Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: Cam_H on September 25, 2013, 01:24:21 PM
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Am I losing it, or does £399 sounds a little bit pricey? They're Throbak MKVs. They're meant to be perfect replicas of vintage PAFs, but haven't companies been trying this for years? What makes this so different that justifies the price of other companies making Vintage PAFs
http://www.musicradar.com/reviews/guitars/throbak-mxv-579630 (http://www.musicradar.com/reviews/guitars/throbak-mxv-579630)
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Can't see why anyone would want anything other than Mules for that.
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I have a set of Throbaks, they came in a guitar I bought. They are very good pickups, but worth double the price of a set of Bareknuckles? No. He has set himself up as some sort of pickup sorcerer, coupled with the fact he has some of the machines that he claims the original PAFs were wound on. If people are willing to buy into that "mystique", then fair play to him, he's charging a premium and if he can get it that's his business.
Neville Marten wrote the review. What pickups does he have in his own guitar? Bareknuckles.
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Premiumbrands like Amber, Flame Tone and Kloppmann ask peppery prices. Compared to those BKP is affordable. Excellent price/quality-level. That's why I stick to BKP.
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Or I could buy a guitar for that much money. Good god
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Compared to Seymour Duncan Zephyrs they're cheap.
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Compared to Seymour Duncan Zephyrs they're cheap.
Christ 'O Mary! They're twice the bloody price!
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What makes a set of pickups worth that much?
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Loads of people on the Duncan forum, of which I'm also an active member so I'm not picking on them, always say that they'd go for BKPs if they weren't so expensive etc. But the Zephyrs are perfectly acceptable! :lol:
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People like this..
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What makes a set of pickups worth that much?
Unicorn horn bobbins and ambergris dipped coils with 42awg unobtainium wire
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What makes a set of pickups worth that much?
Probably wax potted with the product Jesus used to style his hair!
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Hmm I find this hilarious as quite frankly BKPS are way overpriced now. I would only consider buying them second hand nowadays. I refuse to pay more than £80 for a pickup.
It baffles me how every other company has managed to maintain steady prices over the last decade yet BKPs have shot up by £30+ per pickup
So yeah what im saying is I agree £399 is ridiculous.
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Hmm I find this hilarious as quite frankly BKPS are way overpriced now. I would only consider buying them second hand nowadays. I refuse to pay more than £80 for a pickup.
It baffles me how every other company has managed to maintain steady prices over the last decade yet BKPs have shot up by £30+ per pickup
So yeah what im saying is I agree £399 is ridiculous.
I agree with pretty much everything Toe-Knee just said. Love my BKPs but the cost of some wire and a magnet is getting too high.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvmvxAcT_Yc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvmvxAcT_Yc)
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Hmm I find this hilarious as quite frankly BKPS are way overpriced now. I would only consider buying them second hand nowadays. I refuse to pay more than £80 for a pickup.
It baffles me how every other company has managed to maintain steady prices over the last decade yet BKPs have shot up by £30+ per pickup
So yeah what im saying is I agree £399 is ridiculous.
I agree with pretty much everything Toe-Knee just said. Love my BKPs but the cost of some wire and a magnet is getting too high.
Yep it's getting a bit out of hand. I do love BKPs but i feel the quality to cost ratio isn't really justifiable especially when there are so many other great pickups out there also.
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I wouldn't pay that kind of money for pickups, but then again many people seem quite happy to pay hundreds of pounds for flavour-of-the-month boutique pedals which - it seems to me - are a far less fundamental part of their tone than their guitar's pickups.
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I wouldn't pay that kind of money for pickups, but then again many people seem quite happy to pay hundreds of pounds for flavour-of-the-month boutique pedals which - it seems to me - are a far less fundamental part of their tone than their guitar's pickups.
I agree with this - I mean how much better is a T-Rex Mudhoney II over one of those cheap Asian pedals? I can understand a recording studio buying things like that, but in a gig context you'd never know.
Pickups on the other hand make a big difference. There are huge differences between the 498T, A-Bomb, and Cold Sweat that I've had in the bridge position of my SG. That said I could have made big differences by using cheaper Di Marzio or Seymour Duncan pickups too if those appealed to me.
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personally, i dont mind spending a little bit extra if it gets me what i want. plus awesome customer service and a lot of customizable options make it worth it to me.
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Don't knock Throbaks until you've tried them ;) They're my favourite PAF-style pickups.
