Report - GooCarts

1 Mountainview Publishing, LLC. INSIDE the The Spanish A day in the life of six magical 59 Les Pauls The Player's Guide to Ultimate Tone $ US, April 2008 Report TM. 5. The PAF. &. Patent Number The Spanish Castle humbucking pickup mystique explored In so many ways, it feels the same now when I play as the very first time I picked up the tested instrument. There's always this sound out there that's just a little bit beyond my reach & and I'm trying to get there, and that just sort of keeps me going. Bill Frisell 6 When the Voodoo Child wrote Spanish Castle Magic he was dredging up memories Our of a ballroom of the same name. Located midway between Seattle and Tacoma, a review of young and willin' Jimi Hendrix would often hangout near the stage at the Spanish ten vintage Castle, aching for a chance to sit in. We're trolling entirely different territory here. PAFs & Ask any physics freak about the optical illusion known as the Spanish Castle and Patent Number chances are they'll break it down for you with glee.

2 The illusion involves staring pickups in at a small black dot set against a shaded color background for 30 seconds, then new Historic dragging your computer mouse over the screen while maintaining a steady Les gaze on the dot. 13. Which A black and white image of a castle emerges, yet because the saturation and contemporary retention of light data has been stored in your in visual memory, the image pickup builders appears in vivid color before slowly fading to black and white. Such opti- have nailed the true cal illusions are entertaining because they demonstrate how our hard- PAF vibe? wired brains can deceive and betray us, and so it goes in the Quest for tone. 14. Michael Bloomfield's The seemingly simple act of intently concentrating on the Super Session sound of a guitar while processing and evaluating its dynamic tracks character and tone is perilous, at best. Our perceptions can the ultimate PAF tone? be skewed by a host of false positives, beginning with the pre-conceived expectations that color what we hear.

3 17. Grist for the Our expectations for anything acquired in life Vintage P90's find a home in are in direct proportion to the price paid, yet our we are naturally predisposed to be less crit- Les Paul Junior ical and more forgiving of those things that cost the most. We expect them to be 18. the Twin from tangibly better as justification of their Bloody Hell value, and so we perceive them as such, 73 Marshall while a musty Gibson Skylark acquired Super Lead for $20 at a yard sale is a windfall with 19 exactly $20 worth of risk and expectation Mythical attached to it. In a supremely odd way, the Korean' unexpected $20 thrill is exponentially greater Duesenbergs de-bunked than a bold move involving much heavier cover story Our perceptions of Houston, Texas December 2007. tone are also Jokingly referred to as the inevitably skewed in Burst-Off,' this was our sec- isolation. Sounds ond visit to the Spanish Castle great in a room but in five months, where our gra- doesn't cut it on cious host, a 59 Burst collec- stage is a comment tor with a pure and lifelong we have heard dozens love for the game had assem- of times from working bled six 59 Les Pauls for our players, and the fact is consideration, described as that once you've my best shot (meaning he added drums, bass, owns more, but these were and perhaps keyboards to the mix, guitarists are tasked with among his favorites).

4 Our earli- finding their own sonic space in which to operate that allows Fanny er visit in late July had the guitar to be heard and distinguished from the other involved a smaller number of Bursts, most notably Fanny,'. instruments, while ideally complementing rather than domi- along with 50s Goldtops, a virgin blackguard Tele and an nating the mix. Evaluating tone in isolation also leaves us Explorer that had been sold vulnerable to reaching erroneous conclusions that can only by our host to Eric Clapton be exposed by comparative experiences. Our concepts of and retrieved some time after great tone are often unconsciously formed by our past the Christies' Crossroads auc- impressions of something less than great. Well, compared to tion. The dynamic that day that, what I thought was great' now sounds not so ' led to the guitars being played The very nature of the quest for new or better' tone requires through a busted up tweed us to suppress the natural temptation to allow pre-conceived Bassman with zero headroom expectations, memories and biases skew perception, thereby and a fairly rabid Fender narrowing and diminishing the potential for discovery.

5 Super Champ, which left one of us absolutely certain that And finally, we must recognize the pervasive nature of hype we had failed to fully experi- and the extent to which we buy in' to specific products based ence and digest the true sound on their perceived superiority, which high-profile players use of the Bursts. So we sched- them, or the attraction of belonging to a group that prides uled a second visit with a singular to systematically itself on shrewdly embracing innovation ahead of the pack. experience each Les Paul as an individual example of Of course, this is a moving target, especially in the realm of Burstdom and collectively as a group, for the purpose of fully boutique' products, where keeping up with the flavor of the understanding, digesting and documenting their sound, and month has become statistically impossible. We still laugh over more specifically, the sound of the original PAF pickups in an e-mail we received from a member of the Les Paul Forum each guitar.

