pickups
a pair of worse, they confuse overwound and distortion prone with old
PAFs was
no longer
an option.
Goodbye
dead-mint
blonde
Bassman,
wicked
'59 Les Paul
Telecaster,
sweet ol steel guitar wont miss you a bit. Hello Mr. 8.24
bridge and 7.2 neck PAF. I hear it loud and clear now, but it
aint on a piece of crap Walkman anymore, its alive and well
right here, and things will never again be the same. What
is the deal here? In a nutshell (more like a shotgun shell)
we have a clarity and boisterous presence from these beater
pickups that are unrivaled. The strong top end is always
rounded beautifully, the low end holds unwaveringly firm,
plus in-your-face resonance, bloom that seems like it pulses
and throbs, and the most inspiring Doppler-esque cascade of
chords, like a freight train coming by instead of the impotent
notes we have come to know in so many new production coil.
Warm clean tones have always held a certain sort of magical
spot in our hearts. When running these hot, hard, and heavy
with a favorite 1951 TV Front Tweed Pro (Junior Watson
was right) it is hard to take the toggle off that neck, if ever.
The true PAF neck sounds like a massive single coil round,
percussive, and waiting to be either viciously floored or
gracefully cuddled. My gawd, the girth of every string pain-
fully rewrites perception itself. When slotted into the Aiken
Intruders Plexi side, they Beano onwards and upwards to
much more raw, raucous, and brash places, and reveal an al-
most unforgiving demand to strike each note astutely, lest you
come off sounding like a fool. There is no mud to hide under
here... Very few could pull it off. Case in point: Jimmy Pages
wonderful
sloppiness
forever
recorded
on the
early Zep
albums for
poster-
ity. There
it is, but
there is only one Page. The good news, is you may be able
to find some of these for yourself, and lets keep in mind that
Hound Dog Taylor didnt need a burst to throw down. Serving
the song, and not just the gear, is still the main call. The bad
news, is that there really are only a few really great PAFs out
there, and some are attached to 400 thousand dollar appendag-
es. The Ugly, is that most of the winders claiming to be nail-
ing PAF tone are full of shit. Shame on them, as they didnt
do their homework by going back to the source. And even
TONEQUEST REPORT V.12 N.2 December 2010
school organic. Wrong answer, try again. Gawd bless em, I
sure couldnt do it, but I dont claim to have, either. There is
quite a difference. For my money, if there is anyone who can
figure it out and step up, it would have been Lollar. Lindy
Fralin is a class act, too. Time will tell, and more importantly,
tone will tell the truth. Anyone listening?TQ
Riverhorse
the PAF Lab Experients of Dave Stephens
Obsessed & Possessed
Sometimes it just seems like this shit never ends
Dave Stephens
Well, it appears that some-
one was listening Dave
Stephens has been keeping
us abreast of his tortured
path in resurrecting true
PAF tones for years. He
even sent us an early proto-
type set several years ago,
graciously accepting our
polite rejection with the
circumspect resignation of
an undaunted veteran. As a
result of our initial contact,
however, many e-mail conversations ensued Its no wonder
most pickup winders dont venture down the road Dave chose
in his quest to de-mystify the magic of some (but not all) PAF
and patent number pickups Its expensive, incredibly time-
consuming, youve got to be willing to sacrifice a few vintage
parts, and youd better be damn sure you know exactly how
an exceptional PAF in the neck or bridge (two different ani-
mals, there) sounds. Anyone willing to walk that walk gets
our respect, while those that talk the talk without having done
the work remain in the majority. What were discussing here
has nothing to do with some super-secret winding pattern
thesecret rests in the organic properties of the steel alloys,
magnets and wire used, and anyone sourcing the same com-
monly available parts as the next guy in 2010 is getting the
same generic results. Heres Daves blow-by-blow description
of his personal PAF odyssey
PAFPARTS2
It went like this Three years into making humbuckers from
kit parts it really bothered me that I couldnt get the tones
Allman, Page, or Peter Green were getting that mystical
vocal quality that drives me into ecstasy. I suffer from a nasty
obsessive compulsive streak, chronic insomnia, and my own
artistic cranky temperament, so I struggled trying to find the
right questions to ask, and never really let up on that, or, it
-continued-
7
 pickup
wouldnt let
up on me. I
had to know
why. The
only real clue
I had was
Seth Lovers
comment to
Seymour that
they used soft iron for the pole pieces. Man, what a vague
statement. I talked to some engineers and they told me it
was electrical steel. A couple thousand dollars later and a
product based on that stuff, I realized that it got me closer, but
ultimately it was a dead end and the pickups didnt sell very
well. I bought a lathe and a mill and started trying all kinds
of different alloys and I got some really interesting results
but no cigar. I came out with another set that didnt sell well.