The guy has done some serious research, and invested heavily in his business (old Leesona winder, sourcing proper US made parts etc) so they aren't going to come cheap.
BKP, Lollar, Throbak etc are companies trying to make a profit so price their products accordingly. Fair play to them for giving us all a choice!
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Don't knock Throbaks until you've tried them ;) They're my favourite PAF-style pickups.
The guy has done some serious research, and invested heavily in his business (old Leesona winder, sourcing proper US made parts etc) so they aren't going to come cheap.
BKP, Lollar, Throbak etc are companies trying to make a profit so price their products accordingly. Fair play to them for giving us all a choice!
So you are saying that all the other pickup manufacturers don't make a profit?
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Hmm I find this hilarious as quite frankly BKPS are way overpriced now. I would only consider buying them second hand nowadays. I refuse to pay more than £80 for a pickup.
It baffles me how every other company has managed to maintain steady prices over the last decade yet BKPs have shot up by £30+ per pickup
So yeah what im saying is I agree £399 is ridiculous.
I agree with pretty much everything Toe-Knee just said. Love my BKPs but the cost of some wire and a magnet is getting too high.
Yes, to both of you.
They arent that complicated.
People pay what they think something is worth, but when a set of pickups costs as much as a laptop, and one is a few dumb chunks of metal and plastic with some wire and a magnet, and the 'on' button alone for the other is more complex, I'm afraid there is no rationalisation based on materials or technologies that can square away that dissonance.
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Ok... the brutal truth is...
The guys from Throbak, Lollar, Amber, Haeussel and BKP have all done their research and they all make good pickups. Obviously Tim and Harry (from Haeussel) are much better at bookkeeping and running a business efficiently, because they manage to sell the pickups at a much lower price and still make a profit!!!
I bet Lollar has some horribly high labour costs and a very low output. That's probably where the problem lies. The parts and machines costs more or less the same what they cost any other pickup manufacturer. Even if they are higher, the effect isn't that huge, because in the long run fixed costs approach 0.
If Lollar managed to exand and increase his output, he could probably sell them cheaper.
But no one should really claim that a product is higher quality or better because it is more expensive, when most likely the extra money you're paying is mostly simply for the fact that it is made by a very small company which cannot make the savings of a bigger one, by a guy who loves what he's doing but doesn't really have a lot of business knowledge behind it. £399 for a set of pickups strongly suggests that!
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You guys are missing a couple of key things here. We're not talking about loaves of bread from Warburtons or Hovis, we're talking about boutique items:
1) Luxury goods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_goods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_goods)
2) Veblen goods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)
How you price your product in relation to your competitors is a key part of your brand image. It's got nothing to do with the cost of raw materials or production but how you want your brand to be seen.
There's something for everyone in the PAF marketplace - choose your personal price point and buy what you like the sound of!
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But no one should really claim that a product is higher quality or better because it is more expensive, when most likely the extra money you're paying is mostly simply for the fact that it is made by a very small company which cannot make the savings of a bigger one, by a guy who loves what he's doing but doesn't really have a lot of business knowledge behind it. £399 for a set of pickups strongly suggests that!
In some cases this is correct but in other cases it isn't such as Bulldog Pickups. That's a one man operation £80 per pickup or £150 for a pair. Lifetime warranty + free rewinds and customisation if it's not quite right for you right up until it is right. His prices haven't changed since he started and the products have just kept on improving such as the hybrid pickup he did back at the beginning of 2012 and all the other models that he gradually refines over time.
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I cant believe that companies like SD and Dimarzio don't do 'research'.
If we are talking about PAF replicas, then the materials and methods at the time were inconsistent in a way that surely means there must be a pretty wide range of tones available from original PAF's of what should be the same spec. So what anyone is paying for with these types of pickups is the builders own take on a quality PAF tone. 100% vintage correct parts and construction would probably make an inconsistent product (Same as back in the day) and that is bore out by the 'research'. The winding machines ran inconsistently by design and over tension spec which deformed bobbins and put in odd turns, they were setup inconsistently after making different spec pups, the metal had different properties from one batch the next, the magnets also. That is what i've learned from reading what Throbak has to say about it. Does every PAF sound like the last? Do they all sound the same? I don't think so. Therefore the goal is to get as close as possible to a vintage PAF using whatever methods you can while making a consistent product that sounds good. Hence the ballpark seems like it should be pretty big to me so £399 doesn't make the pickup 'better' at all, and the investment in the winding machines and research although interesting doesn't mean a better sounding pickup at the end of the process. It's just the price put on one guys "opinion". Would I pay that to hear that guys opinion, No. Some other would. Just like some people would spend £32K on guitar made of some super rare wood. People hear things in those £'s. Must suck if later on down the line they find out the wire in the pups isn't as special as they thought, or that Botswanian ultra rare dark maple neck is actually just mahogany.
