About to buy GFS Pickups, need advices.

[SlabPloX]

hi, im looking to buy some GFS pickups for both of my ''cheap'' guitar as improvement, and im looking at advice concerning my buy.

 

the first guitar im looking to buy pickup for is a Schecter Omen 6, this is my D Standard/Drop C guitar, so far i have settled at the GFS Power Rails at the bridge but im looking for a neck pickup to go well with the Power Rails : the Fat Pat? Crunchy Pat? looking for nice lead tone but im also looking for a bit of clean there.

 

the main problem with the Schecter is the actual diamond series pickup sound Dark, Muddy and Lifeless, ive played with string size / pickup height but it always sound Muddy and Dark, so im looking fix these issues.

 

the second guitar is a Yamaha Pacifica 112v. E Standard guitar. im not sure there yet, im looking to replace the bridge pickup, the stock one work well but im looking at something maybe more ''metal'' but that i can use for rock/blue too. im actually looking at the Fat Pat or the Crunchy Pat at the bridge position. what i have found yet is the Fat Pat = SD JB ''copy'' and the Crunchy Pat = SD Distortion ''copy''

 

i play mostly metal on both guitar: Megadeth / Metallica / Anthrax / Exodus on the Yammy (Trash metal) but i also do lots of rock cover and some blues playing and i cover A LOT of Children of Bodom on the Schecter. as well as Pantera / Hatebreed / Killswitch Engaged

 

both guitar is mostly played at home through a Peavey Vypyr VIP2

[WRGKMC]

Allot of the pickups sold by GFS are made by Artec. You can usually find better prices on places like EBay but you may not find the same variety.

 

The question of whether they will be an actual improvement is debatable. Since nearly everything they sell is hot wound, as though more winds yields better tone is ridiculous. Even their so called vintage winds are a couple of thousand ohms higher then they should be. What usually happens with more winds is the coil will get stronger but it comes with the price. As the coil gets wound stronger the frequency bandwidth gets narrower so instead of sounding better it winds up giving you megaphone tone. All mids and poor lows and highs.

 

DC Resistance is only part of it. The metals ability to conduct magnetism are important too. Generic companies rarely list the pickups Henry's which is the coils active measurement of electrical inductance. You can't judge a pickup by its dc resistance only. You can have a coils with a high DC resistance because it uses thin wire and has a low inductance because the cores are made of cheap metals.

 

Your better manufactures know how to vary the magnet strength and core permeability to have both hot coils and still produce a wider frequency band, but its highly unlikely you'll find it with these cheap generics. They likely use the same magnets in all of them.

 

If you do try them I suggest you stick with lower DC resistances below 8K. Classic PAF's have a dc resistance of around 7.25 for the neck and 7.50k ohms for the bridge pickups. Anything above that and you'll likely notice your top end dropping off drastically. if the guitar is overly bright than you may get away with something a little hotter, but they sure wont sound anything like a Seymour or Dimarzio. Once you get up above 10K you can pretty much bet on getting mud tones.

 

I bought about a dozen of the various generic mini humbuckers and the only ones that come close to sounding like the Gibsons were wound to around 5~6K. All the others that were above 7K sounded awful. I have at least a dozen sets of hot wounds full sized humbuckers including three sets I bought from GFS. I tried them out in various builds and all were eventually pulled from guitars and are sitting in my parts cabinet. I'll eventually dump them on ebay one of these days because they are truly dogs for tone.

 

I'll also say, most manufacturers provide pickups that are a step above any of these generics.

 

The only step up is to step up and pay around $75 each for a better name brand grade like Seymour, Dimarzio Gibson etc who know how to build pickups well. You get what you pay for, going cheap only makes things sound cheap.

 

Of course cheap sound may be ideal to some people so I cant knock them completely. If you were building a guitar for example and just needed something to throw in there to get sound, they may be fine, but upgrades are a different story.

 

My advice is, save your money and don't waste it on a downgrade. Some of those GFS pickups are truly awful. Wait till you can afford to buy some real pickups. The differences in quality is well worth it. If you're tight on cash troll ebay and find a good used set with long enough leads to install them. The choice will be smaller but the results are usually night and day.

