INSIDE the - The ToneQuest Report

1 TThhee PPllaayyeerr ss GGuuiiddee ttoo UUllttiimmaattee TToonneeTMtheReport When the still sea conspires an armor, and her sullen and abortedcurrents breed tiny monsters, true sailing is dead. Jim MorrisonThirty five degrees north and south of the equator lie the horse latitudes. Legendhas it that Spanish sailing ships transporting horses to the West Indies were oftenbelayed in these cruel and persistent doldrums, forcing grim marineros to jettisontheir cargo of screaming horseflesh to the deep. Magellan sent 227 creatures totheir doom to escape the grip of these still waters, and on the Doors StrangeDaysalbum, Jim Morrison intones this very tale as if speaking from a gildedcrimson pulpit in hell. Rock singers today got nuthin on Big Searching for magical tone through pickup swaps can also leave guitaristsfloundering and becalmed as they toss aside one set of pickups for you re keen on assembling a collection of failed experiments,you ll unload them at a loss and gamble on still another set of coils clev-erly hyped until you get lucky, lower your expectations, or tire of with an allegorical nod to man s futile quests to conquer thelaws of physics (including Morrison s failed bathtub experiment inParis), we embark on our follow up to the April 08 SpanishCastle, in which we explored the vintage tone revealedby six 59 sunburst Les Pauls, and a collection of origi-nal Gibson humbucking pickups spanning the PAF,patent number sticker, and T-top models built from 1958-1975.

2 Yes, that issue created a bit of a stir, promptingone of our advisory board members to e-mail a crypticmessage that read, Are you OK? Truthfully, afterexperiencing the six 59 bursts and repeatedlyevaluating and documenting dozens of vintageGibson humbuckers in both the neck andbridge positions, we were not OK. In fact,we were more than a little disturbed bythe obvious lack of success achieved bycontemporary pickup winders in resur-recting the inspiring sound of the bestPAFs we had heard (they are not allgood, by the way, let alone great), whileso many pickup companies and custombuilders continue to claim that they alonehave captured the magic of a true PAF andother examples of vintage tone. We were notOK, because to put it bluntly, to varying degreesMountainview Publishing, LLC$ US, January 2009 LatitudesINSIDETheSpanish year after ourdance with six vintage 59 Les Pauls and amotherload of PAF &early 60s pickups,has anyone nailed thethe true sound and feelof vintage PAFs?

3 Is there a secret towinding exceptionalguitar pickups? We asked,builders Interviews& Holmes6 Lindy Fralin8 Roy Bowen9 Slider12 Will you really know thetone of your guitars?Pickup swaps can t addwhat isn t we bought seven Historic 59sin 200815 Pots,Caps& they matter,and how much?19 Our favoritecontemporaryhumbucking pickup setrevealed! Report V10. N3. January 2009pickups-continued-2these claims are largely unfulfilled, whether through indiffer-ence, complacency, greed or ignorance. Of course, moneyand reputations are made spinning tales of vintage tone, andlike the latest, greatest distortion pedal of the week beinghoisted as the grail in your favorite chat room, guitarists willcontinue to chase rumors of someone having miraculouslydeciphered Seth Lover s mysterious witch s brew that created vintage PAF tone. If it were only so Merely attempting to define PAFtone introduces enough false positives to render any onedescription of a specific PAF pickup useless, unless that pick-up happens to be yours.

4 Yes, there are great examples, buthave you actually played one in a guitar lately? Have thecompanies and individuals claiming to have grasped theessence of vintage tone worked carefully and thoughtfullywith exceptional examples, vaguely referenced recordedsounds etched into acetate in the 60s and 70s, or justwound whatever they wished and called it vintage? What isthe definition of great PAF tone, and according to whom?The majority of the many PAFs we have hand in our hands inthe past year were not spectacular. Different, clearerand brighter than most replica PAFs, usually, but would youpick them in a blind test? We Only a handful of thePAFs and laterpatent numbersticker pickups weevaluated reallystood out as excep-tional mind-alter-ing in their clarity,depth, tone, and thehardest bit to getright an expres-sive vocal quality that mimics the sound of an alto sax, as ifsingle notes are being blown rather than plucked, while indi-vidual strings INSIDE chords remain vividly clear and vibrant,richly draped in harmonic overtones.

5 Oh, and none of themwere, by today s standards, remotely hot. Far too many con-temporary PAFs made today seem too powerful, pushing anamp into distortion far too fast and leaving your rig soundingas if you ve left a boost pedal on. It seems that amplifier dis-tortion is being mistaken for pickup strength by people whohave listened to more recordings than actual vintage would argue that what we re describing is what Fine, just don t call it vintage. It isn t. But we under-stand the appeal of For players of meager skillor experience, the revealing clarity of a true PAF would makea poor mistress better to find comfort and confidencebehind the veil of intense distortion. For but a few, pickups today are simply a commodity to besold at a profit. The difference is, the people that makeWonder bread would never stoop to calling it an artisanloaf any more than the folks that make Spam would passthose greasy goods off as goose liver pat.