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Just like some people would spend £32K on guitar made of some super rare wood. People hear things in those £'s. Must suck if later on down the line they find out the wire in the pups isn't as special as they thought, or that Botswanian ultra rare dark maple neck is actually just mahogany.
That must be gutting. I bet it's just like the moment where the fragile harmonics and crystal lattices shatter.
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I bet Lollar has some horribly high labour costs and a very low output. That's probably where the problem lies. The parts and machines costs more or less the same what they cost any other pickup manufacturer. Even if they are higher, the effect isn't that huge, because in the long run fixed costs approach 0.
If Lollar managed to exand and increase his output, he could probably sell them cheaper.
I don't think Lollars are any more expensive than BKP, to be honest, unless of course you're in Europe and therefore having to pay import charges on them.
And, to be fair, they've invested in the tooling to make a number of "non-standard" pickups like Jazzmasters, Wide Range humbuckers, mini-humbuckers, Charlie Christian pickups.... all those costs have to be recovered somehow.
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I bet Lollar has some horribly high labour costs and a very low output. That's probably where the problem lies. The parts and machines costs more or less the same what they cost any other pickup manufacturer. Even if they are higher, the effect isn't that huge, because in the long run fixed costs approach 0.
If Lollar managed to exand and increase his output, he could probably sell them cheaper.
I don't think Lollars are any more expensive than BKP, to be honest, unless of course you're in Europe and therefore having to pay import charges on them.
And, to be fair, they've invested in the tooling to make a number of "non-standard" pickups like Jazzmasters, Wide Range humbuckers, mini-humbuckers, Charlie Christian pickups.... all those costs have to be recovered somehow.
That is a very good point!
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Just like some people would spend £32K on guitar made of some super rare wood. People hear things in those £'s. Must suck if later on down the line they find out the wire in the pups isn't as special as they thought, or that Botswanian ultra rare dark maple neck is actually just mahogany.
Is that a thinly veiled dig at me perchance, Dmoney?
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Not at all. I actually agree with what you said earlier about finding what works for you. if that happens to be a pickups that are £400 and you don't like any other pickup on offer as much... then you're gonna have to spend £400 to get it whatever it is made of if you REALLY want it. But it's this same old boring 'diminishing returns' argument blah blah blah that has popped up here so many times, right?
We get back to the same old argument about what one person can hear over another, if they can hear a difference or if its ears playing tricks, if just thinking about it means there is new inspiration and that makes these things worth it etc etc etc etc... we've been through it all before as I'm sure you know.
That stuff is more why i was bringing up really expensive guitars... but amps is the same too...
Now i think with PRS you get what it says on the tin. i mean why wouldn't you? they have a good reputation and don't need to pretend one wood is another kind of wood. What i was really getting at is that the old wire in PAF and stuff can vary in series resistance per foot more than modern wire and the coating was different too I think and not applied in as uniform a manner. From what I was reading this morning, you just can't come by wire like that any more. Throbaks claim is they are as 'close as possible' to the original PAFs, but i guess they have to be far enough away to make the outcome repeatable which makes the process of buying old winding machines, vintage steel alloys, vintage wire, vintage material bobbins all a little bit self defeating in a way, past a certain point i guess some compromise has to be made somewhere I think. Maybe im wrong.
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It's all just product placement and free market pricing - very straightforward economics. There are loads of pickups in the world catering for all tastes and budgets. I just don't understand why folk have to get really heated about a product they don't want to buy, or can't afford to buy.
I drive a Skoda Octavia vRS and would love a Porsche 911 GT3, but I can't afford one. I don't feel the need to moan about people who own one though!
Funny old world innit?
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And I come back to my oft-repeated argument that everybody has their own "thing" that they will happily spend money on, whether it's good "value" or not.
Personally I'm shocked at the amount of money many people spend on mobile phones, or clothes, or watches, or football kits, or holidays...... but I will cheerfully fork out £300 for a bit of maple with some frets stuck in it, without a moment's thought. We can't be rational all the time.