 

 

(If you really want the tone you get from those generics however I'll sell you that dozen I have instorage real cheap)

[badpenguin]

I like the GFS pickups in general. I recently installed a set of the gold foil singles in a clients Yamaha SC300, and they were wonderful!!!! BUT.......

When buying from GFS, and you see a set on sale, in the last five purchases I and others have made, they were open box returns. Normally, not a bad thing.... but the gold foils had a bad coil, that the windings were coming out of the casing. Obviously some monkey toyed with it, then sent it back as "defective" and no one at GFS bothered to look at it, before selling it again.

Another issue I have, is the QC. On the singles, I notices the covers tend to be very loose, the wire post loose, and when soldering them, be very cautious. Too much heat, and boom, no more pickup. In the hums, I find little things like weird screwheads that were bad from the factory, and dubious wires.

Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of them, but if they are on sale, wonder why.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

There's too many options to GFS now at slightly higher prices, that are made in the US.

 

I'd not bother buying from them again

[billybilly]

The best cheap pickups known to man are Epiphone ProBuckers.

[badpenguin]

Ohhh, I don't know about that Billy. I think a used set of Ibanez V7/V8's, found on feebay for 25-30 bucks, beat them out hands down.

[billybilly]

I believe you believe that, but its subjective. Have you tried the probuckers and if so, in what kind of guitar?

[Mr Temporary]

For the Schecter, I'm tempted to say a set of emg's. Probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

For the Yamaha, how about a Seymour Duncan hot rod humbucker set?

[SlabPloX]

thanks for the reply.

 

WRGKMC - i know GFS or other cheap pickups aren't top of the line and wont make a 200$ guitarsound like a 2000$ one, im mostly looking to upgrade a guitar i paid 150$ and i don't want to spend 200$+ for a guitar that isn't even my main one.

 

badpenguin - good to know for GFS ''on sales'' stock, if i ever buy something its gonna be new.

 

Mr Temporary - the more i think the more im gonna get a Duncan SH-4 JB for the Yamaha, but i don't want to spend more on pickups/part than the price i paid for my Schecter and that why i looked at GFS for an upgrade.

 

im mostly looking at GFS right now but i know of other ''cheap'' brand that also get mentioned like Dragonfire Pickups and IronGear pickups. don't know much about these brand concerning pickups quality/sound.

 

anyway right now im mostly looking at GFS Fat Pat neck and Power Rails bridge for the Schecter but they don't the black Power Rails in stock so i still have time to think before i buy anything yet.

 

[thatsbunk]

Do you happen to know if your original pickups are 4 conductor? If so you may want to consider wiring the coils in parallel. I did this with a Duncan JB on my last pickup swap & am very happy with the results... no mud!

 

If your originals are 2 conductor & you want to stay on the cheap, perhaps grab a lower resistance humbucker from GFS that has 4 conductor wiring & give it a shot. I don't think their stuff is bad (although the only pickups I ever ordered from them were their Surf 90's so I can't speak for their humbuckers).

[WRGKMC]

I believe you mean Dragonfire, not dragonfly. They are the same pickups made by the same Chinese vendor Artec. http://www.artecsound.com/pickups/ Like I said, you get what you pay for and when you go cheap you'll be lucky to break even over stock pickups.

 

You can spend the same money and buy high quality name brand pickups on EBay is you spend a week or two trolling regularly. I've bought all kinds of Duncan's, Dimarzio's for chump change. They may not always look pretty but they can sound great.

 

Someone mentioned Ibanez pickups. I have one I bought that sounds as good as a Seymour. Even the Ceramics sound pretty good. I actually removed a set of Seymour's for a guy and installed a set of the original stock ceramics in his Ibanez. He loves the sound for the heavy metal stuff he plays.

 

Some of the old Might Mites are killer sounding too. EVH used to use them on his early albums and they kick butt if you can find them.

 

Theres nothing wrong with putting good pickups in a cheap guitar either. You can always remove them and put the stock ones back in whan you sell it. In the meantime, you get good tones.

