Modern P.A.F.
True PAF Tone, Modern Output
$175 – $350
The Modern P.A.F. is our Pure P.A.F. on steroids. It’s great for more modern styles of music that need a little more output and power. The Modern P.A.F. features a thicker midrange with a quick and even breakup.
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True PAF Tone, Modern Output
Want to learn more about our Modern P.A.F.? Here's all the information you'll need:
Features
The Fralin Modern P.A.F. is the second best-selling humbucker we make. We took the specifications of the 50’s Gibson® P.A.F. pickups and added more power and output. We designed the Modern P.A.F. as a stronger, thicker, and warmer version of our Pure P.A.F. This pickup is for those looking for traditional tone only a little thicker and darker. With more turns and stronger magnets, the Modern P.A.F. will break up sooner and sound warmer and beefier than our Pure P.A.F.
- Our Second-Best-Selling Humbucker – low output, vintage tone
- Thick, strong while still bright. Features an early, smooth breakup
- Modernized Gibson PAF® specifications: medium output, with modern clarity and power
- USA-made Alnico 4 Magnets for vintage tonal balance and output
- Compensated Overwound Bridge for even volume across all pickups
- Hand-wound with our “Sectioning” technique for unique, dynamic tone
- Hand-built for unrivaled quality control
- 10-Year Warranty on manufacturing defects
Our manufacturing process allows us to achieve unparalleled quality control. Modern P.A.F.’s consist of USA-Made bobbins, baseplates, magnets, and wire. We wind each pickup by hand, one at a time. Each pickup is wound using our proprietary “Sectioning” technique. This gives the pickup a sweet, clear tone.
We assemble each pickup one at a time, by hand. Making pickups this way allows us to achieve unbeatable attention to detail. After assembly, we wax-pot the pickup to preserve the pickup and prevent microphonics.
Sound & Video
Thick, strong, yet clear. Expect loud, warm tones with darker treble strings and woolier bass strings. With distortion, this model will break up faster than our Pure P.A.F. and has a smooth and buttery grind. You’ll hear a pronounced midrange, smooth high-end and attack. AlNicCo IV magnets and Plain Enamel wire give the Modern P.A.F. a perfect balance of modern and vintage tone.
Clean tones are warm, round, and full. Single notes have a larger footprint, while bass strings sound bouncy and rich. You’ll be able to get warm jazzy tones out of this pickup with ease. Dirty tones will sound creamier and smoother than our Pure P.A.F, with a smoother attack.
Sound Samples for Modern P.A.F.:
About this Sound Clip:
All sound samples are played from Neck Position First and Bridge Position Last.
Tonal Graph For Modern P.A.F.:
The tonal graph below for our Modern P.A.F. features Lows, Midrange, Highs, and general Output.
Attack: Dynamic & Full
Videos for Modern P.A.F.:
Tech Specs:
See below for the estimated DCR and Polarity Information for our Modern P.A.F..
| SPECIFICATION | VALUE |
|---|---|
| Neck Ohm Reading (Stock): | 8K 1 |
| Bridge Ohm Reading (Stock): | 9K 1 |
| Neck Polarity: | Reversible with 3-Conductor or 4-Conductor Lead |
| Bridge Polarity: | Reversible with 3-Conductor or 4-Conductor Lead |
| Magnet: | USA-Made Alnico 4 |
| Wire: | USA-Made 42-Gauge Plain Enamel |
| Cover Material: | Nickel Silver |
| Baseplate Material: | Nickel Silver |
| Baseplate Leg Depth: | 6mm |
| Slug / Pole Piece Material: | Steel |
| Bobbin Material: | ABS Plastic |
| Recommended Pot Value: | 500K |
| Recommended Cap Value: | 0.02mfd 2 |
Additional Technical Info:
1 Ohm Readings can vary due to a multitude of factors, including ambient temperature, multimeter calibration, different wire batches, and other factors. Due to this, ohm readings are approximate. Learn more about Ohm Readings here.
