One Dry Z
- Thread starter dombat
- Start date
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duaneflowers
Active member
dombat said:
That's also the one purchased by Fatboy to take apart in order to clone for a proposed new Dry Z inspired set... I am generally wary about buying pickups from winders that tend to take them apart and put them back together...
duaneflowers
Active member
wulfman said:
It may be perfectly fine... but I did feel one eyebrow going up as some of the dots were being connected.
I wouldn't mind grabbing another set of Zs, but I do believe I'll be passing on that one... :wink:
Lucke Luke
Well-known member
Are Z's really that magical, or is it simply just a collectible?
duaneflowers
Active member
Lucke Luke said:
They rank among the finest pickups I have ever heard.
There are very few pickup winders out there that actually know what they are doing. "Boogie J" Takano is one of them... which is why his current pickups (K&T) sell at such a premium and even his early attempts at reproducing the true essence of a PAF pickup (i.e., the Dry Z) are still recognized as being superior to other efforts regardless of how well meaning the winders are.
The caveat is that most people have no idea what a genuine PAF pickup sounds like and while they vary quite a bit from set to set, and there are some rotten apples in the bunch, there is a common core to them... which is the true PAF sound... and so many folks are led to believe that the 'flavored' PAFs currently being touted as vintage sounding are the real McCoy... they aren't.
Don't get me wrong, many of these really sound great, I have many 'PAF' sets that I really love... but they are quite different from original PAFs and when people actually get a chance to play an original set they are generally quite underwhelmed and disappointed that they don't sound like the Duane Allman or Peter Green recordings they know and love. I hate to burst your bubble, but those are all due to sound engineering and masterful mixing... not pickups (although the pickups do allow that sound to be produced).
Have a listen to what the real Greeny sounds like unengineered (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQXw9Ir5Iwc) to see what real honest to goodness PAFs sound like. Not all that impressive right out of the box... but they have the potential to do what Greeny has done while most other pickups don't even get out of the starting gate.
So the bottom line is that real PAFs are not for everyone... but if that is the sound you are looking for (which to me is the sweetest sound out there) than the Dry-Zs come mighty close to delivering it. Sound and music are 100% subjective so YMMV and you might not agree with a word I'm saying... which is fine... just forward your Dry-Zs to me and I will happily dispose of them for you. :wink:
