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King Loudness « Decent pickup for hard rock or shred. »
Published on 05/01/11 at 08:11I purchased a 1987 Yamaha RGX1212s (Jackson Soloist clone) that was loaded with one of these in the bridge position. I had always read that the PAF Pro was essentially meant to be a PAF, but supercharged for those shred metalists of the eighties. Indeed, Paul Gilbert was a huge proponent of this pickup at one time, which backs up the opinion that it's meant for shredding. I agree with this assessment as well. At the time that I purchased the Yamaha, I was playing almost solely neoclassical shred guitar and this pickup worked very well for that.
It's not the most versatile pickup by any means. I found it to be fairly one dimensional in its sound quality, so clean tones were passable at best. They had a nice low end at times for thicker/bluesier textures. However, for that classic eighties LA clean tone, this pickup was just too thick and one dimensional. The same flaw was true if I tried to play more blues or classic rock with a mildly overdriven tone... it just didn't have the right texture for that. It almost felt to me like I had to use a bunch of gain to get this pickup to really shine, and considering the demographic that it was aimed at, this is no surprise to me.
The overdrive tones were killer. I was playing shred in the neoclassical vein as stated and this pickup was great for that. It was very articulate with faster alternate picked passages, and you could easily hear all of the notes through the gain. Definitely ideal for what I was doing musically at the time. The rhythm tones were nice and chunky at higher gain settings as well, which I felt was excellent. As I shifted away from playing shred 100% of the time, I begun to like the pickup less and less and ultimately, after moving directions to a more basic rock sound, I ended up selling the guitar with the pickup loaded in it.
All in all I felt the PAF Pro was a great sounding pickup for shred based tones. It did the Paul Gilbert fast picking thing really well and was articulate enough to handle a barrage of notes. However, the tonal spectrum of this pickup was too one dimensional for my tastes, so anything other than shred metal type sounds didn't seem to sound as good. If you're looking for a good shred pickup... give this a whirl. It's not quite as high output as the Evo or D-Activator, but it still takes gain like a champ.
It's not the most versatile pickup by any means. I found it to be fairly one dimensional in its sound quality, so clean tones were passable at best. They had a nice low end at times for thicker/bluesier textures. However, for that classic eighties LA clean tone, this pickup was just too thick and one dimensional. The same flaw was true if I tried to play more blues or classic rock with a mildly overdriven tone... it just didn't have the right texture for that. It almost felt to me like I had to use a bunch of gain to get this pickup to really shine, and considering the demographic that it was aimed at, this is no surprise to me.
The overdrive tones were killer. I was playing shred in the neoclassical vein as stated and this pickup was great for that. It was very articulate with faster alternate picked passages, and you could easily hear all of the notes through the gain. Definitely ideal for what I was doing musically at the time. The rhythm tones were nice and chunky at higher gain settings as well, which I felt was excellent. As I shifted away from playing shred 100% of the time, I begun to like the pickup less and less and ultimately, after moving directions to a more basic rock sound, I ended up selling the guitar with the pickup loaded in it.
All in all I felt the PAF Pro was a great sounding pickup for shred based tones. It did the Paul Gilbert fast picking thing really well and was articulate enough to handle a barrage of notes. However, the tonal spectrum of this pickup was too one dimensional for my tastes, so anything other than shred metal type sounds didn't seem to sound as good. If you're looking for a good shred pickup... give this a whirl. It's not quite as high output as the Evo or D-Activator, but it still takes gain like a champ.