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It's all just product placement and free market pricing - very straightforward economics. There are loads of pickups in the world catering for all tastes and budgets. I just don't understand why folk have to get really heated about a product they don't want to buy, or can't afford to buy.
I drive a Skoda Octavia vRS and would love a Porsche 911 GT3, but I can't afford one. I don't feel the need to moan about people who own one though!
Funny old world innit?
Nobody is moaning about people that own stuff.
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It's funny because haters, 9 times out of 10, tend to be people who want the product, but are jealous because they can't afford it for themselves, or don't want to put the effort in. They expect to see immediate results with minimum work.
I have a mate, and when I started weighlifting a couple years back, he referred to the fact that the only reason I gained muscle was because I was taking "Protein Shakes" which he said is cheating like taking steroids - Pffft. So I carried on weightlifting and eating purely food with no supplements and his next comeback was "it's only because you can afford to eat healthy food". I showed him my shopping list for the week/month and he actually spends more from his Dole money on weed and booze. Apparantly then I needed to get a life.
The fact of the matter being, he's a lazy bum who spends all day on video games, eating biscuits and expecting to get buff off lifting 5kg Dumbells for 5mins a day in his room. Because I put effort in, earn a living, and train hard; every way I achieve it, unless it's his way, is wrong.
It's was the same deal when I traded my Xbox360 for a PS3. He said why am I getting one of those coz they're s**t compared to XBoxs. A few months later when he got one, it was suddenly the best thing in the world!
He's been on dole since 2006. What does that tell you? lol
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It's funny because haters, 9 times out of 10, tend to be people who want the product, but are jealous because they can't afford it for themselves, or don't want to put the effort in. They expect to see immediate results with minimum work.
I have a mate, and when I started weighlifting a couple years back, he referred to the fact that the only reason I gained muscle was because I was taking "Protein Shakes" which he said is cheating like taking steroids - Pffft. So I carried on weightlifting and eating purely food with no supplements and his next comeback was "it's only because you can afford to eat healthy food". I showed him my shopping list for the week/month and he actually spends more from his Dole money on weed and booze. Apparantly then I needed to get a life.
The fact of the matter being, he's a lazy bum who spends all day on video games, eating biscuits and expecting to get buff off lifting 5kg Dumbells for 5mins a day in his room. Because I put effort in, earn a living, and train hard; every way I achieve it, unless it's his way, is wrong.
It's was the same deal when I traded my Xbox360 for a PS3. He said why am I getting one of those coz they're s**t compared to XBoxs. A few months later when he got one, it was suddenly the best thing in the world!
He's been on dole since 2006. What does that tell you? lol
That your friend is a bum?
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It's funny because haters, 9 times out of 10, tend to be people who want the product, but are jealous because they can't afford it for themselves, or don't want to put the effort in. They expect to see immediate results with minimum work.
I have a mate, and when I started weighlifting a couple years back, he referred to the fact that the only reason I gained muscle was because I was taking "Protein Shakes" which he said is cheating like taking steroids - Pffft. So I carried on weightlifting and eating purely food with no supplements and his next comeback was "it's only because you can afford to eat healthy food". I showed him my shopping list for the week/month and he actually spends more from his Dole money on weed and booze. Apparantly then I needed to get a life.
The fact of the matter being, he's a lazy bum who spends all day on video games, eating biscuits and expecting to get buff off lifting 5kg Dumbells for 5mins a day in his room. Because I put effort in, earn a living, and train hard; every way I achieve it, unless it's his way, is wrong.
It's was the same deal when I traded my Xbox360 for a PS3. He said why am I getting one of those coz they're s**t compared to XBoxs. A few months later when he got one, it was suddenly the best thing in the world!
He's been on dole since 2006. What does that tell you? lol
You dislike your 'friend' enough to use him as a statistic of 1 to make a rhetorical point on a guitar forum about things completely unrelated to his behaviour?
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That your friend is a bum?
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Yup. I don't really even speak to him anymore tbh. Was a bit off the subject for £399 for pickups, which I still think is a bit high. But my point was I have my opinions about price, but I would never slate somebody else just because they bought them, and then act like they're the best under the sun if I finally chose to bought them. I see people like this all over forums. Everyone man to their own :)
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You dislike your 'friend' enough to use him as a statistic of 1 to make a rhetorical point on a guitar forum about things completely unrelated to his behaviour?