6 Only in the musicbusiness will people pay $5,000 for a flamey but otherwiseunremarkable guitar, or $300 for a woefully vanilla, faux PAF set and be happy about it. When it comes to pickupsnew or old, the potential for disappointment is great, yeteveryone wants the best. They may not know what the best is with sufficient clarity to describe in words, but they ll knowit when they Yes, of courseyou d like to dis-cover the builderwho has capturedthe true sound ofa truly bitchin $7,000 pair ofdouble cream1959 wouldn t? But it seems that rather than teasing you withgiddy descriptions of a couple of ridiculously expensive PAFsyou ll never hear, we could all benefit from a better practicalunderstanding of just what makes a great-sounding pickupsound good. We ve recruited some help in that endeavor two veterans with stellar reputations, and three comparativenewcomers whose passion for pickups jumps off the t worry, we ll also give you solid insights on new pick-ups, but first, we invite you to consider the thoughts of TomHolmes, Lindy Fralin, Roy Bowen at RS Guitarworks, RodMcQueen (Slider) from Sydney, Australia, and Will Boggs,founder of WB TQR: You must be the only pickup builder who makes your own bobbins.

7 I might be. I use an injection mold that I had made to myspecification that molds a better looking PAF bobbin than theoriginal Gibson PAF bobbin. This was done to enable me tooffer an open coil version with better cosmetics. The originalPAF bobbin was always used in a covered pickup so therewas never a concern over cosmetics. I have heard that doubleDickey & Duane BettsTOM HOLMESTONEQUEST Report V10. N3. January 2009 3pickupsblacks, zebra and doublecream PAF pickups com-mand different prices inthe used pickup market,with some professing thatone combination soundsbetter than another. I havefound that the durometer(hardness) of the creambobbin seems a little high-er than the black. SinceABS plastic is a neutralcolor, colorants must beadded to obtain the cream or black color. This small changein chemistry might be enough to make small resonance dif-ferences which could alter the harmonics slightly. When Ifirst started making pickups, I used wood, phenolic and brassto make the bobbins.

8 Being very structurally different, thesematerials changed the characteristics of the pickups consider-ably. So I suppose a small change in plastic chemistry couldhave small tonal : Where do you get your Alnico magnets? Arnold Engineering inMarengo, Illinois. I boughtAlnico IV from Thomas &Skinner in Indianapolis,Indiana in the 70s, but sincethe mid 90s, I ve beenusing Arnold. TQR: I see that some of these wound coils on your benchare marked potted and others unpotted. So you do both by request? Yes. Even though this enamel wire is #42 gauge, it is nevercompletely consistent. It can start out fat at the beginning ofthe spool, get thinner in the middle and go back to fat is evidently making adjustments to the dies as thewire is being pulled through and it must be a little difficult tocontrol perfectly. I get this wire made to my specification, butI still wind up with a slight difference within the spool, aswell as from spool to spool.

9 I keep records on diameters andresistances of each spool. This helps me better produce coilsof specific resistance,potted or unpotted. I firststarted using enamel wireproduced by the VikingWire Company. Later, theViking Wire Companywent out of business andI was told that the enamelwire line was bought bythe American Wire Company. I used the wire produced bythem for years and even turned Gibson on to their product,but as time went on their product became too inconsistent touse. Currently, I use enamel wire manufactured by the ReaWire Company. TQR: It looks as if you are charging your own get Alnico magnetsnot magnetized andmagnetize themmyself. I built themagnetizer andbeside it is a setup todemagnetizethe mag-nets. There was atime when it wasthought that one ofthe reasons PAF pickups sound so good was that the magnetshad slightly demagnetized over time. I believe one pickup pro-ducer even advertised this theory and sold pickups with agedmagnets.

10 I experimented with this idea but could never controlthe demagnetizing process accurately enough to market apickup with aged magnets. I fully charge all my I first got into pickup making in the early 70 s, I visit-ed Thomas & Skinner. I explained to them that I wanted torecreate the old guitar sounds of the 50s. They were veryhelpful and showed me purchase orders from the 50s forAlnico IV bars. Thomas & Skinner hadn t made Alnico IVfor a long time, but if I was willing to purchase a full melt(full pot of metal), they would again produce it. I think I paid$2,500 for 2,000 magnets. A BH curve is a graph showingperformance fea-tures of the differ-ent magnets, andthe BH curve forAlnico V wouldlook quite differ-ent than a BHcurve for AlnicoIV. After produc-tion, I was given aBH curve graphfor the Alnico IVthey produced andit looked veryclose to the classical BH curve for Alnico IV. All my firsthumbucking pickups used in my early guitars contained thismagnet.