Historic 58 PAF Humbucker Set
PAF humbuckers built in Kalamazoo in 1958 were unlike anything before or since. The HD58 is built to that exact year-specific specification — the first generation, exactly as it existed that year. More than historically accurate. We don't chase the PAF tone. We build it. Not a generic PAF with a year stamped on the box.
What made the original 1958 PAF unlike anything that followed was not one thing. It was everything working together at once:
- Punch and immediacy in the attack that grabs the note and holds it
- A woody, throaty midrange that sits in any mix without fighting for space
- Open, uncompressed highs with presence and clarity that never turn harsh
- Harmonic complexity that keeps revealing itself the longer you play — overtones and undertones that most modern pickups compress out of existence
- Touch sensitivity so complete that every shift in pick pressure, every subtle change in attack, comes through in the amp with total honesty
That is the quality that separates a real PAF from everything built since. The HD58 delivers that.
The 1958 PAF is not the same pickup as the 1959. Lower output, more open, and possessed of a three-dimensional harmonic character that the slightly hotter 1959 wind produces differently. Most players never get to make that comparison. Most boutique pickup makers never force them to. We do. Because the player who has spent years chasing this tone deserves a pickup built to the exact year they are chasing — not a compromise wound to satisfy everyone and built for no one.
Roll back your volume and the HD58 cleans up completely and immediately — warm, open, and rich with overtones that a potted or overwound pickup buries. Push the amp and it responds with natural, harmonically dense breakup that never loses the fundamental note underneath the drive. This pickup amplifies your playing. It does not replace it.
Every HD58 set ships with genuine NOS Paper in Oil capacitors — vintage components over 50 years old — completing the period-correct signal chain from pickup to output jack. When you commit to getting the year right, every link in the chain matters.
The HD58 is built around nothing else.
Bridge Pickup — DCR 7.7k
Punchy, immediate, and completely open. Built to authentic 1958 Kalamazoo specification at 7.7k — present in the attack, woody and throaty in the mids, clear and uncompressed across the top end without a trace of harshness. The Alnico 2 magnet gives the low end warmth and body without flabbiness. The unpotted coils let the harmonic complexity of the string breathe into the amp rather than compressing it into a single voice.
- Woody midrange presence that defines the PAF character
- Uncompressed top end — clear, open, never harsh
- Full dynamic range from clean to natural breakup entirely from your volume knob
- Growls when pushed, opens up completely when pulled back
Neck Pickup — DCR 7.2k
Throaty, vocal, and deeply expressive. Fat and woody without being dark. Clear without being thin. The kind of sustained, touch-sensitive tone that makes a single note melody line sound like it is being sung rather than played.
- Rich harmonic depth without darkness or mud
- Chord voicings bloom with overtones that sustain and evolve
- Bends and vibrato speak with a voice that feels alive and responsive
- Balances perfectly with the bridge across the full travel of your volume control.
All of our pickups include a set of NOS Paper in Oil Capacitors and covered under a Limited Lifetime Warranty
Each pickup is constructed using:
- Butyrate bobbins
- Special manufactured plain enamel wire
- Nickel silver covers
- Correct nickel /silver metal plates
- Correct spacers
- Correct formulated Alnico 2 bar magnet
- Single conductor push back braided wire
- Bridge Pickup DCR: 7.7 - Neck Pickup DCR: 7.2
- Unpotted
- Southern Crafted & American Made
- Limited Lifetime Warranty
Need More Potentiometers?
Long and Short Available Here.
For additional support please contact us at support@mlapedals.com
