Metropoulos Forum

hey guys, i've been looking at the choices in "pafs" (of which there are many) alot of the guys on the metro are getting great tones from a variety of different makes/models. i have been thinking A2 was the way to go & like my high order assym A2, but i just ordered a "voodoo" 59 A5 yesterday from peter florence after hearing bmf5150's great tones. (btw peter says he will give all us metro guys free shipping) some of the ones i have been looking at are:

voodoo '59
riogrande genuine texas
wagner darkburst

I used all 3. They are all completely different animals.

Rio is probably the cheapest of the 3 but that doesn't mean it's inferior. Output is quite high, think hot PAF, good bridge position candidate. Too much bass for the neck position, IMHO. Highs are maybe a bit more scratchy than the WCR but not bad.

WCR Darkburst are hot PAF types, too. Very singing tone, more bloom and double tone than the Rio. No harshness anywhere. Clear articulation but less edginess than the Voodoos. Not as much bass in the neck pup compared to the other two. Set is well calibrated.

Voodoo is the brightest of the 3 to my ears. They have a certain edginess to the tone (not harshness) and a very clear articulation. Bridge pup is great. Too much bass in the neck position IMHO. No problem if you mainly play leads with the bass pup in the upper register of the neck. Try to get a low wound neck pup if possible.

thanks DBM, good to know, i just ordered a darkburst & a rio grande genuine texas for bridge pickups.

I have the Suhr SSV in my SG. I like it, but I would probably go with their SSH next time around.

didn't know suhr made pickups, have to google it!

I bought a Lindy Fralin Hot wound PAF that was rated over the Tom Holmes in Vintage Guitar Magazine.

I'm still in the middle building a new giutar to slap it in.

..I just had to be a little different than everyone else on the PAF tone chase.

T.J.Fuller wrote:..I just had to be a little different than everyone else on the PAF tone chase.

Me too....Smits or HighOrder handwounds for me please.

I'm anxiously awaiting my first HighOrder... I can't wait.

45, what guitar will you be putting the pu's in ? What/whose tone are you likeing or are trying to get ? I think many who use a paf style pick-up are going for the old EVH tone, which makes sense (EVH did), but due to one reason or another, many of these paf type clones do not produce the type of mids that Ed seemed to get (maybe it was his use of eq pedals ?) I swear even though Ralle has a JB in his guitar, he is one of the few who gets, in my opinion, the correct mid's that Ed had. Rgalpins Bare Knucles VH2 also has, what appears to be more midrange than most clones. But then again, a basket weave cab might be good for making the mids more prominant, since they keep all those piercing highs that Super Lead's inherently have subdued somewhat.

i am yet another fan of the infamous evh sound, have been since the beginning. don't want to imitate eddie as much as i like the aggressive yet clear/present tonality. i had a set of the first super distortions made, & ran their course. they were great for kicking an amp up a notch in the old days, but i hated the muddiness. back to the moderate output pups. i agree with you about the mids. i'm using an eq to get some. the guitar is just another mutt-strat born of ebay parts. i bought the body finished for $39! i can always change it. the damn thing weighs like 2-3 lbs, it feels like balsa. not what i expected really, but who knows it might have a nice woody resonance when cranked. might howl like ted's byrdland too!

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Cool !

For A2s, I would have a look at Wolftone Dr. Vs. They get so many great reviews. I don't have a pair, but I do have some Wolftone Marshallheads, which are A5s. I think they are so much more articulate than the stock BBs I had. Expecially in the neck.

45auto wrote:didn't know suhr made pickups, have to google it!

http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx

both the suhr's & the wolfetone's look like the real deal. thanks guys. & after i recover from the damages incurred buying the rio grande, wcr, & voodoo, i'll start looking at bass/rhythm pickups!

I have swapped the following PAF-style pickups in and out of my Les Pauls:

Jim Rolph
Wagner Crossroads
Seth Lovers
Burstbucker 1, 2, & 3
Classic 57
Dr. Vintage

I also have a set of '50s PAFs installed in a '54/'59 conversion. They sound very sweet when played easy, and they smoke with great harmonics when pushed. All the legendary note bloom is there. This guitar is my benchmark, as I experiment with the PAF clones.

For 2 of my Les Pauls, the Dr. Vintage get very close to the PAFs. They are articulate, very touch sensitive, and treat you with more harmonics and bloom than any of the other clones that I have (although the Rolphs are terrific too).

On a side note . . . I've only recently begun to experiment liberally with pickup height and pole piece height, and let me state that with some of these pickups, the changes you can hear are quite significant (including the Dr. Vs). What follows is a post from Rick Norman (user name, "Mofinco", on the Les Paul Forum), who was the guy who originally conceived the idea of the Dr. Vintage pickup. Here's what he said recently in the Les Paul Forum on the subject of adjusting pickup height, specifically for the Dr. Vintage, but as he mentions up front, it applies to all humbuckers.

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The best advice (not just for Dr. Vs) is to keep a little screw-driver on top of your amp and try everything you can think of as far as pickup height and pole piece height etc. These pickups are VERY sensitive to change... which is how I wanted it. Different guitars like different settings.

Myself, I start with the pole pieces level with the bobbins, and then play for a while. I adjust the overall height up, down, crooked, etc, until I like how the high E and low E sound up and down the neck on both pickups. With those two strings dialed in, then I start tweaking the middle four pole screws on each pickup to dial in the string balance. (You'll be surprised at how much difference you can make with the adjustable poles on these pickups... keep tweaking! )

If I install these without covers, (which I'll do only on a sunburst-finish guitar), I adjust the pole pieces as if the cover was STILL ON the pickup. The pole pieces stick up a bit higher than people are used to seeing on exposed coils, but for some, the TONE is magic. With the screws like that, you have to drop the pickup height a little further away from the strings than you may be used to... the height they'd be when the coves are ON, except they're not. It works for me, and a few other people who's names you'd recognize.

But again, the bottom line is to tweak tweak tweak and don't be in a hurry. It may take a week or so to find the sweet spot on YOUR guitar.

The other thing is that people sometimes forget (or are reluctant) to tweak their amp settings. I spec'd these so that you have to make the AMP do the heavy-lifting. Depending on what you took out of the guitar, your old amp settings may not show the Dr. Vs at their best.

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I don't think that Rick will mind that I've pasted this here to the Metro forum, at least I hope not.