Quiet Riot - The PAF Humbucker

 

Jimmy Page: Gibson Les Paul Sunburst (1959)

Page’s No.1 was fitted with PAFs that were supposedly exchanged for the once derided but now sought-after ’70s T-Tops. ‘When I think of PAF-loaded LPs, Jimmy with a low-slung LP always comes to mind first,’ says Tim Mills
 

Albert King: Gibson Flying V (1959)
 

King’s ’59 Flying V was powered by a set of original PAFs. The left-handed maestro played much like Hendrix, upside down, but left the strings as they were, allowing him to bend his high strings down instead of up
 

Peter Green: Gibson Les Paul Standard (1959)

Heard on nearly all of Fleetwood Mac’s releases and some Mayall material, this guitar has a neck PAF that seems to be backwards. A bodged repair meant that the coils were rewound with reverse polarity, giving Green his ‘out of phase’ sound

Duane Allman (Allman Brothers)

Although Allman had a ’59 sunburst, a ’58 tobacco sunburst and a ’68 SG, his legendary tone was achieved with his ’57 Les Paul goldtop with PAFs
 

Snowy White
 

Snowy White traded his Strat for a ’57 Les Paul goldtop and even attained the nickname ‘Gold Top’. ‘I put a switch on it to make it out-of-phase, so I push one of the tone controls and it puts it out-of-phase,’ says Snowy 

Joe Bonamassa: Gibson Les Paul (1959) Bonamassa rates his PAF-powered LP as among his best. ‘The main ’59 has original PAFs from a ’63 ES-335… Those are the best for obvious reasons.’
 

Jeff Beck: the Telegib
 

Beck’s Blow By Blow shows his ’54 Les Paul, which gained PAFs in the ’70s. However, it also features the Seymour Duncan-made Telegib, a Tele with Gibson stopbar and tailpiece and PAFs from a Flying V that once belonged to Lonnie Mack 
 

Billy Gibbons: Les Paul Standard, aka ‘Pearly Gates’ (1959)

The pickups in Gibbons’ favourite Les Paul were replicated by Seymour Duncan for his own ‘Pearly Gates’ pickups. They have a higher output than many other PAFs 
 

Eddie Van Halen: ’Frankenstrat’

Self-described ‘tone chaser’ Van Halen was a massive fan of Strats, but he also loved the tone of Gibson’s PAF – so he combined the two for his legendary ‘Frankenstrat’. He installed a PAF in the bridge position that he dipped in paraffin wax in a coffee can! As the string spacing is different, he also angled the pickup to correct the issue