Those are tools to expand your expression.

And if you learn anything about troubleshooting on a make-shift basis, you go down the road to find the difficulty with your sound or rig. Which sounds right since you have established your rig set up, and you are attempting to fix what was working, you back track. If not, you are spinning in circles, again! Hence I had a pal who made the point about how some pick-up’s play you and PAF’s do not. I was in HEAVEN!! And the brilliant thing that went with it was that, this same thing occurred with no regard for the volume setting on the guitar. My experience was the tone I got on full may be bright and tight with honk, and as fast as I backed off the guitar’s volume, the tone would take on a dark or lifeless shade. This meant I’d expend a large amount of time tweeking the mix between my rhythms clean and crunch and lead tones. Attempting to find each was a drag, and a waste of your time! I am no tech. So I cannot and will not waste your time with my take of their specs. It was right after I began to use the Gibson 57 Classic pick-up, that Gibson came out with their 57 Classic and. This p / u was designed as a bridge p / u. In the 50,s the gals at the pick-up office. Occasionally they’d be distracted and some pick-up’s would finish up with more winds.

Other times they’d finish up with less. It was not difficult to think up the concept to put one of those “hot” pick-up’s in the bridge position you would have a bright, tight, and honk’n lead tone where there was not. And a completely new sub market in ‘vinatge ‘ pick-up’s ‘ came about. I know what sounds excellent to me and what I know from “my” experience. I am a guitar player who’s been round the block and my ears have a sense in regards to what a pick-up should sound like, that is what I am going for all of the time. Make your self content and keep the communication’s open!

For years or decades I have played electrical guitar in bands at bars, faculties, concerts and recording sessions yet I could not tell you what pick-ups were about. I mean, I did not have a clue in regards to what a pick-up did what to my sound. I got raised in a Gibson family. Oh yes, it’s baby brother the P-90. My first electrical was a Tiesco Del Ray I got for Yuletide in 1967. I did get a Mattel Tiger guitar that was made from plastic and employed a contact type pick-up. Those days’ electrical strings were highly limited in types and gauges available to young poor town people like yours really. I think That I only remember Gibson, Fender and Black Diamond strings. This is before the Maestro Fuzz and the Vox Wha-Wha were available to the purchasing public like me. Back to pick-up’s! With the limited data as to the way the stars were getting “THAT SOUND” we just kept attempting to study guitar without “how to” mags and poor sounding phonograph players playing 45′s on a miniscule speaker. You might say there wasn’t any reason to discern between p / u’s. In the mid 70′s I was playing full time and knew about vintage Les Pauls and the mythical PAF pick-up’s that were installed in them. Company . Was making a name for them selves as an alternative for your non- Gibson brand type humbucking pick-up, DeMarzio. I ended up purchasing one for my 76 Explorer.

Mind you I owned since the mid 60′s, a late 50′s Epiphone symmetric cherry finish Coronet with a, I believe somebody called it a cobalt pick-up. It is known as the “P-90″, or “soap bar” single coil type pick-up. I loved that guitar and its sound. I just thought I ought to have a “real vintage” sounding guitar with a humbucking p / u installed.

It sounded great, I just thought it needs to have full sized p / u’s to sound and look right. To quote Ian Hunter in the mid 70,s, “Rock guitarist’s appear to have this Gibson fetish”, and I did! I wanted the “look”. Gil Pini, the other Guitar player playing with me was utilizing the DeMarzio super Distortion humbucking, and I for some unknown reason did not feel OK about it’s sound and feel, even though it was hailed as “heaven sent “kind of thing, particularly for Marshall amplifiers back then no master volume on the pre-amp stage . I ultimately got a Super two p / u, as it had more bite.

I even purchased the Alembic ‘Hot Rod Kit” for my fifty six Les Paul Jr.

That was meant to be an excellent idea as it was warmer better sounding with a ceramic magnet to install, and since it was from Alembic from California and not some “upstart p / u manufacturer” it was actually the right move to make. I did not consider the DeMarzio pick-up’s and I did not know that those pick-up’s exploited the ceramic magnets at the time. I did not have those the best way to mags to hip me to that evasive vintage “sound”. It just would not smooth out. I was puzzled. Not having the patience, or the cash to buy and compare p / u’s, I just attempted to make a sound with what I had. I had all of the right Pro kit.

Yet I was casting back, “wagging the dog”. “Your fingers are your tone generators”.