GFS Pickups 60's-70's Grey Bottom Non Stagger Vintage

From the GFS site:

# Bridge Pickup 6.8K
# Middle Pickup 6.3K
# Neck Pickup 5.8K
# 60's style black fiberboard top plate
# 60's style grey fiberboard bottom plate
# Alnico 5 Magnets
# Vintage style Beveled, non-staggered polepieces
# Cloth covered leads
# Accurate Formvar plain enamel wire
# Potted in real Beeswax

All true and all good

I installed these on my Classic 70's MIM strat, all positions. i have replaced the stock fender pickups. The stocks just where not cutting it. As with most MIM strats, there is magic to be had - but after some tinkering.

the output level is definitely vintage, nice and clear a great improvement over the stocks. the stocks where not even wax potted and the wiring had just basic shielding. The GFS's are cloth covered and was potted. I play Rock/Blues and they are fantastic.

The tone is very clear top to bottom, no mud and the highs are much clearer now. Very balanced to my ears. They also take gain pedals very well. I find them very musical and am very happy with the tones i am getting.

I have been playing for over 20 years now and do not care about names anymore. If it sounds good it stays - and these sound good. this is my 3rd set of GFS's (i have the mean 90's and a Fat PAF as well). You cant get better bang for the buck, period. Gone are days of import item being crap. there are always those who will debate and say if it cost more is has to be better - whatever. Go and debate, I will be playing. They are just good sounding pickups, and thats all there is to it.

happy playing!

Alnico 5 single coil Stratocaster replacement pickups 6.8k/6.3k/5.3k. Non-staggered pole pieces. Middle position is reverse wound.

I put these in a 2005 Fender MIM Standard Stratocaster, to upgrade from the stock pickups.

Wow! These are exactly what I wanted. A great upgrade from the stock pups.

I waited about a month after putting these in to write the review, since it can take some time to get used to new tones and to stop expected the ones we're used to hearing from our guitars. And that really was the case here. The first time I played after putting them in, the sound was so different that it did take some getting used to. It sounded kind of "hollow" at first, and since I wasn't used to that, I wondered if I did something wrong in the installation. But now after playing with them for a month, I'm loving that "hollow" tone.

With my stock pickups, I almost never used the neck position. Which was a shame because I play mostly rhythm. But my stock neck pickup just had no balls to speak of. Now, I should mention that I previously had an issue with the stock neck pickup. A few weeks after purchasing the guitar, I brought it to a tech and he pulled the pickguard off and found that one of the magnet bars had fallen off and was sitting at a diagonal across the pickup. HE fixed this, re-glued the magnet and tested the guitar. So, I belive that after that I was playing with a typical stock MIM setup, but I suppose there could have been other things wrong with that one. My confidence in its manufacture after seeing the magnet just laying there wasn't too high. But anyway, even after it was fixed, I still never played the neck or even the neck/middle position. I'd say 99% of the time I played the Bridge/Middle parallel position.

Now, with this set, I have totally re-discovered the neck position. Now it's got a set of balls. Also, now the #2 and #4 positions have a much different sound than 1/3/5. Not just hum-canceling, but a really different tone. Much wider diversity of tones than I got with the stock set-up.

These don't really have a boutique sound though. They just sound like what I think a strat "is supposed to sound like" in the first place. For whatever reasons, the unmodified MIMs, while nice guitars just don't sound like that to me.

Another thing I like is that even though these are the "vintage" style set, they are a bit hotter than the stocks and I can drive my amp into dirty territory with very little or no gain added, just picking/strumming more aggressively. I couldn't do that with my stock set. Slow Ride sounds just about dead on for tone on my clean channel with the volume dimed and no gain or effects at all. And yes, now I'm using my neck position for that.

The only reason for the 9 instead of a 10 is that I'm so far not loving the sound of the bridge pickup as much yet (yes, I do realize the irony since the neck was what bothered me before the upgrade). But, keep in mind I mainly play rhythm and I'm not a lifelong musician so maybe this bridge tone is spot on. Next time I need to change my strings though, I'm going to pull the pickguard and re-solder the switch so that my #2 or #4 position mixes Bridge and Neck (instead of Bridge and Middle). That tip came from my instructor who when he toured professionally had his set up like that. Maybe I'll post another review afterwards.

These are an excellent value. I'd recommend to anyone upgrading a MIM strat who doesn't want to spend a fortune. And, these also come in overwound and texas styles if you're wanting something hotter. But for me, the vintage output is just right for the classic rock I mostly play.

I was considering getting a "noiseless" set. But I'm really glad I didn't. These have a lot more testosterone than the Fender noiseless. And while I've heard good things about Kinman's, but never tried them out, I'd rather save that money for my next guitar than put it into the MIM. The hum used to really bother me with my stock pups, and I'm not sure if it's less noisy now (hard to compare that) but I think the tone while playing is really much more important than getting rid of the hum. And, after I put these in and played around with them a bit, now I realize I only get the annoying hum when I'm too close to my amp. Unfortunately, my amp puts out a field of interference such that I need to be about 10 feet away before I get no hum. But once I get further than that, these are very quiet (not sure I ever tested that with my stock pups though). Which makes me wonder if a lot of the people who are upgrading strats to get rid of hum really haven't tried a long cord and moving away from their amps. I did shield mine with StewMac copper in the cavity and back of the pickguard, but I'm pretty sure the whole problem with hum all along was being too close to the amp. Anyway, if you're upgrading your strat and considering noiseless pups, I'd say first try standing further away from the amp, and then go for some ballsier pickups like these from GFS and enjoy the tone.