Kent Armstrong Vs. Traditional jazz humbucker pickups
van
Borys said was specially designed for the Borys B120 I play, and had
him install it.
I bought the guitar with a Seymour Duncan/ Seth Lover the original
owner had installed when he had the guitar built for him, but have
never liked the slightly blurry quality chords have when played at
drummer gigs volume.
Through Roger's Mini Brute, the chords sounded much clearer than the
SD/SL, and the guitar had a stronger middle range sound.
Tomorrow night, I'm going to play it at our last jazz concert for the
summer through my AI Coda head and RS10 cab for the first time, and am
interested in how it compares to the SD/SL.
Has anyone compared a KA to a traditional PAF?
The pickup and installation cost $150, plus I got Roger to do a little
work on the guitar gratis, so compared to the $169 the p/u costs
online, I got a pretty good deal.
Plus I got to play half a dozen incredible Borys guitars- carved top,
solid body jazz (the same model Paul Bollenback just bought), nylon
string, flat top, and also hear some great Jimmy D'Aquisto/Joe Pass
stories for 3 hours.
joe montgomery
> Has anyone compared a KA to a traditional PAF?
My custom made archtop came with a Seth Lover Duncan installed...
It was nice sounding in a ontrolled environment but in the real gig
world I thought it was 'weak' sounding...Clarus, RE 10 rig.
I switched out to a Kent Armstrong PAF...never looked back!
I have a floater armstrong AND a set pickup armstrong (same pickup,
different harnessing) and they are both great...
that said I love the dimarzio in my Sadowsky JH.
Hope this helps a little,
jm
invisaman75
The Seth Lover is is great pickup but not real a good fit for high
volumes. I think read on SD site not more than 50 watts. I think this
because the Seth Lover is not waxed potted.
Mark Kleinhaut
> I finally decided to check out the Kent Armstrong humbucker that Roger
> Borys said was specially designed for the Borys B120 I play, and had
> him install it.
I wonder how the Kent Armstrong pup specially designed for the B120 is
different then the Kent Armstrong pup specially designed for the
Ribbecke Halfling I have? Either way, I really like mine a lot.
mikeo
Are you guys talking about Kent's vermont-made 12-adjustable polepiece
PAF, or one of the other Kent Armstrong pickups?
I use the aforementioned pickups exclusively (but in 14-pole variety),
and am aware that Kent will pretty much build to order to match a
specific string spacing. He also offers a "PAF-0" version, which is a
hotter pickup than his regular "PAF". I put these into 2 of my
Eastman guitars to attenuate some of the natural brightness of those
guitars and they worked well. I imagine Kent offers other variations
of these, including logos or private labeling too. He is a great guy
to deal with.
After swapping pickups in and out of many guitars, though, i must say
that the same pickup will sound quite different in different guitars;
so much of the character of the guitar is coming through the pickup,
more so in hollow guitars than in solidbodies, IMO.
good luck.
Neil Lamb
I have two 7 string guitars that I custom ordered with Benedetto ( by
Seymour Duncan) pickups. One a floater , the other set in. I replaced
the floater with an older Benedetto pickup by Kent Armstrong , and
the other with a new handwound Kent Armstrong . In both cases the
sound improved to my ear. A little less midrange, more even response
from top to bottom. The Seymour Duncans seem to have a bluesier
sound and the KA's have a more Hi Fi sound better suited to finger
style jazz.
Best,
Neil
mikeo
i think you are referring to the narrower, smooth top Armstrong
pickups that are typically attached via a mounting tab to the finger
rest, is that right? i was not sure from van which pickup he is asking
about.
sheetsofsound
i dunno but after hearing Fareed Haque with his cheap ibanez and a
polytone, I'm ready to concede that it's in the fingers . Equipment
just doesn't matter AT ALL.
van
I used it on the gig tonight and though we were cramped for room ,
what I heard over the dynamite big band sounded damn good. And I
didn't crank the clarus past 2 and1/2.
Of course my friend the trumpet player has to come up to me and say-
"I don't know, after all the shit you bought, most of us think you
sounded better with the orange cube-60 amp (!)
I told him to leave me the hell alone if he knew what wes good for
him ; ' )
Tim McNamara
<14c3d336-a6cf-4482...@t7g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
sheetsofsound <jackz...@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't know that equipment doesn't matter at all, but it seems clear
that brilliant players can overcome the limitations of the equipment
better than I can.
--
That'll put marzipan in your pie plate, Bingo.
van
Mike-
Since Roger was in VT. when he first made the B-120, I assume it's the
VT made one.
Roger opened it up and started talking about there being extra magnets
in it and some other technical shit, but that usually goes in one ear
and out the other when it comes to electronics.
The Beauregard MB I was telling you about had a Kent Armstrong(I don't
know which model), so that clinched the deal for me.
I should have done this ages ago...
Thanks all for your input!