I really put in long hours doing the wildest, most crazy things
I could think of, building prototype after prototype, making
recordings of each attempt and filling scores of clipboards
with notes. I learned a lot of useful things about humbuckers
in general during that period.
At one point
it dawned on
me, and the
engineers
told me that
I could get a
metals lab to
analyze real
vintage steel
parts and
tell me what
they were
made of. So, I did. It was expensive, and I was shocked by
the data that came back way off from what Id ever thought.
But there was something wrong there wasnt a direct 100%
match to any modern equivalents, and some of the material
were alloys that are impossible to buy in this country unless
you went to China and had it made into parts too expensive
for a one-man, tiny shoe-string business. So I was experiment-
ing with steel alloys all the time and frustrated by not being
able to find exact matches for vintage alloys, and suddenly
out of the blue a guy from the steel industry contacted me and
offered to help me for free, using all his companys high tech
gear. Man, did I ever take advantage of that! What a gift from
the gods, and he became a good friend. So, the short story is
that I gained a complete knowledge of vintage steel alloys
used in early P13s to late T-Tops and everything that hap-
pened inbetween. What I learned was of inestimable value,
but cant be shared. Armed with that information, the pickups
made steady progress forward and eventually I offered my
first Vintage Lab (the room where the crazy person works)
8
TONEQUEST REPORT V.12 N.2 December 2010
PAF set. It sold pretty well and stood up against the real thing
pretty respectably. That was about three years ago.
Meanwhile, I
scored two real
PAFs off Ebay
at bargain prices
needing new
baseplates, but
otherwise intact,
both sounding
wonderful and
became my object
of dissection
and measurements. I scored a few more stripped parts off
Ebay and more steel parts from dead P90s which share the
identical steel keepers, pole screws, magnets and wire with
PAFs. The first batch of my VLs were pretty close, but the
real PAFs had something beyond what I was getting. Then
suddenly the magnet wire I was getting changed radically and
was real bright sounding, and I got a batch of steel at the same
time that was shrill, and this threw me for a loop and into a
deep depression. I was faced with THE WALL, the recipe
didnt work anymore, and I was stuck. My steel industry
friend analyzed the steel and showed it to an old timer who
told me it was botched material, and they turned me onto a
different source. Out of the blue, I was also gifted with origi-
nal control drawings of PAF bobbins, and then a PAF came in
for repair,
and sud-
denly
our plain
enamel
wire
source
vanished
and Ele-
ktrisola
took over
making way better, more consistent wire. The PAF that came
in revealed a bunch of details I had missed and the whole
thing just came together over the course of about six months
into a final detailed picture, and now everything just seemed
to work. I was able to identify variations in the brief time
period PAFs were made, and I made four sets covering most
of those variations. There werent any more big questions to
ask. More freebie repair PAFs came in and there were no big
surprises inside them anymore. I also contacted Elektrisola
about the new wire and they graciously offered to analyze all
my vintage plain enamel examples Id collected forever and
taught me what it all meant.
This is a short version of an eight year journey, with no
secrets revealed. (Editors note: What Dave means here is
-continued-
 pickups
that he is not sharing
the fruits of his labor for
consumption by competi-
tive pickup winders. There
is no fraternity of custom
winders, nor a Research
Committee of the Custom
Pickup Winders Guild).
