• From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Topic: I love Guitar Fetish . com

I'm not with these guys and I don't want to sound like a broken record here But I just bought a Bridge humbucker from GFS (vintage 59) and a pickguard for my strat.  The gutiar is now a HSS and I know you guys roll your eyes but with 3 kids I'm on a very limited budget.  Anyway same old story loved the middle and the neck but wanted a little more power in the bridge.  I've tried their Little killer pickups but found they are only good for straight up heavy sounds.  I have a set of their 64' overwounds in my other guitar and it was pretty much what started a love affair with their stuff, but I didn't want to buy a those again so I went with the vintage 59 humbucker.  Everything else in the humbucker land on their site is hot too hot for my strat pickups.  If I was doing a HH strat I would have tried the VEH style.

I'm using a Blues Jr at the moment and to my ears the Vintage 59' is a great pair up to my Fender 50's style pickups I have in it.  I found that the 50's style pickups where slightly hotter then 57/62 fender reissue pickups because they are tex mex pickups that they do not reverse wrap the middle pickup on.  They are thin sounding and the bridge is wimpy so a humbucker would fatten it up right?  Wrong!  I purchased a weak pickup on purpose to be close to the other pickups, but in the bridge position its so twangy its as much twang as a Telecaster in that position!  I was blown away though.  I was hoping that I could get EVH sound or something heavier then a stratocaster... instead I found myself turning the master volume up all the way the gain down low, and the reverb up way too high.  I was in rockabilly land and I loved it.  Now with some gain added to the problem I had a very nice sustaining strat.  If I take a bit of the treble out of my setup I can get a nice fat sound out of the pickup, maybe too muddy for the once thin strat pickups...  roll  My next plan is to change the phase of the bridge pickup to get it to quack with the strat pickups in the 2 position, it already splits the coils but it doesn't get as twangy as I'd like that position to be.  Over all a fun weekend project that only too a couple of minutes to do.  BTW the pickguards are cheap but they are as nice as the fender pickguards I've bought.  Got to love good cheap stuff!!!

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: York, PA
  • Registered: 2010-08-27
  • Posts: 1,749

Re: I love Guitar Fetish . com

Yeah their stuff looks pretty cool and it's cheap.  I recently found that website about a month ago.  The pedals were cheap and the Green OD has some videos on youtube and it sounds good for 50 bucks.  -Seth

  • From: Dixieland,USA
  • Registered: 2010-04-11
  • Posts: 147

Re: I love Guitar Fetish . com

Gotta chime in here. The folks at GF are good folks. My son tried a bunch of p-up's when we built his Tele. He went with the Lil' Killers and got just the sound he was looking for. For the money they have really good stuff for the buck,not the low end but the higher stuff. Their P-90's are really good,I mean they aren't Lindy's by no means but they are worth what your gonna give for them. Their Vintage 59' is a really nice one,I'm thinking about putting one on the neck of an LP project I have going. Kinda thinking of maybe,going all old school and doing it with their Mean-90's,it's a good site for us hobbie types.

Do a search on youtube,you'll hear some good lick's using their stuff.

  • Registered: 2010-02-01
  • Posts: 175

Re: I love Guitar Fetish . com

I had one of their VEH's in a single pickup banana head stocked super strat I made and it was a very nice sounding pickup for the money ..they shipped it quickly and it arrived in the UK in a sensible period of time.

If the Highway One Strat I own didn't already have a set of Lace Sensors in it I'd have tried one of their noiseless strat sets without any hesitation.

As the OP say some people will roll their eyes but I can only speak from experience and I've had considerable sucess with GF (VEH), Irongear (Rolling Mills) and Tonerider (Alnico II Pro's and Rock Songs) for pickups in various builds and replacements over recent years all of which are under £30 each.

  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: I love Guitar Fetish . com

I'm not trying to say they are better then other companys but I've used a LOT of Seymour Duncan in the past and spent 3 times as much on (Pearly Gates Humbuckers) and wasn't near as happy with them as I am with these cheapo pickups.  IMHO through the experiences I've had Seymour Duncan and after market Fender pickups have been hit or miss for me.  GFS I've tried the Little Killers set, their noiseless Tele pickups, 64 overwound Strat set, and now the Vintage 59'.  Not once did I have a bad tone with any of them.  Would I drop these in a $4000 guitar???  Ha, Trick question!  If I paid $4000 for a freakin guitar it better have the sound I wanted to begin with without me screwing around with it.

AD3THREE's Website

  • From: Dixieland,USA
  • Registered: 2010-04-11
  • Posts: 147

Re: I love Guitar Fetish . com

AD3THREE wrote:

I'm not trying to say they are better then other companys but I've used a LOT of Seymour Duncan in the past and spent 3 times as much on (Pearly Gates Humbuckers) and wasn't near as happy with them as I am with these cheapo pickups.  IMHO through the experiences I've had Seymour Duncan and after market Fender pickups have been hit or miss for me.  GFS I've tried the Little Killers set, their noiseless Tele pickups, 64 overwound Strat set, and now the Vintage 59'.  Not once did I have a bad tone with any of them.  Would I drop these in a $4000 guitar???  Ha, Trick question!  If I paid $4000 for a freakin guitar it better have the sound I wanted to begin with without me screwing around with it.

Ya got that right. lol

7 Reply by NPB_EST.1979 (edited by NPB_EST.1979 2011-02-14 10:50:27)

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

Re: I love Guitar Fetish . com

Here's what I say... if you got $5 and you get food down the street, you can be pleasantly surprised. If you have $200 and you have to take a girl to the best place in town, you're going to be a lot more picky on the food quality and value.

I LOVE Guitar Fetish.

I've bought their:

• Dream 90's (humbucker sized P-90) like a P-94 and
I adore those pickups. Having a LesPaul with them in there is great if your other LP has humbuckers.

• Alnico II single coils strat set, and those were very unique.
I liked them quite a bit, but they weren't for me. Still have them though.

• Lil killers 14K rails pickup really does SMOKE.
Very high gain and hot.

• Strat sized lipstick tube pickup 4K for the neck position in a strat and really like the look and sound of it too.

• Their Xaviere guitars are good for the price too. I have a white ES335 copy. smile

- 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