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My point was you find jealous people who think products are bad because they're not fortunate enough to have them. I think "friend" mightve been too strong of a word. He's a guy I know who I know through a friend. But again every man to their own. I've always played cheap equipment, unable to afford high end stuff. But I'd never turn round and tell someone they're wrong because they have better.
My point with that guy is that'd be like telling Slash the only reason he sounds good on guitar is because he has a guitar worth thousands and an amp to follow. But as soon as he turns round and plays something cheaper and still sounds great, people still find excuses.
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And products that cost twice what products that are ostensibly the same and already in a high price bracket, what about them?
Is that just jealously, or is that you assuming that more expensive is automatically better and there is some sort of pride in socio-economic status (or shame) component to gear purchases?
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And products that cost twice what products that are ostensibly the same and already in a high price bracket, what about them?
Is that just jealously, or is that you assuming that more expensive is automatically better and there is some sort of pride in socio-economic status (or shame) component to gear purchases?
I was asking are they really worth £399? Or are there other pickups out there that sound close enough not to tell. How do I know, I've never owned a set, nevermind played them. I just wanted a bit more info as I've heard companies making PAFs to the original specification for a cheaper. Does asking if £399 sounds like it's a bit expensive seem like I'm making a jealous comment? I know naff all about pickups, I just wanted a bit more information from people who may know a bit more on the subject.
It is neither jealousy nor assuming expensive is better. I played an LTD-EC1000 (£799), an ESP Eclipse (£1499) and a Gibson Les Paul Custom (£2899) and I preffered the ESP Eclipse. That is neither preferring the expensive Gibson because I think expensive is better, neither am I saying the LTD is better because I'm jealous of people who are fortunate enough to own an ESP and all I'm stuck with is the cheapest.
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I do what I want to do, buy what I want to buy, like what I like, dislike what I dislike. But I would never call something cheap because I can afford more, neither call something a rip off because I can't afford it.
After some very good responses on this forum and some extra research, I've learnt that thos pickups would be well worth the money to a traditionalist who is maybe building a '59 Les Paul replica and want's it as close as possible. But to me it's not my cup of tea. But it's best to enter things with an open mind, I say. I entered this thread wondering why on earth the pickups was so high, and wondered what justified them being that much as I've only learnt about actual PAF pickups the last couple days. Same way someone could ask why on earth would you spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on an authentic 59 Les Paul. You enter the discussion wanting to learn why, rather than dismissing the idea completely and calling everyone wrong for something which you purely didn't take the time to learn about.
I do apologise if it came off the wrong way with the interpretation of the story with the guy I knew. It may have been a bad way to put it, I was just trying to make a point (in a very bad way obviously lol).
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And products that cost twice what products that are ostensibly the same and already in a high price bracket, what about them?
I say they might be better, might be worse, but probably they're just different. Price isn't a factor in that, but for someone's interpretation of worth it is. I'd pay twice as much for something that I thought was better.
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This is the thing I don't fully understand.
After learning about these pickups I found a thread where the the dude who makes these pickups was explaining the nuances of the winding machine he bought that was used to wind the original pickups and the process that was originally used to make them. Turn out, its very inconsistent. Add to that inconsistencies in the steel used in the original PAFs, the inconsistencies in the magnets, the over tension on the winder that would cause bobbins to eventually warp (inconsistently), not having a wind counter on the machine (the guy who bought it at Throbak fitted a counter himself), inconsistent wire in terms of alloy and coating compared modern wire, which means more variable ohms per foot and more variable capacitance between wires once wound together and probably loads more stuff, and a workforce that would make mistakes when setting up the machine to make PAFs after making other pickups... and this is what is described by the guy making the £399 pickups and some other guy who is into magnets... means that the spectrum of tone and physical properties of vintage PAF's must be pretty flippin' wide if what they are saying is true. I've also read people saying there is no single PAF tone, that each PAF sounds a bit different, and that makes total sense. Original PAFs don't cost loads because they are the holy grail of pickups, it's driven by all kinds of factors. Same as the price for 59 LP's isn't driven by quality of the tone each one produces. A bunch of early strats are meant to be pretty bad guitars due to manufacturing processes at the time, but it doesn't stop them costing a lot of money or having a certain status as instruments, and if I paid a lot of money for one, would I really tell people it plays like junk?
in fact here is the thread
http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/pickups/2527-paf-mysteries-leesona-102-winder.html (http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/pickups/2527-paf-mysteries-leesona-102-winder.html)
So essentially, as far as I can make out any decent pickup that claims to be a PAF replica is probably going to be pretty close tone wise to some kind of old PAF somewhere. No doubt the dude has put the work in and clearly is dedicated to what he's doing though. There has to be a reference point and compromise though which I'm sure Throbak has decided on. Because if he was making pickups with all the original materials on the original machine, how could he have a consistent product to sell by his own admission that the characteristics of the original materials are so diverse? If you wanted to buy the pups you'd be paying £399 for MORE vintage materials and MORE vintage methods of construction but the tonal outcome would potentially be down to luck to a certain degree right? I think that makes sense.
