I'm in the market for a good PAF-sound humbucker. I've heard good things about the Seymour Duncans, but I wanted a few other opinions.

Seymour Duncans are good pickups. The seth Lover is a good PAF type in the Duncan line. His Antiquity PAF type humbucker will get you further into the zone. Antiquity is like his boutique line. Certainly there are a lot of those out there, too. You can check out the Skatterbrane link to this website. There's Fralin, Tom Holmes, Throbak, Voodoo, Timbuckers(no longer made) and lots more. If yer puttin humbuckers in a Fender type guitar, you have to have a Fender spaced pickup in the bridge position. My Mexican Tele Deluxe has Duncan pickups. I think it's a Seth Lover in the neck and an Alnico II(?) in the bridge position. The Alnico II(I think) is very similar to the Seth Lover. You won't find nearly as much selction out there in the world with Fender spaced humbuckers but, they do exist and with Fender or Fender type bridges, it does make a difference with the strings passing over the pole pieces properly. Good luck! WW

What are the rail type pickups Bob has on one of his Strats ?

What amp did you use for your accoustic set ?

Uh, yeah, the bridge position doo-whacky... uh, what Webb said. Yeah! That's the ticket.

Huh? God bless the gearheads, 'cause I'm flippin' clueless in this department. I just know what I like!!

Those rail type strat pickups are DiMarzios, a "Chopper" in the bridge and a pair of "Fast Track 1's" in
the middle and neck. The PRS has Seymour Duncans in it. Seymour's stuff is great too and I have them in a lot of my guitars..
I was playing the acoustic through a Fender "Acoustasonic" amp.

Go look at the past few issues of Premier Guitar magazine. They are online I believe. They have been concentrating on pickups the past few issues and have featured Duncan and Lollar etc as well as types over the years. If you know the sound you are trying to get, there are custom winders too.

Webb, this is going to be going into an Epiphone LP that I'm planning on buying soon (half off MSRP). I had been looking at the Seth's, and the regular ol' SH-1's, as they're listed as being well suited for a mahogany body. They also have a pickup called a pearly gate that sounds a little too bright for what I'm looking for, although I toyed for a while with putting a Seth in the neck and a PG in the bridge

That's my boy ... and he didn't learn that stuff from me .........
(I'm with you, omatic)

Here's the deal. Real old PAFs were hand wound(or wound to non standardized varying specs on machines without counters), unpotted, wonderful, twangy, bright, harmonically complex pickups that were versatile as Hell and generally (they're all a little different) not too high in output. They are virtually unduplicatable because of the various materials in them that are no longer available, manufacturing techniquesand well,...Mojo. Remember too, that part of that sound was in part due to the old Gibsons they came in that were made from old growth wood that had been air dried for years before these "Golden Era" guitars were built.. Having said all that, the Pearly Gates is a little stronger and maybe a little honkier, a good sounding pickup. The Seth is more like but, not really in the zone of an honest to God PAF. For that you need an Antiquity or some other boutique humbucker. In an Asian made Epi, put the Seth in or the Pearly gates if you want more output or coil tapping (one of the better ones for that) Don't put a thousand dollar saddle on a $50 horse, I guess? Some of the import guitars are really good but, something from Duncan's regular line will be more than adequate. Scrappy Jud Newcomb plays a stone stock import Epi Riviera, pickups and all with Ian Maclagan and sounds great! If you do change the pickups, you might get into some non standardized routes, screws, etc. with the Epi. Good luck! WW

Even Seymour Duncan stated in his interview in the magazine that the Seth Lover model was close and Seth liked them, but not the same. As Webb said, materials and methods have changed. Most for the better, but often at the cost of tone.

I really appreciate your help, Webb! I'll let you know how it goes.

A timely thread on this over at TGP:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=449829