[badpenguin]

tried the probuckers in a Epi paul. while ok, they didn't move me. But to be honest, I don't care for Gibson's pickups either. Very overpriced, and very generic sounding.

[SlabPloX]

Finally i didn't go with GFS pickups, i just ordered a set of Dragonfire 81c/85a on ebay with 25k pot and all the wiring brand new for 65$. from the clip i listened too they are a little bit muddier than the Emg 81/85, i will try this and if i not happy i might just upgrade to 50k pots or run them at 18v.

[humbuckerstrat]

I like GFS pups, they're in most of my guitars. They're good quality and very economical.

[mikesr1963]

I have some GFS hot singles in my avatar and they're awesome. Have had them for 10 years. Saying that I also love Zakk Wylde and for that I use EMGs and for metal they are the {censored}.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Mike, I think you point out a very good caveat here, GFS 10 years ago on startup were pretty decent and some very good.

 

I think Jay is cheaping out on some stuff, cutting costs, increasing profit margins and the product isn't as good

[AJ6stringsting]

I've had good luck with GFS and Dragon Fire pickups.

The pickups I ordered from those two companies , blended very well in my 1980's Jackson. Kramer and Gibson guitars that are also loaded with Bare Knuckle, Dimarzio. Seymour Duncan and late 1970's / early 1980's Bill Lawrence pickups.

[AJ6stringsting]

hi, im looking to buy some GFS pickups for both of my ''cheap'' guitar as improvement, and im looking at advice concerning my buy.

 

the first guitar im looking to buy pickup for is a Schecter Omen 6, this is my D Standard/Drop C guitar, so far i have settled at the GFS Power Rails at the bridge but im looking for a neck pickup to go well with the Power Rails : the Fat Pat? Crunchy Pat? looking for nice lead tone but im also looking for a bit of clean there.

 

the main problem with the Schecter is the actual diamond series pickup sound Dark, Muddy and Lifeless, ive played with string size / pickup height but it always sound Muddy and Dark, so im looking fix these issues.

 

the second guitar is a Yamaha Pacifica 112v. E Standard guitar. im not sure there yet, im looking to replace the bridge pickup, the stock one work well but im looking at something maybe more ''metal'' but that i can use for rock/blue too. im actually looking at the Fat Pat or the Crunchy Pat at the bridge position. what i have found yet is the Fat Pat = SD JB ''copy'' and the Crunchy Pat = SD Distortion ''copy''

 

i play mostly metal on both guitar: Megadeth / Metallica / Anthrax / Exodus on the Yammy (Trash metal) but i also do lots of rock cover and some blues playing and i cover A LOT of Children of Bodom on the Schecter. as well as Pantera / Hatebreed / Killswitch Engaged

 

both guitar is mostly played at home through a Peavey Vypyr VIP2

 

If you want to go cheap in price, try the Dragon Fire Screamer (the ceramic version)

I have a 1988 Randy Rhoads / Jackson, that was too dark sounding and the Screamer solved that problem. Dragon Fire's web site said it was 16.9k ohms, but when I put mine under the meter, mine was 17.04k ohms.

To my ears, it was Eq'ed similar to an S.D. JB pick, a Dimarzio Evo and had highs like a Bill Lawrence XL 500.

Another great pickup is the Carvin M22SD which is strikingly similar to a Dimarzio Evolution, but with tighter bass, better upper mids and more highs than the Evo.

With the M22SD, you can lower the poles, raise the pickup to get rid of flabby bass frequencies. If the guitar is too bright , lower the pickup and raise the pole pieces.

As for GFS, I've ordered 5 pickups, good stuff ... Not one dog yet. In fact, I bought some from their clearance section, the Over Wound Hex pickup ( neck 12.28k ohms , bridge 16.87k ohms) great pick up. I put them in a newly acquired 1983 Gibson Explorer with Floyd Rose, kinda Eq'ed like a cross between a Bare Knuckle Nail Bomb and Dimarzio Evolution.