The current generation VL
sets were made in the last
nine months, and at last
I am getting everything
that can possibly be gotten
with modern materials.
There is probably about a 10% difference between what I can
make and actual real vintage parts theres just no overcom-
ing that fact. Those old technologies and materials are gone
forever, but I did accomplish my goal and Im very happy
with what Im getting. These VL sets are all hand machined
in my shop, using the same techniques Gibson did, correctly
machine wound; my materials are very precisely chosen, and
the techniques Ive developed are unique and give me the
exact results I want. Each one is built like a fine watch, with
attention to every tiny detail I found in real PAFs that were
involved in creating those tones. Ive had some magnets made
and use existing commercial magnets and try them all in each
design to get the most vintage character, pretty much disre-
garding what number Alnico they are as every companys
recipes are different from the others. The bottom line is what
I make is what I learned from the horses mouth, it all came
direct from real PAF examples and deep back-engineering ef-
forts using the generous, gracious help of industry people who
donated their time freely to help me decode ancient artifacts
and technologies. Ill omit the part about battling 14 dragons,
being abducted by aliens, and serving in the Foreign Legion
until my Muse came back. Thats another story
Review
Consider this
a prelude to
whats headed
your way in
the upcom-
ing January/
February 2011
issue, and
also a subtle
reminder that
youll be receiving that blockbuster issue featuring expansive
pickup reviews on or about February 1st.
You might say weve been on the ground floor of Dave Ste-
phens pickup adventures. The first set he initially sent kinda
TONEQUEST REPORT V.12 N.2 December 2010
sorta nailed the tone of a PAF, but the unmistakable bloom,
clarity and harmonic depth were absent. Our e-mail conversa-
tions took on the form of a consultation in which Dave shared
the general results of his ongoing experiments, and in August
2010 he sent prototypes of what he deemed to be his best
effort to date, having analyzed original PAF and P90 parts and
replicating them to the best of his ability. Well give him a
solid A+ for his neck humbucker, which reprises the excep-
tionally smooth, bright and reedy qualities of a great PAF or
early 60s patent number neck pickup. You know what the
problem is with most neck humbuckers that sound muffled,
muted and neutered, treated as an afterthought by most
winders because they have no idea how to fix the problem
Stephens VL neck is a stunning accomplishment that captures
the clarity and character of a great P90, which originally pro-
vided the basis for Seth Lovers PAF design. Get one now.
The bridge position
is equally challeng-
ing, and as Dave
observed, there is
a certain degree of
magical complex-
ity that we still find
missing in his VL
bridge. Tonally,
he nails it with a
bright, musical and
vocal tone that is
neither thin, sharp
or too hot, masking clarity with too much output. Still,
extraordinary PAFs in the bridge position possess remark-
ably complex and lush harmonic layers and a dynamic, tactile
sense of percussive bloom that we dont quite hear in the VL
bridge. On the other hand, weve experienced varying levels
of these same elusive qualities among Tom Holmes and Jim
Rolphs bridge pickups in the right hands (in this case, ours)
those pickups can almost sound as if youre petting a 12-string,
which inspires an imaginary scenario in which Stephens,
Rolph and Holmes pool their resources and deep experience
to definitively crack the code on developing a consistently
true PAF once and for all. Theyd have to charge $900 or
more for a set, but that beats paying $2,000 for a single PAF
with 80/20 odds that it will not be one of those exceptionally
inspiring happy accidents. In the meantime, stay tuned for a
continuation of this topic in the January/February issue with
more P90, Stratocaster and humbucking pickup reviews, a new
assortment of guitars and accessories, including tone caps and
bridges. (P.S. We just received another e-mail from Dave
hes still tweaking that bridge) And so it seems appropriate
that we close with the opening line that launched this tale of
tone Sometimes it just seems like this shit never endsTQ
www.sdpickups.com, E-MAIL: sdpickups@comcast.net
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9