1 Topic by NPB_EST.1979 (edited by NPB_EST.1979 2009-11-15 00:30:21)

  • From: Detroit
  • Registered: 2006-06-02
  • Posts: 5,807

Topic: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

WOW

I was ready to get rid of come Alnico II strat pickups I got form GFS. They were not wax potted and no reverse wind middle. I had them in a saga strat kit i built and the pickup cavity was copper plated for insulation. The crap wood of that saga strat body was needed a hotter pickup, they just weren't right for the guitar. The Texas Specials sounded better before I insulated it. I figured since the II's weren't potted that they'd sound better if I insulated the pickup cavity. I was wrong on all fronts.

So instead of selling the pickups I just got done putting them in my other strat project. The body is made of Northern Ash, and the strat is heavier than my Les Paul. And its rock solid & bright. I put the Alnico II's in there, and boy what a difference. They are not "powerful or boomy" but they have real glass cleanlieness and "bloom." I was quite impressed with it clean. I also have a 1meg volume and 500k tone pots on the current setup.

I thought pickups were usually an upgrade and not a downgrade, so when I was left wanting after getting those pickups. I thought they would be a dud in any guitar I put them in. Just to experiment I tried them in another guitar and my mind was changed.

That said, some guitars were meant for some pickups, and some are not. Lesson learned.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping. cool
  • From: East Midlands, UK
  • Registered: 2008-06-30
  • Posts: 164

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

i tried to fit a mini humbucker to my epiphone goldtop. wanting to get that 70's les paul deluxe vibe out of it. stayed in there for all of  an hour, i changed it back to the p90 that was there before. though in the process, i damaged the finish round the pickup cavity. lesson learned, don't ever give me a tool kit wink

Fender 60's Strat>Fulltone OCD V4>>TC Electronics Polytune>Orange Dual Terror>Torres 2x10 Cab(with a vintage 30 and a greenback)
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

I've had a lot of good success stories with GFS.  I suggested a set to a friend for his G&L Legacy.  He got the Legacy when he was working to sell Leo Fender a CNC router.  Leo gave him a couple of unfinished bodies to play with and some necks.  After Leo more or less decided they would never use a CNC router my friend kept the bodies.  BTW G&L now uses CNC routers but in 1988 they wouldn't  have touched them.  Fast forward to now he finished both guitars and used GFS in them.  Legacy got the Alinico II set and they totally pull of the 50's strat sound.  The other doesn't have pickups in it yet. 

My favorite guitar has GFS 60's extra hot pickups.  Can't remember if the magnets are II's or V and the middle is reversed.  I havn't had a set of pickups in this guitar for more then a couple of years but I'm totally happy with these.  No mud what so ever.  Hey for $60 a set you can't go wrong with them.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: East Midlands, UK
  • Registered: 2008-06-30
  • Posts: 164

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

i keep meaning to bite the bullet and order some GFS's. my strat is loaded with CS 69 ybarra pickups. whilst these are nice pickups, there made to scoop the mids out of your guitar sound. pairing that with an amp that has a lack of mids (blues deluxe), makes for a overly bright sound. for the time being i'm using marshall flavoured pedals to bring my mids back, but really i need to switch pickups.

Fender 60's Strat>Fulltone OCD V4>>TC Electronics Polytune>Orange Dual Terror>Torres 2x10 Cab(with a vintage 30 and a greenback)
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

What kind of tone you looking for?  We just installed GFS neodieum (is that spelled right?) pickups in a Squire Telecaster.  Its the cheapo butterscotch with a black pickguard.  The pickups in that guitar was down right a joke!  I tried in a practice one night just to see what kind of sound it gave me.  Whow!  As long as I was playing I was fine and it had decent tone, but as soon as I stopped no matter what volume on the guitar controls it fed back like you wouldn't believe.  Put the GFS in which is noiseless btw and no shielding in the cavities and not one hint of 60 cycle hum as long as I touched the strings.  It was a great tone as well but it wasn't a very good Telecaster tone but this was my dads guitar and he didn't want it to sound like a Telecaster for some reason.  He is very happy now with the improvements and GFS saved the day again!  Let me know if you need help picking out a pickup for your guitar, I'll try to help if I can.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: Detroit
  • Registered: 2006-06-02
  • Posts: 5,807

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

GFS are cheap and offer variety if you plan to experiment. They say they are boutique pickups, but they are not priced that way. But they are an excellent value - and the descriptions of their pickups match their product very well. They don't oversell it on the descriptions.

One nice thing I like about them is that NOT all of their strat pickups claimed a Stevie Ray sound.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping. cool
  • mitch
  • mitch
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  • From: Swindon, UK
  • Registered: 2006-04-22
  • Posts: 92

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

NPB_EST.1979 wrote:

GFS are cheap and offer variety if you plan to experiment. They say they are boutique pickups, but they are not priced that way. But they are an excellent value - and the descriptions of their pickups match their product very well. They don't oversell it on the descriptions.

One nice thing I like about them is that NOT all of their strat pickups claimed a Stevie Ray sound.

I agree- I installed a set of calibrated GFS Lipstick pups in an old Squier/Tokai Strat hybrid I've had knocking around for ages- Wow! Great glassy tones & with the additional shielding they're amazingly quiet... even with shipping to the UK they're really great VFM...

