PAF Humbuckers - ever wondered? |
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05 September 2010 |
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PAF Humbuckers - ever wondered?Since 1955 or so, Gibson have been fitting humbucker pick-ups to their guitars. The reason they were invented was that the hum caused by feedback from other electrical sources, usually the amplifier, near the guitar, was picked up by the magnetic coils of the pick-up, causing a hum to be heard through the amplifier. What the Gibson engineers invented was a double row of coils, wired in series, so that interference from one pick-up was cancelled out by the other, which was an effective answer to hum. It didn't get rid of it, it just dealt with it by cancelling it out so we couldn't hear it. This type of pick-up gave Gibson guitars their characteristic rich, full sound, as effectively there was twice the output, but with the distortion masked. There is a trade off to this, of course, if you have a fuller sound, you lose something of the bite and clarity you get from a single pick-up. This means that ever since, Gibsons have been popular for some styles of playing, and Fenders were favoured when their different sound was required. We haven't forgotten to get to why they are called PAF pick-ups. This was a new invention and when they were manufactured they said PAF on them - Patent Applied For! |
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