6 And this time, we brought our own guitar player, who scolded us for being out of touch with the market Jonn Richardson, to allow us to fully experience and absorb because we had failed to review the highest rated humbuck- the nuances of each guitar while listening, rather than being ing pickups among members of the forum (or so he said), required to listen and play all at once (not as easy or as accu- built by If you are suddenly feeling the urge to rate as you might imagine). Nor would we be using mighty google Wolftone, point made. gobs of distortion; the amp du jour was a 62 1x12 brown Fender Vibrolux loaded with NOS tubes and a reissue Jensen Now that we've got your Alnico speaker with the volume set on 4-5. If you are playing attention squarely fixed on through a heavily distorted amp, you're hearing a lot more amp the little black dot, it's than you are time to take a trip to pickups. That's to another Spanish cool just don't castle, where a seemingly expect to be innocent adventure with divining the sub- six original 59 Les Pauls changed everything we know about tle nuances lurk- tone, now and forever.

7 So pour yourself a tall one, retreat to a ing within the quiet, peaceful place where you can remain undisturbed, and coils of your hunker down, player. A storm is coming. humbucker. And Jonn with Hubert Sumlin if you are com- -continued- TONEQUEST Report V9. N6. April 2008. 2. cover story mercially winding replica PAF pickups and evaluating the Number two is results solely with gonzo well, there really isn't Johnny, serial num- much hope for you, and we'll leave it at that. ber 9 0681 and a one-owner' acquired In true Texas tradition, the Burst-Off was launched with bar- in Lexington, KY. becue at Goode Co. and a casual discussion of the current Weight was on the market for vintage Les Pauls ensued. Clean and original 59s low side of 8 pounds are still in the $400K neighborhood, while the value of gold- and change, with tops has been sliding downward along with housing prices resistance readings and interest rates. Overall, vintage guitar prices have been of bridge and a low neck.

8 Johnny turned out to slipping, and after several years of insanity, they should. be the unanimous favorite in the group. We assembled at the Spanish Castle to find six remarkably Rosie was a sweet, clean, brown Lifton Les Paul cases holding the 59s, scattered heavier dark Burst throughout a spacious, sunlit den. Many of the Bursts had with an absolutely been bought by our host from their original owners. Inside killer neck pickup the cases were photos taken with suddenly well-off, elderly measuring and guitar players at the moment each deal had been consummat- a bridge PAF reading ed, and in one instance the original bill of sale was included, Serial number which described the owner's down payment and monthly 9 0925. payments plus interest, totaling just under $400 in 1959, or about $2,800 today. It's nice to know that Gibson is doing The African was such a nice job of keeping up with purchased from the original owner who We set up the Vibrolux with a Fender reverb tank in a large lives in Johannesburg, and airy adjacent room with hardwood floors and thick area South Africa, serial rugs, shooting pictures of each guitar before playing them.

9 Number 9 2074. Jonn was honored with first chair in front of the Vibrolux, Weight was close to and while he warmed up on his goldtop with vintage P90s, nine pounds with we measured and recorded the DC resistance of each pickup PAFs measuring neck and bridge. We were in the Bursts. We also noted how heavy or light each guitar least impressed with the sound of this guitar. felt in hand. For those of you that care about such things, the average weight of the Les Pauls listed in the Beauty of the Number five was Burst book is 8 pounds 14 ounces. Two of the Spanish Castle Billy, endowed Bursts were definitely on the low side of eight pounds, while with a striking irreg- most were closer to nine. It was also interesting to note that ular figure pattern on the neck profiles of the Bursts were uniformly different from the top. This seemed what Gibson seems to be currently producing in 59 Historic to be the heaviest of Les Pauls. The Burst necks had a little less shoulder than our the six Bursts, with 59 Historics, with a more gently rounded shape.

10 Pickups measuring neck and Number one was bridge. Billy was also another one-owner acquired in Rocky,' serial num- Flint, MI. Serial number 9 0404. ber 9 0686 and one of the heavier Bursts Gene rounded out in the group. The the group, a one- bridge PAF measured owner purchased a whopping and from a retired train even the neck pickup conductor in Brady, was high at NE. Weight was These resistance readings spell hot' sure enough, but not in closer to nine pounds the style you might expect. None of the PAFs in the six with PAFs measuring Bursts sounded remotely nasal, dark, midrangey, compressed neck and or one-dimensional. bridge, serial number 9 1378. -continued- TONEQUEST Report V9. N6. April 2008. 3. cover story $400,000 of Depression bridge PAF, the Burstbucker bridge sounded shrill, strident, Jonn and Riverhorse brought along three guitars for compari- linear and one dimensional the term hurtful' was men- son an 07 VOS 59 Historic with the original Burstbuckers tioned in comparison to the PAF, which was very bright, yet that Riverhorse had aptly named the Riverburst, Jonn's 57 both musically pleasing and as threatening as a straight razor.