Ed A
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2001
- Messages
- 4,700
If youve been screwing around with pickups and magnets, trying to get close to a real PAF, you owe it to yourself to try these pickups! I hear VERY little difference between them and my real PAFs.
Let me back up. Hogy contacted me a couple weeks ago and suggested I try his pair of Rolphs. He told me that he has guitars with real PAFs and like me has tried many new copies and hasnt found anything that sounds like PAFs until he got the Rolphs. Also as some of you know already, Rolph likes to go with mid-7s in the neck and LOW 7s in the bridge and he'll give you a strong argument if you try otherwise. Hogy said he was surprised at how well that combination worked. Also Rolph uses nickel covers that are deeper than PAF covers (you dont see that when theyre mounted anyway) and chose the covers for their tone quality. The pickups Hogy sent me were aged and they look great. On to the test:
Im pretty burnt from the last test with the Antiquities so I didnt spend as much time going back and forth and didnt make sound files but I spent enough time to know that I like the Rolphs, a lot. This was not really an apples to apples test being that I was comparing the Rolphs WITH covers to my PAFs without covers. Also the neck pickup read 7.5, my PAF is 7.8 and the bridge Rolph is ONLY 7.2 and my PAF is 8.3. But still the similarities were remarkable. I hear VERY little difference between the neck pickups. The Rolph is open, bright, sweet, hollow, etc. Probably the biggest surprise is that it was just as bright and open sounding as my PAF even though it has a cover. I usually dont like covers, they deaden the sound, but I didnt hear any of that. The bridge pickup was very surprising. It sounded more different than my bridge I think mainly because of the big difference in output, 7.2 vs. 8.3. But the general character was ALL there. First of all, the damn thing ripped. Pinch harmonics, just as easy as the PAF, ballsy and alive. Quite a bit more than the 8.3 Antiquity from what I remember. And harmonics, nearly as strong as the PAF. The overall tone was a bit less middy and probably a touch brighter (even with the cover on), but I would suspect that with such a low 7.2 reading. Also with my bridge PAF, I like the poles down and the whole pickup raised, which I couldnt do with the Rolph because the cover would get too close to the strings. I bet I could have gotten the sound closer if the Rolph had no cover and I fooled with heights. But I personally prefer a bit more mids and I wonder what one of these things in the high 7s would sound like, probably killer. I should have tried the 7.5 in the bridge, but I didnt have time. The middle tone was VERY cool, very Betts like and less thick than the PAF middle tone (which again I attribute to the output difference) but still a similar character.
So even though the pickups didnt matchup to the PAFs physically (covers on, different readings and polepiece adjustments), the general character was more similar to the PAF than any other new pickup Ive tried (from what I remember). If I was getting a pair, Id still like to hear them with a bridge pickup a bit hotter. Im letting my friend Frank compare them next to his real PAFs. I rushed this test a bit so Im curious to see if he comes up with the same results. Ill post his impressions after he's done.
At the same price as Antiquities, they are more than worth a try. Its possible that you might like modded Antiquities better because we all have different tastes but it seems to me that these are quite a bit closer to real PAFs.
Thanks Hogy!
Let me back up. Hogy contacted me a couple weeks ago and suggested I try his pair of Rolphs. He told me that he has guitars with real PAFs and like me has tried many new copies and hasnt found anything that sounds like PAFs until he got the Rolphs. Also as some of you know already, Rolph likes to go with mid-7s in the neck and LOW 7s in the bridge and he'll give you a strong argument if you try otherwise. Hogy said he was surprised at how well that combination worked. Also Rolph uses nickel covers that are deeper than PAF covers (you dont see that when theyre mounted anyway) and chose the covers for their tone quality. The pickups Hogy sent me were aged and they look great. On to the test:
Im pretty burnt from the last test with the Antiquities so I didnt spend as much time going back and forth and didnt make sound files but I spent enough time to know that I like the Rolphs, a lot. This was not really an apples to apples test being that I was comparing the Rolphs WITH covers to my PAFs without covers. Also the neck pickup read 7.5, my PAF is 7.8 and the bridge Rolph is ONLY 7.2 and my PAF is 8.3. But still the similarities were remarkable. I hear VERY little difference between the neck pickups. The Rolph is open, bright, sweet, hollow, etc. Probably the biggest surprise is that it was just as bright and open sounding as my PAF even though it has a cover. I usually dont like covers, they deaden the sound, but I didnt hear any of that. The bridge pickup was very surprising. It sounded more different than my bridge I think mainly because of the big difference in output, 7.2 vs. 8.3. But the general character was ALL there. First of all, the damn thing ripped. Pinch harmonics, just as easy as the PAF, ballsy and alive. Quite a bit more than the 8.3 Antiquity from what I remember. And harmonics, nearly as strong as the PAF. The overall tone was a bit less middy and probably a touch brighter (even with the cover on), but I would suspect that with such a low 7.2 reading. Also with my bridge PAF, I like the poles down and the whole pickup raised, which I couldnt do with the Rolph because the cover would get too close to the strings. I bet I could have gotten the sound closer if the Rolph had no cover and I fooled with heights. But I personally prefer a bit more mids and I wonder what one of these things in the high 7s would sound like, probably killer. I should have tried the 7.5 in the bridge, but I didnt have time. The middle tone was VERY cool, very Betts like and less thick than the PAF middle tone (which again I attribute to the output difference) but still a similar character.
So even though the pickups didnt matchup to the PAFs physically (covers on, different readings and polepiece adjustments), the general character was more similar to the PAF than any other new pickup Ive tried (from what I remember). If I was getting a pair, Id still like to hear them with a bridge pickup a bit hotter. Im letting my friend Frank compare them next to his real PAFs. I rushed this test a bit so Im curious to see if he comes up with the same results. Ill post his impressions after he's done.
At the same price as Antiquities, they are more than worth a try. Its possible that you might like modded Antiquities better because we all have different tastes but it seems to me that these are quite a bit closer to real PAFs.
Thanks Hogy!