2 We recommend a 0.02mfd Cap Value on most guitar and bass pickups. The exception is a Magic Cap, which Lindy prefers on the Bridge Pickup of Fender® guitars only. Learn More about Caps Here.
Polarity Information:
Here's how we wind and magnetize our pickups:
This is a Hum Cancelling Pickup.
If you're buying a set from us, all pickups will work together seamlessly. If you're buying a single pickup, all you need to worry about is Coil Direction.
To ensure your pickup will work, make sure you select multiple leads (2-Conductor, 3-Conductor, or 4-Conductor if available), or the 3-Wire modification so you can reverse the coil direction, if need be.
Lead Options
See below for our Lead color codes. For help with matching to other manufacturers, check out this resource here.
Gibson Braided Lead
Gibson-Style instruments
Phase Reversible
Coil Splitting
3-Conductor Lead
Phase Reversible
Coil Splitting
4-Conductor Lead
Phase Reversible
Series Parallel Wiring
Coil Splitting
Covered Humbucker
Uncovered Humbucker
Get It Prewired
Get our Modern P.A.F. prewired into a Prewired Pickguard!:
Featured Reviews
Reviews We Worked Hard For, and Are Proud Of
Customer Reviews
71 Genuine Reviews for Modern P.A.F.
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I’m just reaching out to say thank you! My recent purchase of the modern PAFs sounds amazing in my new R7 Goldtop!!!! This is my third purchase of the sets! My Les Paul’s scream!!!! I can get MASSIVE dirt to chime with textured lows when clean. I really couldn’t be happier. I feel like it’s the perfect humbucker for today’s rock guitar player who is a tone freak. Thank you again.
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Fantastic set of pickups. True paf sound with more bite from the 9.5k/8.5k set, while still cleaning up extremely with volume and tone roll off, assuming you have quality potentiometers.
Extreme clarity, string definition, and note separation.
Exactly what I was going for in my Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s.
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My guy Lindy is a dawg. Made me a first custom set with pure neck and modern bridge. Incredible balanced humbucker tone. Can’t recommend enough!
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Unfortunately, I can’t give a definitive review 6 weeks after I ordered my Modern PAF bridge pickup with an Alnico II magnet, because it was made with 3 wire leads, instead of 4 wire leads, as I originally requested. My luthier spent many hours unsuccessfully trying to install it into my 2016 Les Paul Standard, which has the coil splitting and phase features, as well as a PCB board rather than the old-style wiring. Apparently, 4-wire leads are necessary to install the pickup. So I had to return it, and am still waiting for the new one.
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Hey Larry, Lindy definitely feels bad about this and we are working on getting your correct Modern PAF out ASAP.
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Put these in place of some Seymour Duncan’s in my Gibson LP Standard and oh my gosh what a difference. All of a sudden became my best sounding guitar. Will be ordering more for my Veritas Portlander and honestly I’m so impressed that I’m probably going to switch out my Filter’trons in my Silver Falcon for the Fralin’trons! Great job guys and THANK YOU!
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Best PAF I’ve ever played. The clarity is incredible. Been awhile since a piece of gear has wowed me to this extent. I’ve tried a lot of different humbuckers but you can stop your search here, just get a set.
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THE BEST PAF I’ve ever played! The tone and dynamics you get out of these pickups is RIDICULOUS!
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Awesome sound
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Well, so much depends on the guitar that it would be unfair to say anything bad. Now I know that I would prefer alnico V vs alnico IV for my round and warm but middy sounding Schecter PT. But this pickup has everything What can be expected from Fralin pickups – great harmonics, complexity, clarity. There are no bad pickups from Fralin.
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Installed a Modern PAF (9k) in the bridge of my American Strat alongside some blues specials in the middle and neck, did the Suhr HSS wiring with a partial split for position 2 and this strat came alive! Such a full sound that still has the strat character and now a guitar I can pickup for any style of music. Gave this guitar the feel I was missing. Thank you Lindy
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Super awesome! I couldn’t be happier. Thanks.
