GFS Pickups

[Gunner Recall]

My brother is hooking me up with a GFS mean 90 for christmas which I plan on popping in my old delonge strat.
Thoughts? Comments? Good/bad?

In the future I might add a few more pots and add a neck pickup...I was thinking maybe a a dream 90 or maybe some singles.
For now, I'll just be swapping the bridge pup and keep the no frills layout.

[Caesar]

I'l bewatching this thread. I'm thinking of grabbing a set of GFS ??? 90s for my beater guitar.

[Gunner Recall]

It's funny...I've been exploring opposite ends of the pickup spectrum lately.
Along with the gfs pups, I've been looking into bareknuckles for my V (nailbomb bridge, cold sweat neck?).

A bareknuckle thread will follow once I'm rich (or I stop buying pedals for a few weeks)

[Caesar]

Oddly enough, my beater guitar is a Xaviere. It's an older one, so the pups are GFS, but they're not very good. They're very dark and muddy.

[stanimal]

i have some GFS experience, when i started modding guitars i was buying Squier's etc. when they were going super cheap (someone convinced the buying populace that they sucked....!?!? well most of them did)... and I owned Mean 90's for a time.... they are good (enough), a bit harsh for what i was looking for but I installed them into a semi-hollow first and they didn't really blend too well with that sound, so i put them in a mahogany strat and played with the pots and caps and eventually got a sound that was great clean... but then fuzzed out they lost something.... so long windedness aside they are great when OD'd or fuzzed but won't sound good clean, or you can make them sound good clean but like ass driven....

but for the price they are very usable.... but if you can save up for some fralins, SD's or Lollars... ANYTHING ELSE

on a side note, i bought (in total) 7 pickups from GFS and only kept 1 (the fatbody tele bridge overwound 10k) and that one is about to get swapped out for a jason lollar....

there is definitely a difference between the GFS and higher priced boutique pedals but for the cost they are GREAT and usable, dirt up really well but not as balanced as you would like, so if you're playing a beater through a solid state the ramping up the fuzz, PERFECT... if you have a blackface twin cranking your boutique OD... hit or miss....

[sevenSHARPnine]

I really like mine. In my SG i have a Dream 180 in the neck and a Vintage 59 in the bridge. I like both pickups alot. Ive never had any problems with them, and in my opinion they sound great. For the price, it's a no-brainer.

I also have a pair of Mean 90s that I used to have in an Ibanez semi-hollow. They're really cool pickups, I dig them. They don't sound exactly like the Gibson P90 in my Melody Maker, but they're a fairly convincing substitute, especially if a humbucker case is your only option.

Do they sound like Lollers or Fralins? No, of course not.
Are they the best sub-$100 pickup out there? That's debatable.
Are you going to notice the difference when you're playing live? Hell no.

[stanimal]

oh crap, after reading sevenSharpnine's post, i'm suddenly sounding like a TGP gear snob..... yow.....

yeah, what he said......

[Gunner Recall]

XD I know what you guys mean...the marketing hype on the gfs site is a bit much.

Ideally some day I'll have an sg classic, but right now I just want something a bit different.
I hate the invader I have in there now and a hb sized p90 is an easy swap for some different sounds.

[sevenSHARPnine]

oh crap, after reading sevenSharpnine's post, i'm suddenly sounding like a TGP gear snob..... yow...

yeah man why don't you go play your Klon or something. I kid, i kid

the marketing hype on the gfs site is a bit much.

this x1000

[elbandito]

the GFS pickup that interests me the most is the Lipstick for Teles. I've never seen anything like it before...
I'll be buying one in the next few weeks to slap into my super modded, ex-Affinity Tele.

[stanimal]

yeah man why don't you go play your Klon or something. I kid, i kid

the marketing hype on the gfs site is a bit much.

this x1000

Heheheh, i remember walking into a store when I was first learning how to play and the dude behind the counter was trying to sell me a KLON that they had just received in trade and he swore that I would regret it if i didn't buy it for $350 right then and there..... so i've never gone near anything KLON since.....

I have a love/hate relationship with my GFS Fatbody Tele bridge pickup, and i am hesitant to drop the cash on the new lollar (I'd rather put that cash towards the Workhorse of course) and unless I receive a holiday bonus (which i won't) i don't think that pickup is leaving my telecaster anytime soon....and that's just fine....

OH, i paid $35 for it, plus shipping.....

[1,2,3, Pull Out!]

I have a Dream 180 in my Jagmaster. It's 10x better than the Seymour Duncan that came standard. It's really poppy and vintage sounding, I like it a lot. Not as good as a Lollar or Bareknuckle but its fantastic considering it was like $30. From what I read GFS QC isn't the greatest a lot of people adore their dream and mean 90s but a lot also think they sound thin and weak.

[Gunner Recall]

To any mean90 owners or anyone who knows better...what kinda treble bleeds did you try out, and what was your guitar configuration? Just curious.

[mhn433]

I installed a Mean 90 in the bridge and a Dream 90 in the neck of my Ibanez Artcore semi hollow. No other modifications, just a direct replacement. They sound great. They are staying in that guitar.

[stanimal]

To any mean90 owners or anyone who knows better...what kinda treble bleeds did you try out, and what was your guitar configuration? Just curious.

follow GFS's directions and install 250k pots.... i had left eh 500k's in my semihollow when i put the mean 90's in and the tone was not good.... when i swapped them for 250's it smoothed out a bit more, also if you happen to have a good quality oil capacitor to throw in there, they do a good job of relieving some of the harsh treble when you play with your tone control....