New Throbak Day-PG-102

[jlee]

Just installed a set of Throbak PG-102 in my '83 Tokai LS-120. These are by far the best Peter Green style pickups I've owned. Owned WCR Green/Moore, W-B Peter Greens, Bare Knuckle PG Blues, Shed Supernaturals, 57 Classics w/flipped mag, Gotoh MK2 w/flipped mag and Manlius Fat Dianes w/flipped mag.

These growl like none of the other sets I've had. If you've seen that vid of Kirk Hammett playing Greeny and saying "this is a crunchy guitar", that quote keeps popping in my head when I plug in. There's a bite and growl that I felt was missing with my other sets. I hear it most obviously in Phil Harris' video with the original as well. Crunchy is a great adjective for these pickups! Not over the top hot or over the top thick. Very balanced, but have this crunchy, growl.

These are very complex sounding. Harmonics pop off the fretboard and they stay clearer than most with the guitar volume dialed back. The middle out of phase tone is there in spades, but I feel this is the easiest part of the puzzle to get. The complexity is there in my Throbak Pre-T set as well.

Middle position aside, these also rank as my favorite all around pickups. Much prefer these to the Wizz I have. OX4s are a very close second.

 

[scovell001]

Totally agree with you AbbeSauniere, the vid's on YT of Jon's PG102 pups are, in a word, stunning !

 

[jlee]

Yeah, I really didn't want to become part of the Throbak hype machine, but Jon's pickups are really special!

 

[Vash854]

Yeah, I really didn't want to become part of the Throbak hype machine, but Jon's pickups are really special!

You should make a little video/sound clip with the pickups, for science . Also what does the neck pickup sound like? I find that a lot of the PG pickups seem to have a bassy neck pickup that's very warm sounding but can lacks punchiness on the treble to balance it out and maybe even a bit too full sounding.

 

[vmjoe]

I've tried many winders and Throbak are the ones I still own.

 

[TM1]

I have a few sets in a few guitars!

 

[NotScott]

You should make a little video/sound clip with the pickups, for science . Also what does the neck pickup sound like? I find that a lot of the PG pickups seem to have a bassy neck pickup that's very warm sounding but can lacks punchiness on the treble to balance it out and maybe even a bit too full sounding.

I have the LTD set of these, wound with NOS wire, installed in one of my Les Pauls. Crunchy and ballsy are good descriptors for the bridge pickup and the middle position is Greeny to a T, once you adjust the heights right. However, as mentioned above, I do find the neck pup a bit too full and warm for my tastes. I have had to lower the bass side of the pup substantially to clean it up and it did take me a while to finally settle on a setup that I like after tweaking pup and polepiece heights for hours. The neck also tends to get murky very quickly when you turn down the neck volume. The bridge pup does not do this. I usually keep the neck tone at 10 and the bridge tone at 6 to compensate for this and it works well when using the neck or bridge by themselves. But when I go to the middle position, I find I get a more convincing Greeny tone by diming the bridge tone.

If you are into the creamy, cello-like neck tone, this is definitely for you. But if you like bright necks with some cut, these may not be your favorites.

 

[Vash854]

I have the LTD set of these, wound with NOS wire, installed in one of my Les Pauls. Crunchy and ballsy are good descriptors for the bridge pickup and the middle position is Greeny to a T, once you adjust the heights right. However, as mentioned above, I do find the neck pup a bit too full and warm for my tastes. I have had to lower the bass side of the pup substantially to clean it up and it did take me a while to finally settle on a setup that I like after tweaking pup and polepiece heights for hours. The neck also tends to get murky very quickly when you turn down the neck volume. The bridge pup does not do this. I usually keep the neck tone at 10 and the bridge tone at 6 to compensate for this and it works well when using the neck or bridge by themselves. But when I go to the middle position, I find I get a more convincing Greeny tone by diming the bridge tone.

If you are into the creamy, cello-like neck tone, this is definitely for you. But if you like bright necks with some cut, these may not be your favorites.

Yea that's actually exactly what I've found! The neck pickup has that kind of violin like smoothness and lots of low mids, great for soloing and single note stuff, but a bit dull on the treble (kinda like it lacks presence, very mellow sounding on the high b and e strings), unless you have the volume full up at 10. I actually like playing with my volumes somewhere between 5-9 (going from 10 to 8/9 just softens that slightly harsh upper mid treble), but then the neck becomes a bit dark when rolled down and just has this overall full blended kind of sound with a lot of bass when you strum a chord.

There is this video of Peter Green playing "Oh Well" and you can see his neck pickup has the bass side below the ring, maybe it was just the character of that neck pickup, perhaps the neck pickup just has to be completely different from the bridge to get the right out of phase balance. Which sucks in some ways since the difference between the bridge and neck is so striking in terms of brightness and attack.

 

[jlee]

I'm not finding the neck pickup to be murky or dark at all. Fat, yes, but much clearer and more articulate than the Fat Dianes that were in the guitar previously. The proverbial blanket came off with the Throbaks installed. There's a nice bite there with the Throbaks on both the bridge and neck. I find the clean up on the neck to be as good as anything else I've owned. I think they clean up better than the Wizz set I had, but those were in a different guitar with a different harness.

The different experiences could very well be down to the guitars they're in. My old Tokai was super fussy about neck pickups. Just about anything and everything sounded wooly and muddy in the neck.