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Bought the Modern PAF for the bridge position to pair with a Alnico Noiseless P90 in the neck. It’s amazing, for two reasons:
1. The two pickups match very well.
2. When overdriven, the Modern PAF sounds very balanced, open, and “relaxed”, like a wise man who is tough but not easily angered. -
I got my 8K/9K Modern PAF set second hand, but these are definitely some of the best pickups I’ve tried. I play a Les Paul Standard thru a 2204, and these pickups really sound amazing. Great cleans, with plenty of drive to do whatever I want (from blues to hard rock to AIC levels of gain).
I’ve been surprised at the level of clarity the pickups have, and how nicely I can roll back the guitar and clean up a pretty overdriven sound to beautiful clean tones. These replaced a very good set of Dimarzio 36ths. They ended up being s lot better than I ever expected, but I am definitely happier with the Fralin 8K/9Ks. Both sets did what I needed, but the clarity & balance of the Fralins wins. -
The complete set of Modern P.A.F. pickups transformed what I though was a good sounding Gold Top into something with bold presence and balanced full tone. Following the instructions the installation was simple and should last last a life time of use.
I’m just an amateur but, I could tell the pickups were first class electronics! -
Hello, it took a while for me to get my pickups installed into my Les Paul Modern as the original electronics have all the push/pull knobs etc. which I could care less about. So, after getting the necessary replacement parts we rebuilt it. It was the lighter body I wanted. Getting it back with your humbuckers installed and all the electronics as a standard Les Paul. Oh my GOD! This is the best sounding Les Paul I have ever owned! What vintage tone! What sweet sustain! I am your biggest fan right here, right now. Any guitarist reading this who may be on the fence about buying your pickups, I say, DUDE…just buy ’em! You can’t go wrong!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Richard Torrance -
I got set of Modern PAFs few weeks ago, and I really enjoy it. A lot of musical harmonics, and does not feel “fuzzy” with high gain and note separation is great. The only problem (though really minor) was that when it came, the bridge pickup had wrong wires. Had to go through few trial and erros to find the which wire was which. Must been a hindsight at QC.
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I upgraded from a stock pair of neck and bridge cheap pickups on a Dean guitar to the Fraulin modern PAF based off a recommendation from my local luthier with his knowledge of my playing style. I gravitate towards clean and crunch, up to medium gain/distortion type sounds, with corresponding amps and effects. These pickups have been nothing but amazing for my playing. I can roll back the volume and tone knobs to get a clear and warm, but not muddy, sound. Contrastingly I can roll up the volume and brighten the tone to get a bright but not thin or harsh crunch to medium distortion sound out of even cleaner amps like Fender Twins and great crunch sound profiles on Vox and Big Pig-style digital amp sims. HIghly recommend for anyone that wants a pickup that can allow for a lot of versatility and tone shaping. If you don’t have a four-knob guitar, recommend modifying yours to have 2×2 pots for even more custom shaping of tone and maximum versatility across the pickups.
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I chose the modern PAF set after consultation with Lindy.
Standard wind set with Ryan nickel covers to replace a custom buckers in a custom shop Les Paul.
I loved the stock pick ups in the Les Paul Tonalli, however, they were not waxed potted and when I used game and volume together, they squealed terribly.
The modern PAF set has many of the qualities that I love about the custom buckers, minus the squeal.
Great Blues, blues rock, Classic rock to more modern tones are all in there! They clean up well with picking dynamic and volume part adjustments. Highly recommended! -
These are great pickups! I’ve used these in my builds for years now, and I think they are about the best platform available. Not as compressed as alnico 2 magnet pickups, but still sweet and present in the mids, unlike many alinico 5 magnet pickups. Broad frequency response that’s voiced evenly….
What’s not to like? -
Great pick ups. Able to get a creamier vintage sound at lower levels but also able to get a crunchier metal sound at higher volume and gain. Also able to get a cleaner sound with a bite.
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