This don't look like no express way to me...
  • From: East Midlands, UK
  • Registered: 2008-06-30
  • Posts: 164

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

AD3THREE wrote:

What kind of tone you looking for?  We just installed GFS neodieum (is that spelled right?) pickups in a Squire Telecaster.  Its the cheapo butterscotch with a black pickguard.  The pickups in that guitar was down right a joke!  I tried in a practice one night just to see what kind of sound it gave me.  Whow!  As long as I was playing I was fine and it had decent tone, but as soon as I stopped no matter what volume on the guitar controls it fed back like you wouldn't believe.  Put the GFS in which is noiseless btw and no shielding in the cavities and not one hint of 60 cycle hum as long as I touched the strings.  It was a great tone as well but it wasn't a very good Telecaster tone but this was my dads guitar and he didn't want it to sound like a Telecaster for some reason.  He is very happy now with the improvements and GFS saved the day again!  Let me know if you need help picking out a pickup for your guitar, I'll try to help if I can.


i like the classic mid range marshall sound. i set my amp to have a lot of mids and use a caitlinbread dirty little secret for my overdriven sounds. this gives me kinda what i want, i can't afford to get a new amp or trade mine in as i gig a lot. i sometimes switch to a telecaster with custom shop no caster pickups in, which sound really nice.

Fender 60's Strat>Fulltone OCD V4>>TC Electronics Polytune>Orange Dual Terror>Torres 2x10 Cab(with a vintage 30 and a greenback)
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

Pretty sure this is what I got in my Strat and after reading about each of these I think they are for you man. 
http://store.guitarfetish.com/64stovgrropi.html  I've got the Hot Rod Deluxe which is very simiar to the Blues Deluxe other then the Hot Rod Deluxe having a bit more gain on tap.  I'm not sure how you adjust your amp either but I found my amp to be a bit bright, but I can't stand the amp without all the Presence turned wide open.  To fix the brightness problem I've found that if you back the Treble off to about 5 or the 12 o'clock position that kills the brightness.  If you want mids then keep your mids turned to 12 or the 5 o'clock position.  Now the bass I try to keep about 1 or 2 settings lowwer then the Treble so that it sounds clear still.  Try that and see what you think of your amp.  I've also found with mine that if you run some type of boost in the effects loop it really helps fatten your sound up.  I use a compressor to do that but thats all I've got, you may find a lot better pedals out there for boosting the signal through the effects loop.  What it basically does is lets you turn your preamp down lower and drive your power amp tubes more at a respectable level without turning your master volume up (I think thats whats going on anyway.)  Then you can adjust your gain setting all you want.  Some people hate the distortion channels on these amps but I like mine.  The clean is better but considering I don't run any pedals other then a compressor pedal and a wah pedal I think its pretty good.  Honestly its the pickups in my guitar (GFS)  I have another stratocaster and it just doesn't have the tone, vibe, or power to do what my other strat with the 64' staggers does.  Hope this novel helps.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: East Midlands, UK
  • Registered: 2008-06-30
  • Posts: 164

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

i too find my amp to be very bright, which is made worse by a bright sounding guitar too. i've worked on settings for ages and at the moment have my treble and middle set to 5, bass to 9 and presence to 6. this works fine until i use the bridge pickup alone. it's like an ice pick. i'll try your settings, see what it's like. i'm going wire the middle tone pot to control the bridge, tame it a little.

so your settings are
treble 5
mids 12
bass 3?
presence 12

was thinking of an EQ pedal in my FX loop, boost the lows and mids a little. trying to get an EV-12L for my cab too.

Fender 60's Strat>Fulltone OCD V4>>TC Electronics Polytune>Orange Dual Terror>Torres 2x10 Cab(with a vintage 30 and a greenback)
  • From: Detroit
  • Registered: 2006-06-02
  • Posts: 5,807

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

relocating the tone pot from the middle to the bridge pickup does a lot. Plus you know you can always bridge that so the tone control works on both the middle and the bridge.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping. cool
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

I have my guitar wired so that all 3 are controlled by a master tone control.  I have a 2001 american series stratocaster with "no load" Delta tone circuit in it... which turns out to be a no load pot.  the other pot worked fine but for some reason it didn't sound as good as the pot for the middle and bridge, so I added the neck to it as well.  Btw I tend to turn down my tone control to about 6 to 7 when I'm playing out like this, when I lead I go to the no load setting 10 only if I need it.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: East Midlands, UK
  • Registered: 2008-06-30
  • Posts: 164

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

tried those settings you gave me AD3THREE. they work really really well with my strat. that and my Dirty little secret can get real close to that marshall sound now, but still have that classic fender clean sound. i have a lot of depth and articulation in the sound now, plus it's the first time i've been able to get controlled feedback and sustain from a strat without loads of noise and buzz.

i turn my amp up to the loudest i want it and then use a volume pedal to control the overall level. this is behind my drive pedal, so i can use it as lead boost with the volume pedal flat out and do swells and stuff.

Fender 60's Strat>Fulltone OCD V4>>TC Electronics Polytune>Orange Dual Terror>Torres 2x10 Cab(with a vintage 30 and a greenback)
  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: swapping pickups between guitars: lesson learned

When I first started playing around with that setting my other guitarist in the band wanted to know if I had put some kind of humbucking pickups in my guitar because with the compressor pedal in the effects loop (and I use the distortion channels on my amp alot of the time) I swear the first time I tried it at a practice it sounded like I was playing a Les Paul that had a p-90 or something thinner then a normal humbucker.  It didn't sound like a Strat until I rolled the tone controll back up to 10.  I personally love the Hot Rod Deluxe.  Its not the best out there but it certainly not the worst, and you can pick them up really cheap off of ebay!  Anyway I'm glad my settings are working out for you.

AD3THREE's Website