Maybe I'm over thinking it.
(that thread is a good read by the way).
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Well from my research - correct me if I'm wrong -
Dimarzio seem to mention the PAFS were Alnico II and they use Air Technology and Alnico V to achieve that tone. This resulting in the Air Classics.
Duncan seem to think Alnico V judging by the 59 - this I'm not familiar with whether these are PAF clones, though.
BKP seem to think Alnico IV, and Tim said it was from an actual PAF he took apart. Same as Dimarzio did.
And these £399 pickups are Alnico III.
This to me pretty much says that there is no "One that rules them all". Or is there? 8) Lord of the Ring moment there. But it seems to show all the PAFs varied to a great deal of degree, which makes me wonder where the "Patent Applied For" came from. Was this for the actual design of the pickup (which would mean there is one to rule them all), or just for the patent of a microphone for the guitars regardless of materials?
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All of them could be right.
They probably just used whatever materials were cheapest at the time. It may be that that varied.
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All of them could be right.
They probably just used whatever materials were cheapest at the time. It may be that that varied.
So do you think it was just the fact it was a guitar pickup of that particular style/look that they applied a Patent for? Rather than patenting the technology and parts used to create the actual pickup?
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The patent filing was for humbucking, which has nothing to do with look or magnet type.
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The patent filing was for humbucking, which has nothing to do with look or magnet type.
Ahh. Well that clears up a lot of things I was wondering about. Cheers for that bit of info. Never even crossed my mind about the humbucking
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Just found this interesting bit of info on Wiki. But you were right in what you were saying about the humbucker. It just seems the PAFs were the second humbucker, but got there first to file for the patent.
P.A.F. or just PAF is the world's second humbucker guitar pickup, invented by Seth Lover in 1955 as an engineer for Gibson and began use in mass production guitars in 1957. It is commonly mistaken for the first humbucker pickup due to Gibson's popularity and the earlier patent filing date. While the first humbucker pickup in use, and issued a patent, was actually the Gretsch Filter'Tron pickup prototypes, designed by Ray Butts in 1954 at the request of Chet Atkins for his Gretsch 6120 (1955 introduction)
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Interesting. When i was reading that other thread and talking about varying magnets, I just thought maybe it was the same magnetic material but different strengths or something. Didn't consider it being A2, A3, A4, A5 and so on but I guess the number designation indicates a magnetic field strength and mixture of Aluminium, Nickel and Cobalt . Like MDV says, maybe it is that varied because they just used whatever they could get.
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Interesting. When i was reading that other thread and talking about varying magnets, I just thought maybe it was the same magnetic material but different strengths or something. Didn't consider it being A2, A3, A4, A5 and so on but I guess the number designation indicates a magnetic field strength and mixture of Aluminium, Nickel and Cobalt . Like MDV says, maybe it is that varied because they just used whatever they could get.
Well it says further on on Wiki's PAF page that Gibson placed a gigantic order for Alnico IV magnets, so maybe that's Tim's logic to try and create the best ones that they made. Or at least his opinion on what he thought the best of the PAFS were after talking to Seth Lover.
Gibson used Alnico magnets in PAFs, the same magnet as used in the P-90. Alnico has several different grades and different magnetic properties (grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 are usually used), and Gibson assigned them quite randomly until the end of the era of early PAFs. The most common of these was Alnico IV. British pickup designer Tim Mills of Bare Knuckle pickups had spoken with Seth Lover, who revealed that the most commonly used magnet was the Alnico IV. It has also been discovered from order sheets, that Gibson ordered many Alnico IV magnets
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So, 'Maximum Vintage' closestyoucaneverget throw backs are in fact less accurate on the whole (bearing in mind the random nature of pafs) than BKs.
I'm not surprised
Presumably the price difference is due to overheads incurred by making wire spun from Les Pauls molten toe nails.
