My knockabout $300 Les Paul Copy nails Jimmy Pages Les Paul ..1973 Live Tone (Correct Page Pickups) ..My $8000 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul with Custombuckers doesn't go close to a Page Tone.. (Completely wrong Pickups)
PAF pickups were all over the place, although most sounded good, but not all of them great. Custombuckers sound great too, very similar, the difference is subtle, more felt/heard by the player than the listener. I think PAF pickups are hyped way too much, some of them sound great, but some clones sound great too. People who have heard them all say the clones sound just like PAF pickups, other people pretend PAF pickups are "magic" - I don't believe that. They were made by people who were much less knowledgable and skilled than many pickup makers today, and pretending the materials used back then somehow made those pickups better is just hype imho. I find the vintage gear craze to be laughable, and people who have seen hundreds of vintage guitars say only a few of them were great, and that modern guitars are more consistent. Just saying, and I may be wrong, but that's my take.
😂 It's mostly down to the copper wire used for the early pickups, that and the alnico 2,3, and 4 magnets used and that's about it Copper wire isn't made the same way as back then but if you know some one with vintage wire you can wind a humbuckers that sounds just like the vintage stuff.
6 one way, half ah dozen the other, only the person who put them in would ever know , so if it is worth what 4-5 grand a pickup , vs 4-5 hundred dealers choice ... if slash switched out one of his burst guitars with one of his signature epiphone les pauls , only he would know without being able to see the headstock , just like no one would of known clapton used a tweed champ on layla without him telling ...
Bonamassa once let a young fan in during sound check, the boy had a Les Paul Studio. Joe let him play his REAL 'burst, after asking him if he'd ever dropped a guitar before - when he said "no" Joe said "good, please don't let this be the first". Then Joe plugged the kid's inexpensive LP Studio into his rig and started playing, then stopped and said - it sounds just as good with yours (the amps make any decent guitar sound great).
I thought they were very close, and couldn't say one was better than the other. PAF hype makes them cost way more, so people who buy them want to pretend they are better, and it's SO easy to fool ourselves!