[wankdeplank]

Since this has turned into a GFS debate, thought I'd weigh in. Now my experience is only with the GFS vintage variety Strat pickups, but they certainly never sounded overly hot to me and are actually very full bodied and articulate sounding. I've tried most of their varieties of vintage Strat pickups now and am most fond of the 60's Repros and the Alnico IIs, though all were very good sounding pickups. After comparing them with some boutique (read considerably more expensive) pickups I have in other guitars, I've concluded that they are on equal footing and don't pay more for the big names anymore. Having said that, I have never purchased a bucker or P90 from them and probably never will as I don't really trust the pac rim offerings in those categories. They got the Strat thing right though from my perspective.

[mrbrown49]

That's only 140 Ohms difference, which is negligible.

[AJ6stringsting]

Since this has turned into a GFS debate' date=' thought I'd weigh in. Now my experience is only with the GFS vintage variety Strat pickups, but they certainly never sounded overly hot to me and are actually very full bodied and articulate sounding. I've tried most of their varieties of vintage Strat pickups now and am most fond of the 60's Repros and the Alnico IIs, though all were very good sounding pickups. After comparing them with some boutique (read considerably more expensive) pickups I have in other guitars, I've concluded that they are on equal footing and don't pay more for the big names anymore. Having said that, I have never purchased a bucker or P90 from them and probably never will as I don't really trust the pac rim offerings in those categories. They got the Strat thing right though from my perspective.[/quote']

 

You raved about a couple of other products. I either tried them out or bought them from your recommendation and liked them.

Which GFS single coil would you suggest ?.

I got a Partscaster that I want to put up into a 1960's tonal ball park range.

[wankdeplank]

Hey AJ, I'm flattered with your kind words, thanks, happy to think I succeeded in helping in some way.

 

True 1960's tonal ballpark range has got be the Alnico 2's in my estimation as they really beef up your single lines for a fatter tone in the soloing capacity but still plenty spanky for rhythm playing. The 60's repros are spankier (read brighter and hotter) and definitely very dynamic in their own right - love them in one Strat but too bright for the bridge position of my 89 Fender Strat Plus. I had the pleasure of playing a real 65 (three way switch and everything) in a vintage shop one time and the thing that stood out to me was just how fat that thing sounded, more rounded tones like a bucker or a P90. Not really sure what pickups were in that thing or if time itself contributed to the tone but it was not the spanky Strat tone I had expected and I like it a lot. I do love the spank but hate the thinness of a lot of contemporary Strats. Here's a link for the Premium Alnico II's - http://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Premium-II-Alnico-II-Hand-Bevelled-Strat-Set_p_337.html. Plenty of good alnico 2 playing examples on youtube and I think these go toe to toe with the best. Positive you won't be disappointed - best wishes on your project.

[AJ6stringsting]

I'm hopping to get a Mark Knopfler tone, but I have Schaller S6 pickup ( 13. 04 k ohms ) very P 90 sounding with some great Start quack too.

Lol, thanks for the link , I pulled the trigger, they should be here soon.

Strange, you brought up the fact that some pickups voicing changes over time. Some of my Dimarzio Fast Track 2's tonal voice have changed over the years. I put them in the mid position of my Metal guitars and it seems more upper mids and treble have been "Aged in" to those pickup that I bought in the 1990's.

Strange / cool !!!!

[wankdeplank]

Concerning Knopfler tone, the notch positions do sound wonderful with these pickups. I do believe a lot has to do with the body wood as well. I get a lot more Knopfleresque chime out of my two Alder body strats than any others regardless what pickups I stick in them. (Sounds like you have a few Strats and Superstrats as well.) I bought a complete set and ended up using two in a Poplar SSH MIM Strat (replacing another GFS vintage set)and the bridge replaced a split coil (Eric Johnson mod) Dimarzio HS3 in my 89 Strat Plus (too bright). Tonal improvement on both counts, though I probably wouldn't recommend matching a two with a five to anybody else - the notch position is amazing but the output of the two is a bit lower. Hope you like the Alnico IIs as much as I do - love to hear what you think when you get them installed. Best wishes.

[AJ6stringsting]

Will do .