seemed to hit it big...

[Possum]

...

Another real 59 and a Trainwreck amp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMAYWeZVjGQ

[JGundry]

If you want to hear some great recordings of Peter Green playing live through a JTM45 go to this site and play the sample clips. I think he may be using a Rangemaster Treble Boost. There is a pic of Peter Green with a JTM45 with the guitar cable going behind the head and back to the amp input. People often hid the treble booster as a sort of tonal secret sauce.

http://www.johntherevelator.nl/disco...495f99f96260a3

Also go to wolfgangsvault.com. They have 3 or 4 shows some in the US. The earliest show Green is using MatAmps. Listen to Worried Dream. The live at the Shrine Auditorium and the Boston Tea Party LP's are recorded in the US. There are some amazing live recordings of Peter Green.

[pupoholic]

the Nisshin Onpa (Maxon) made "Dry Z"

looks like I found the original maker of dry z pickups in the super real era 79-82 greco's

[RedHouse]

...I'm not getting why alot of you are saying you can't tell what a pickup sounds like on YouTube I"ve just got some Yamaha speakers and ...

If you can understand how mpg compression and bitrate encoding effect sound quaility, you will understand what the fuss is about.

FLV encoded video (and audio streams) is quite far from a lossless compression (like FLAC for instance), the way the files are made smaller, even their "high quality" files is by lower bitrate encoding and something like 8x compression. MPG compression is not like audio compressor compression (active volume adjustment) but actually it ends up tossing out some of your files sampled data for the compression algorythm to be effective. It is the nature of digital bit compression.

Lower bitrates drop actual audio from the file and extrapolate the difference when played back, the extrapolation is not 100% the actual original audio but a synthesized reproduction done with the decoding D/A converter. Your pickup's tone all of a sudden becomes the codec and D/A convertors version of your tone. This something that good PC/Mac speakers can do nothing about.

Google is your friend.

[David Schwab]

If you can understand how mpg compression and bitrate encoding effect sound quaility, you will know what the fuss is about. Google is your friend.

Also for a long time, and maybe it still is that way, YouTube used a real old Flash video codec, which is not as good as the newer versions, so the audio and video quality isn't as good as it can be.

If you listen to a song that someone did one of those lame "music videos" for (which consist of a bunch of still images, or just one image) you can easily hear the difference between the YouTube audio and a good quality MP3 file.

[Possum]

...

I think you guys are too picky, the videos I upload the sound isn't a dramatic difference than what I created. yeah sure its slightly different, more video compression than audio, but different enough that you can't get a clue about what the pickups sound like, I don't think so. If it was I'd be getting complaints from customers about that and I have never ever gotten such a complaint from YouTube customers or ones listening to my MP3's. Now, I do occasionally see guys who uploaded video and sound off their cell phone and its horribly compressed and full of digital artefacts sure, but those are rare. If YouTube had horrible sound quality I sure wouldn't waste hours and hours listeing to great guitar stuff on there. MP3's are like jpegs, there's real low quality highly compressed ones and some that are almost CD quality, there isn't one standard everyone uses. YouTube has been a great service for me and all the other pickup makers out there who use it, Duncan uses it, DiMarzio uses it. I"ve used it alot to gain understanding of PAF characteristics, and having these two examples here, they do what I hear on YouTube. I don't get this attitude, you may as well complain that what you hear on FM radio isn't CD quality, YouTube works for me and sells my product. Now the complaints that I DO hear about other pickup makers' product not sounding like their sound samples, are the guys who use rack mount effects systems and simlulated amp/speaker cabs, and are so overlaid with effects that the pickups disappear into digital fantasy. Customers buy those thinking they are going to get that tone out of their amps and its not gonna happen :-) YouTube be good to me, no its not perfect but either is FM radio :-)

[Possum]

...

You know, there's one thing I didn't consider, and that probably some of you are using inexpensive PC's to listen to YouTube, I have noticed one or two guys comment in the messages area that they thought they were having problems with the sound quality on their cheap PC's and supplied speakers. I'm using a G5 Mac and powered Yamaha speakers on comcast broadband, the sound quality I get off YouTube is pretty decent, its not perfect FM quality but I enjoy listening to tons of stuff on there and have no problem figuring out what other pickup makers work sounds like, or historic videos etc. I don't have any complaints but not everyone has a $3500 computer either
Maybe the Google thing is a good idea, mostly searches in it bring up YouTube content anyway, but its free so may dump all my videos over there too