[HipKitty]

Tone hounds, if you are searching for truly vintage PAF tones, this may help you get there or really close.

A little background on this discovery, I promise to keep it kind of short....

Several years back, I was working with an artist to create an amp that would mimic his early recorded tones. To get started without being able to obtain one of his Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Customs for the R & D period, I simply used my LP Custom and went on a pickup search for humbuckers that would minic his '58's. The bridge pickup was the primary focus...

I went through a ton of different pickups including a bridge model of the 36th Anniversary (uncovered). That 36th Anniversary came close, but it had a tad too much sizzle on the top end. What did get there were a Smit's Real Classic Coil uncovered with alnico II magnet and a Lollar Low Wind Imperial alnico II.

Since that project, I have been going through different PAF pickups and combinations as time would allow for one of my Les Paul Standards and have found a setup that is unbelievable in terms of vintage tone...

A Duncan Jazz Neck with an alnico II magnet and aged raw nickle cover in the neck slot and a 36th Anniversary Neck with a raw nickle cover in the bridge slot. Both are real close to the strings, but balanced for matching output.

I can't tell you how many people have offered to buy this LP as is for it's tone. What I can suggest it to try a 36th Anniversary Neck, put a nickle cover on it and then put it in the bridge slot of your LP.

[Aceman]

And you may find this equally surprising; Sometimes a bridge pup in the neck does the trick.

btw - a Jazz with an A2 magnet is an Alnico Pro II pickup (aka - Those pickups Slash uses…)

[HipKitty]

I know...I had a Explorer once that I put  bridge pickup in the neck slot and loved it!

I'm not 100% sure since I don't know the winding count, but was aware of the surface similarities....I happened to have a Jazz Neck in my pickup drawer and had been going through a magnet swap fixation and it worked with a rough cast alnico II.

[buddroyce]

It's good to hear that you had good experiences with the PAF 36th neck in the bridge position. I actually like it better in the bridge position than the PAF 36th Bridge model for some reason.

[DarthPhineas]

Now, maybe Ace and Budd might know something about this, but...wasn't the 36th originally released by itself and meant to be used as a set in the same way that the old PAFs were?

[darkbluemurder]

That's what I thought as well - in the old days (e.g. late 50s to early/mid 70s) there were no "neck" or "bridge" pickups.

Cheers Stephan

[HipKitty]

You guys are correct...back in the "old days", pre-90's (?), calibrated (i.e. neck specific, bridge specific) models were limited to Duncans...everyone else made one model for each spot.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the specs or details are about the old PAF or first run 36th's and how they compare to current models.

What seems to me, IMHO, that what pushed this pickup into awesome world was the raw nickle cover without any potting between the pickup and cover. It started out as a great pickup and turned awesome!!

[DarthPhineas]

the DP103 was released in 2008.  I think there's only been the one version, and it was recommended for either position, in the same vein as the old PAFs, which the DiMarzio site talks about.  I think that's sort of cool, as I don't know of any Duncan models that are marketed in that same way.

[KH Guitar Freak]

Interesting. I might consider this setup in conjunction with a Dimarzio PAF Master neck in the neck position. Looking to get something that is more polite sounding via lower output in a semihollow bodied guitar of mine