Pickups, PAF and Other Myths

Lots of people making replicas of PAF pickups and vintage Fender pickups.

An interesting note. When Larry Dimarzio came around in the 70's he got very popular, very fast. Not a matter of opinion but verifiable history. What does this tell you? It tells me many players were eager to replace something they were not quite happy with. Of course, people are always looking for greener grass so it doesn't mean stock pickups were bad. But there were short comings to stock PU's in may cases that people were eager to change. Rock guys for instance had a definite need for a hotter wind. Many sounds of the 70's sure as heck are not coming from stock pickups. Enter the 80's and oh boy.

I get a lot of rock guys looking for PAF's. However the type of music they play is a scenario where PAF's are just going to leave them frustrated. It doesn't have to be high gain Metallica - any harder edge sound is going to sound weak with a PAF. But the legend - it lives. Ace Frehley was throwing PAF's in the garbage for Dimarzio's and today thousands of Ace fans are searching for the mythical PAF.

I have a love/hate relationship with vintage pickups. Some of them are really good, some are just plain dead and/or weak. PAF's are a perfect example of a weak pickup 90% of the time. The stronger wound ones can sound pretty good for a round "honk" but for the most part I find them to weak for modern play. If you want to play the blues all day they can work great but if you want to step into Van Halen or above - forget it. It will always fall a little short. The flipside is the pickups keep getting hotter and hotter and these can sound really bad on the other end of the spectrum.

I don't think there is much difference in quality from the 50's to today. Today with have so much more technology and study at out fingertips. The success stories of the 50's such as the PAF were an accident really. I have had customers chase PAF after PAF looking for that tone in their head. The problem is that tone in their head has nothing to do with the PAF. They digested the legend and made the connection in their mind.

In the end there are good pickups and bad pickups. The parts to make pickups are incredibly cheap. I can get a set of strat pickups for $10. These will be cheap imports that sound like crap. A few hundred bucks to a good maker will get me a set of strat pickups just as good as any vintage set. Even Fender still makes strat pickups. The materials have not changed. A set of new Fender 57/62 are going to be the same pickup you chase down on Ebay for $2500. OK that's a generalization but really - the likelihood of the expensive vintage model being much better is not good. Its a big gamble that rarely pays.

Pickups do make a big difference in sound. What it boils down to in my opinion is this. A maker who has plenty experience will know how to tailor a pickup for a tone. What might work in a maple guitar might not work well for mahogany etc. I believe the best way to get a sound is to tell a good maker what type of guitar you want to use and name some songs with the tone you like. That's the shortest distance to getting the tone you are after. Chasing a myth about what Billy Gibbons or anyone used circa whatever ... that kind of thing is full of unknowns. Eddie Van Halen for instance told so many stories about his gear it took until now for computers to be able to index it all. People were running to Eddies buddy, Jose, to get their Marshalls modded. Decades later Eddie admits his amps were stock and he made up the Jose mod story to get his buddy some business. No one knows what was in any stars guitar but their guitar tech at the time. Often times the players themselves don't know. When a pickup goes bad on the road do you think Clapton gets out the soldering iron? He might at home but on the road when something goes wrong who knows what pickup gets put where and if he likes it - he might cut the next album with it and a legend is born. Meanwhile that Dimarzio you scoff at might be the very pickup that made that sound in your head.

I don't care if a pickup says Made In Korea or Joes Garage next door. If its sounds good keep it. As a general rule though the import stuff is made to please the bean counters, not sound good. Its worthwhile to buy from a reputable maker. There are many and some make great pickups today that will match or beat performance of vintage favorites. As with anything it takes a little research.  Wolfetone and Shep come to mind.

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