VINTAGE LAB PAF REPRODUCTIONS

"We’ll give Dave a solid A+ for his neck humbucker, which reprises the exceptionally smooth, bright and reedy qualities of a great PAF or early ‘60s patent number neck pickup. Stephens’ VL neck is a stunning accomplishment that captures the clarity and character of a great P90, which originally provided the basis for Seth Lover’s PAF design.
GET ONE NOW!"
DAVID WILSON
TONEQUEST-12-2010

To be honest I was never a fan of humbuckers. But, after seeing Chris Cain play live, with a 335 and some old PAFs Joe Pass gave him, it sent me on an nine year obsession with PAFs. Their clarity and soulful vowel tones, single coil type vibe; all those things are what makes blues players smile endlessly. In the hands of Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Paul Kossoff, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, Michael Bloomfield, how could you ever equal those tones with any other pickup? Needless to say I have collected almost every recording and video of all those artists, listening intently to those famous hands and vintage guitars.

Unlike almost every other pickup maker out there, I don't buy a pile of offshore pickup parts that everyone uses, wind 'em all up an call it a "PAF." There is little in those parts that are true to what you find in vintage examples of old Gibson humbuckers. That road has been beat into the ground by others and you find little tonal difference in those products. Many hand wind these pickups, which is a huge mistake. The signature tone of a real PAF relies on a "signature" turns per layer formula that gives a distinctive resonant peak that no hand wound pickup can match, period. You don't need a vintage winding machine to replicate that pattern; I built my own machine that can copy and type of winding pattern perfectly with impeccible results.

I own 2 real PAFs and have repaired many others, and with the help of many wonderful people in the steel industry in the area of magnetic alloys, magnet wire, and vintage parts dealers and historic Gibson experts who consult for other companies, I spent literally thousands of hours of personal research, experimentation, and lengthy dissection of real PAFs, noting every oddity every dimensional measurement, unwound many coils one turn at a time, got many lab results of chemistries and microphotography of the crystal structure of every alloy used in the magnetic circuit. And other things I can't talk about... My results speak for themselves.
I was not trying to "get that sound" by using parts that have no relation to real vintage PAFs, from modern bulk parts sellers, I WANTED TO RECREATE EVERY TINY DETAIL I FOUND, HISTORICALLY ACCURATE, TO NAIL EXACTLY WHAT THOSE VINTAGE TECHNOLOGIES DID IN AN ELECTRIC GUITAR, AND LEARNED TO MAKE THOSE PARTS MYSELF. The only thing I wanted to be known as a copycat for was copying the actual actifacts; I call this "Tonal Archaeology." I put my heart and soul, and many many hours into these products and you can be sure you get what you pay for.

REVERSE ENGINEERING IS THE TRUE KEY TO AUTHENTIC PAF TONES

Here we see a microphotograph of a specific steel alloy; the forms of steel are endless, I have reproduced the correct forms of PAF steels, through endless research with the aid of a magnetic alloys specialist. Also shown are real PAF magnetic circuit parts, compared to modern sloppy commercial parts and the parts I make and plate in my own shop. No detail has been overlooked, these parts are the critical secret of PAF tone.

In my research I also dissected and had analyzed many commercial and boutique pickups claiming to be PAFs. NONE of them were correct, and none of them sounded right. I GUARANTEE YOU WILL NOT FIND THE EQUAL OF THESE VINTAGE LAB SETS. The amount of time it takes to make set is very high, because I am not using commercial kits like most others do, because kit humbucker parts have nothing to do with real PAFs. I make all my own magnetic tone circuit parts myself, using the same authentic methods to duplicate perfectly as possible the technology and parts of those days. Making these parts is time consuming and tedious but the rewards are in the tone. Every set sold so far has only brought joyous praise from every customer, so the time and effort has been worth it in delivering a great sounding authentic product.