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I know some people get a bit sceptical about the effect that the construction of a capacitor can have have on a guitar's tone, but we really believe that it makes a difference. A few years ago, we put some original bumblebee capacitors in a client's Les Paul. We were amazed to find that, despite the values being the same as the old capacitors, it really opened up the sound of the guitar, making the tone knob far more usable; rather than simply getting muddy as we rolled the tone down, we found that the guitar now developed a really interesting mid-range character, reminiscent of a subtle wah sound. We were determined to find some caps that sounded as good as this and, after much looking, found these NOS Russian caps. 

If you've thoroughly perused our website and are yet to find anything that tickles your fancies, we would be delighted to make you a set of custom pickups (or a custom loom for that matter). Please just drop us an email to get the ball rolling.

In our PAFs, we use Alnico 5 for the neck and Alnico 2 for the bridge. The choice of Alnico 5 often raises eyebrows, as many people consider that it is too strong a magnet for a low wind humbucker. 

We decided upon this combo after years of research, getting hands on with literally hundreds (We think. We've slightly lost count) of sets of original PAFs that we've had the incredibly good fortune to test and/or repair. We've found that the best sounding PAF sets have a fairly strong magnet in the neck and a weaker magnet in the bridge. This keeps a nice amount of clarity in the neck pickup, whilst preventing the bridge pickup from getting too shrill. After testing basically every combination we could think of, we realised that the best way to replicate this is to use Alnico 5 in the neck and Alnico 2 in the bridge.

Obviously it goes with out saying that the choice of magnet is only one part of a pickup's design; the sound of a pickup is created by the interaction of all of its parts, so it's difficult to say that a particular magnet has a certain sound. Our PAFs are built around the Alnico 5/2 magnet combo and we believe that they sound their best when using this combo. That being said, everybody's taste is different; if you're sure that you want a different magnet combo, we would be delighted to custom wind a set of PAFs to your specification. 

Braided 2 conductor wire is the stuff that Gibson used in the 50's. It's comprised of an insulated live wire surrounded by a braided sheath that gets soldered to ground. It's lovely and easy to work with, but doesn't allow for any coil splitting/tapping or series/parallel switching.

4 conductor wire is a more modern layout. It's comprised of 4 wires (a live and a ground for each coil), as well as a foil sheath that grounds the metalwork. Having a live and a ground for each coil does allow for all kinds of wiring trickery, but 4 conductor pickups can also be used in exactly the same way as their 2 conductor counterparts, so there's no harm in getting 4 conductor, even if you don't want any fancy wiring.