Paul McKeever had a theory about what makes some Gibson P.A.F. humbuckers not merely good, but great-sounding. He wanted to capture the tone of the bridge P.A.F. in Edward Van Halen's 1958 Gibson Flying V guitar, which was used to record numerous guitar tracks on the album "1984", including "Hot For Teacher", "Girl Gone Bad", "Drop Dead Legs", "Jump", as well the title track to "5150", and "Top of the World" on the album "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge). So he designed an experiment and asked his friend, Jim Gaustad, to be the subject who would test 7 P.A.F. designs, with 3 magnets, in an effort to test Paul's theory.

The results of round 1 of the experiment confirmed Paul's theory, and set the stage to apply that theory in a way that would allow him to tone-clone Edward's P.A.F.. The pickup needed to have a fully-magnetized, long, Alnico 2 magnet, and unequal turns of wire on the pickup's two bobbins...a certain ratio of turns.

Armed with the ratio and the magnet, Paul designed round 2 of the experiment and Jim again rose to the challenge to find the pickup recipe that delivers the sound of Ed's Flying V bridge pickup.

The pickup that resulted from this experiment is ToneSlinger's new "V.A.F.", a pickup that puts in your hands the tool you need to deliver the sounds that have blown-away millions. Jim described it this way: "This is the most favourite pickup I've ever had. I love this thing. It's smooth. It's so balanced across the frequency range. The bottom's not mushy: it get's a little mushy when you just tag it; when you hit it hard. It's bright, but it's not harsh: it's got that nice rounded over high-end on it. I just love it. I absolutely love it."