Uhhhh....who´s wrong?? - About Jem humbuckers

urkoman · #1 03-18-2002, 04:28 PM

I´ve always prefered earlier jem than newer ones, so I took a look to this site´s guitars specs, and a doubt came with the pickups used by jem´s...PAF pro???Hmmm.. Dimarzio says in their web site they introduced the paf pro in 1992,so how could a 88 Jem equip it?Was a different pickup or dimarzio.com is wrong?If wasn´t a PAF pro which one was?

jay ratkowski · #2 03-18-2002, 04:55 PM

Good question. *Maybe the PAF wasn't used as a regular production model but only special order for manufacturers (like the Blaze Custom maybe)? *No clue says me.

vaijem777 · #3 03-18-2002, 05:03 PM

I'll have to dig out my old catalogs and stuff to be sure, but I don't think that Ibanez actually referred to the earliest JEM pickups as "DiMarzio Humbucking" pickups- not as actual PAF PROs. *Perhaps they later became the PAF PRO?

**jono** · #4 03-18-2002, 05:06 PM

I think it's a type on the DiMarzio website. I'm pretty sure they PAF Pro has been around for ages maybe 82 instead of 92?

jem7vwh · #5 03-18-2002, 05:11 PM

Maybe the re-issued the PAF PRO in 92, or maybe they issued the Paf CLASSIC in 92, but the PAF Pro's definately been around a long time.

vaijem777 · #6 03-18-2002, 05:15 PM

Looks like that in the '87-89 literature, the pickups are simply referred to as "DiMarzio Humbucking", but beginning in 1990, they are referred to as "PAF PRO". *

littlegreenman · #7 03-18-2002, 05:17 PM

Weren't they originally just called PAF humbucking pickups, and then became PAF Pro???

jem7vwh · #8 03-18-2002, 05:24 PM

Hmm...so here's the deal a few folks have told me now.. The JEM's always had PAF pro's, but they weren't for aftermarket sale until '92, at which point it was necessary to name them? *

vaijem777 · #9 03-18-2002, 05:28 PM

The PAF & PAF PRO are actually two different models of DiMarzio pickups. *DiMarzio says that they introduced the PAF in 1974, and the PAF PRO in 1990, but...there's an obvious discrepency in the fact that Ibanez does denote the JEM pickups as a PAF PRO in the 1990 and on catalogs & literature. *I suppose that perhaps the '87-'89 pickups could have been PAF's, and then were switched over to PAF PRO's once they were introduced. *

My LNG DOES sound quite a bit different from the '91 FP I had- the LNG is a bit mellower, and the FP had more "bite" to it...

RSVampire · #10 03-19-2002, 03:06 AM

I agree with vaijem777 here. The PAF and PAF Pro are different pickups. I know that the PAF (not Pro) has been around for a long time. Practically everyone in the 80's used them.

Akhenaten · #11 03-21-2002, 09:16 AM

And yet the original schematic listed DP151 as the pickups on the LNG. DP151 is in fact the PAF Pro...so they must have been around. Maybe as you said, just not as an aftermarket piece. The wiring diagram was in the ever-famous issue of Guitar World with Steve on the cover (May '8

with his floral. The same picture later used for posters from Ibanez...

vaijem777 · #12 03-21-2002, 11:04 AM

Has anybody actually taken a look at their LNG's pickups yet? *I'm sure the model number would be stamped on the pickups. *I'll try to check mine out if I get a chance.

rvj · #13 03-21-2002, 11:58 AM

The pink PAFro's that are in my 1987 777DY are stamped:

* * * * *"DiMarzio Pickups"
* * * * * "Made In U.S.A."

I also have a green PAF Pro that is from a VBK, it' stamped exactly like the pinks. No part numbers on any of them. --rvj