retrosurfer1959 Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 I do like the Arcane INC pickups. great sound PAF Triple Clone sets probably my favorite of all the new copies of the Patent Applied pickups. I also have a set a Arcane 1957 Experience lower output Pattent Applied For Humbuckers. they describe them as "The tone is sweet clear and creamy sounding, Wound on an antique winding machine with Plain Enamel wire, and using tuned Alnico Magnets, built around exclusive custom pole screws, precision milled parts and select grade steel for all the components. Every pickup is painstakingly assembled with the utmost care producing a pickup that is the ultimate in quality. Every pickup is individually Serial Numbered making it a unique creation". Dont know about all of that but I like them! So thats a pretty good way to drop 300-400 bucks chasing the dream and coming close the 57 has a warm sound thats great for blues and jazz runs and it will hold up well on a hard rock riff but see's more at home with a southern rock Coricidin medicine bottle slide across string in a open c tuned string in homage to Duane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freak show Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 Also... the idea that PAF pickups sounded amazing is simply a false legend. There were good PAFs and crap PAFs. To be honest the term PAF really applies to the process more than a product. These pickups were banged out by the dozens by ladies that were doing nothing more than assembly line work. They weren't specially trained tone gurus. They were laborers banging out widgets. That's all. When Seth lover was asked how he arrived at he perfect, magic number of 5000 turns of wire for each bobbin on the PAF humbucker he said "Well, the P-90 had 10,000 turns and 5000 is half of 10,000 so we went with 5000 turns." I've read that the early humbuckers were pretty inconsistent as well. I've never had the opportunity to compare a bunch of PAF's from the 50's, but the passage below was written by a serious collector who has done a lot of research on the subject -- and who owns a lot of cool old Gibson's : "Due to the human factor and the wide tolerance of the manually-run pickup winding machines used by Gibson from 1956-1961, PAF pickups usually measure between 7.5 and 9.0 thousand ohms (K ohms). By 1962 (the end of the PAF era), Gibson was making pickups very consistently with 7.5k ohms of wire (give or take .25k ohms). The separate bobbins of a PAF can measure very differently due to Gibson's manufacturing techniques. For example one bobbin could measure 3.5k, and the other 4.5k ohms (for a total of 8k ohms). This mis-matched ohms is actually a good thing, as certain frequencies will stand out if both bobbins have different resistance. This contributes to why two PAF pickups can sound quite different. The coil winder was a Leesona 102, and did have auto stop counters to keep pickups windings consistent. But these winders ran using a fiber gear and were prone breakage. The work around to fixing the counters is to time the winding process. That is one reason for the randomness of PAF pickup resistance. Around 1965 to 1968 (exact date unknown), Gibson changed from a manually-run pickup winding system to a fully automated system. Because of this their humbucking pickups all became a consistent 7.5k ohms from 1965 and later. The manual-run system had a machine operator that decided when a pickup bobbin reach about 5000 turns of wire. So there was plenty of room for under and over-winding. When the fully automated system came into place, the pickups were very consistent in their windings (and hence total ohms)." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon S. Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Gibson's 'buckers are pretty good in my eyes, especially the 57 classics. Hell, I even dig my 490r/498t combo in my SG Standard, but one day I'll probably swap them for 57 classic/57+. But I find Gibson's recent p90s to be lackluster, IMO Jason Lollar winds the best p90s known to man. +1. '57 Classics are my favorite, but Lollar does make some fine PU's. I haven't tried any of his buckers that I like more than the 57's, but have a set of his Blondes in my Strat and they sound killer. I also have a set of Nunley pickups in one of my Tele's. I don't know much about the guy, but they are the best Tele pickups i've ever heard!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzboy Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 I've read that Sheptone are pretty good, but what I would like to know is how the Stew Mac Golden Age Parson Street Humbuckers sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.