Quite a premium on that stuff.
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So, 'Maximum Vintage' closestyoucaneverget throw backs are in fact less accurate on the whole (bearing in mind the random nature of pafs) than BKs.
How did you work that out? How can they be less accurate when there's no single reference source?
I personally don't believe that AIV was the most common magnet used. From all the things I've read over the years it was AII.
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If you look at the Bareknuckle range, the Stormy Monday (AII), Mule (AIV), Riff Raff (AV) and Black Dog (AV), are all PAF type pickups, all based on original Gibson humbuckers. So the whole range of possibilities is there.
Gibson's own PAF recreations, notably the '57 classics, Burstbucker and the new Custom Bucker in the Historics, all use Alnico II.
There is no single, exact PAF to copy, they did vary greatly. Each designer goes for what he sees as the right sound. So whichever one happens to be closest to your own idea of what it should sound like is right.
Notably, Tim's recent anniversary pickups were PAF type, and he used Alnico II in those.
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So, 'Maximum Vintage' closestyoucaneverget throw backs are in fact less accurate on the whole (bearing in mind the random nature of pafs) than BKs.
How did you work that out? How can they be less accurate when there's no single reference source?
I personally don't believe that AIV was the most common magnet used. From all the things I've read over the years it was AII.
Well Tim got it straight from the horses mouth (Seth Lover). But again this was him only saying IV was the most common used. But there was many other magnets used of course. I guess we'll just have to pick a pickup and decide if we like it.
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So, 'Maximum Vintage' closestyoucaneverget throw backs are in fact less accurate on the whole (bearing in mind the random nature of pafs) than BKs.
How did you work that out? How can they be less accurate when there's no single reference source?
I personally don't believe that AIV was the most common magnet used. From all the things I've read over the years it was AII.
Well Tim got it straight from the horses mouth (Seth Lover). But again this was him only saying IV was the most common used. But there was many other magnets used of course. I guess we'll just have to pick a pickup and decide if we like it.
I assume Tim heard that, then made an A4 PAF style pickup to experiment, liked what he heard and then proceeded to optimise the wind.
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Fact is, pickups are a great way to change the tone of an instrument to something closer to the sound the musician is looking for. They improve the sound of a cheaper guitar, and can fix tonal issues - too bright/dark/weak. It's great to have such a wide range of alternatives available!
400 seems alot, I would hope that's for a set of neck and bridge though. Assuming that, then I would say they are in a reasonable price range. Not that I would pay that though, but I can see why people would do so.
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I wouldn't pay that kind of money for pickups, but then again many people seem quite happy to pay hundreds of pounds for flavour-of-the-month boutique pedals which - it seems to me - are a far less fundamental part of their tone than their guitar's pickups.
If you paid £399 for a set of pickups and they were the best you'd ever heard I wouldn't consider that too much to pay. It's pointless to argue that they aren't worth it on the basis of the cost of the raw materials. How much are the components of a vintage Plexi worth ? People are prepared to pay many thousands for a new guitar - are they worth it ? Personally, when I'm playing in my band and we're all making our usual high volume racket I doubt that my ears would be good enough to detect a difference in quality between a Mule and a Throbak.
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How much are the components of a vintage Plexi worth ? People are prepared to pay many thousands for a new guitar - are they worth it ?
Well if you are asking that based on todays prices the parts cost far more than the current reissues if you are doing it vintage correct.
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The point about alnico is that the all modern companies are right - in early 1950s people like Gibson or Fender bought a generic magnet called alnico - and post war/cold war shortages meant that you wouldn't always get the same magnet. Take alnico III, - due to the cobalt shortage in the USA in the 50s it contains on cobalt ('co'), but it was still labelled alnico.
Its no use knocking Throbak - they make a good product - I have dealt with Jon Gundry a few times and he is a decent guy to deal with. He has the original Gibson winders and, more than that, has done his research on the pattern those machines wound good PAFs in the 50s. He is selling that knowledge and that exclusivity. Its like the Telenator Cunife Wide Range humbuckers at $450 each. That is astoundingly expensive for a CBS era Fender style pickup that no-one liked at the time - but Telenator worked out how to properly use cunife to make accurate 70s WRHB's - and, given that you can't get Cunife elsewhere, they have a unique selling point.
That's business - if it is too expensive, or not worth it, don't buy it - there are a million pickups on the market.
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^ spot on Elliot :)