Humbled by Humbuckers

When Cherrie King first arrived in my life, I knew I wanted that PAF humbucker goodness to accentuate her 335 tone. At first the stock pickups didn't sound very complimentary, so I just wrote them off as being from the era when stock pickups were simply placeholders. From the cheap import boom of the 80s into the mid 2000s almost all stock pickups were eventually replaced with Duncans, DiMarzios, or EMGs. It's only more recently that guitar companies have stepped up their game on stock pickups, now offering pickups that sound really good, and usually stay in the guitars they came with. My favorites are the new Epiphone pickups, which have become vastly more optimal than they once were. I'm not talking about the Gibson Burstbuckers they're putting into Epiphones, I mean Epiphone Alnico Classic Pro, and ProBucker pickups.

In my quest to find Cherrie the most budget friendly set of PAFs I've listened to a lot of youtube demos of the Alnico Classic Pros, and decided those are what I want. I even tested Cherrie's stock pickups side by side with a youtube demo of Alnico Classic Pros in an Epiphone ES-335. It's not the most scientific experiment, I grant you, but it did teach me something. These stock pickups aren't very far off the Alnico Classic Pros. They do have some characteristics of PAFs, even though they're super cheap, and I'm quite sure the magnet is ceramic. The bridge pickup has that Tele sound that everyone raves about in a "good PAF". The neck is a bit fatter, but doesn't muddy the clarity, although mine is microphonic. Again, this isn't anywhere near the best way to compare, but it did open my eyes to the fact that these pickups aren't far off from where I want to be. I shall call them PeaveyAFs.

I decided to take my experiment one step further and tested my Burstbucker Pros side by side with the PeaveyAFs. I recorded myself playing both my LP and Cherrie, then I listened back to the examples through headphones to see what any differences were. Again, two totally different guitars so this isn't the most scientific, but I found the neck BB Pro has a bit more of that nasal quality than the neck PeaveyAF, but it's certainly there, just more subtle. Also both neck humbuckers had a chime, like every note was wrapped in glass, that I really like. Cherrie's neck pickup was a bit warmer, but that's to be expected. Now, the bridge humbuckers were so close it really didn't matter. There was a slight difference, but again I think it might be the 335 warmth. The nasal quality was there, the chime was there, and again they both offer that Tele sound everyone wants in a PAF. I would need a computer analysis to really break down the difference in the bridge humbuckers. It was that close.

So, what have I learned? A set of ceramic magnet import pickups can sound really close to Gibson USA Burstbucker Pros, apparently. Even though these pickups were super cheap, I think Peavey may have put some real thought into them. There are no markings on them, which is super common on import guitar pickups, so I can't be sure they're anything special, but I will confess they're not as bad as I originally thought they were. I was wrong. Now, should I find a set of decent PAF copies at a fairly cheap price I'll most likely buy them, with plans of later swapping them out. Especially if they're Gibson 57 Classics, or some other really nice PAF copies. For now though, I'm pretty happy with what I'm hearing from the PeaveyAFs. I guess it shows how preconceptions can really cloud your mind into thinking one direction or another.