GFS Pickups 64 texas staggers

This review is for the 64 stagger texas grey bottom pickup set....i hope i am putting this in the right place.....

These are standard strat sized single coils.

vintage to midrange output over the set:
# Bridge Pickup 9.6K
# Middle Pickup 6.3K
# Neck Pickup 5.8K

they are wax potted, and have cloth leads....they look very well made, and are stamped on the bottom with GFS, the model, and the impedance. It came with white pickup covers, which was fine for me. Installation was a cinch....there is already enough lead exposed for most applications.

the guitar is an 80.00 no name strat copy i got at a flea market. it was brand new and has the name "main street guitars" on the headstock. It seems to be made of pressboard or plywood, but has a great feeling neck after I set it up proper and put some GHS 10's on it. The sound before the GFS pickups was muddy and dull. I chose to use the same pots and switches that were already in this guitar, although they are very cheap looking and I plan to upgrade soon. but the GFS pickups made a HUGE difference....even with the other electronics being cheap.

i play through a 1960's tube head with one 12ax7 and an el84... unknown brand but the model is the freshman, and a mesa boogie 3/4 back widebody 1x12 cab....some pedals I built myself(big muff, od-250, RAT) and a chinese tube screamer copy....and WHOA NELLY!!!! I can't believe how great this guitar sounds now. It just oozes classic strat tones. The 2 & 4 positions are quite magical....but each pickup is great on it's own as well. There is plenty of sparkle and chime, but the low end is well defined also. The bridge pickup is worthy of exceptional mention. It is wound for higher output....It doesn't seem louder per say, but it is open, bright, and smooth and it can certainly drive an amp or a pedal....through my tubescreamer it just sounds heavenly. Enough output for anything really, except for really heavy styles.

i have played a lot of strats in my day....I even sold them for about 3 years, and I can honestly say that this $80.00 guitar with $70.00 GFS pickups in it sounds better than nearly any strat I've played. i'm shocked....mainly because of the cheap wood this guitar is made of. I would rate these pickups right up there with fralins or duncans or whatever you choose.

I also have a warmoth strat copy that I put together....I have a seymour duncan duckbucker in the middle position for single coil strat sounds, with a jb jr in the neck and a hot rails in the bridge.....the GFS pickups sound considerably better that the duckbucker for strat sounds....although they are not hum cancelling unless you are in the 2 or 4 position.

If they were destroyed or stolen, i would order another set immediately. I've been playing 15 years or so....I also have a custom warmoth strat, and a gibson les paul classic plus.

overall, the tones from this set are fantastic for any price point. But considering that a comparable set from lindy fralin is over 3 times as much, these are an all out steal. I feel like i've found "the" strat sound here....I feel no need to get anything else....except for a tele. =).

Single coil passive pickups with very strong output. GFS employs what I would refer to as "actual vintage construction". Made just like the old ones with the old materials.

I installed these pups in my mexican strat and replaced all the electronics in the process. I have only the pup selector switch and master volume [500k to handle the output] wired up as the tone pots cut too much high end off.

The output levels with these Pups are terrific! They almost match my Les Paul for volume but maintain the bright cutting sound i wanted. The tonal varient from neck to bridge pickup is more contrasted to the stock pups as well, maybe almost too much. The neck pups is more mellow than stock and bridge pup can almost get too bright. All 3 positions yield solidly different and very usable sounds but the mid and neck positions have the most clarity with the neck getting muddy on occasion. I lead Worship at my church and generally have a bright bluesy / funky style to fit with the rest of the band. Something between John Mayer and John Frusciante. Live, I run through a Fulltone FD2 MOSFET, Hartman BC108, and a boss DD-3 into a Silverface Vibrolux around 5 and this is the happiest i've been with my sound in a long time.

I have been playing for about 10 years and owned 6 different strats from junk to G&L. The Fenders have always felt the best but the electronics were just not "right". Fender aftermarket pickups sound great but are not worth what they charge. GFS easily hangs with Fender and Seymour Duncan without the price tag. Kinda like a "best kept secret" thing. I just bought a Fender Highway 1 Strat with the pure intention of installing another set of GFS, maybe the 70's texas model. With these pups, this strat has gone from backup to my main guitar. If it were stolen, I would replicate everything about this guitar from the GFS down to how they are wired.

Even though the neck and middle PU's are spec'ed vintage, they are warmer than stock vintage PU's from Fender. The bridge PU I would say is wound just right. I prefer Alnico magnets to ceramic which these PU's are.

These PU's came installed in my Xaviere Strat style XV 850 which has to be the best value on the planet. GFS PU's won't disappoint the vast majority out there as they seem very calibrated. I found that I needed to set the PU's height down to a nickels width on the bass side and two nickels on the treble side off the deck.

The Texas Staggered set will please Blues players most as the PU's seem to have a bit of hair present on every note. They are certainly hot enough for any application. You will need to reset the dials on your amp regardless of what you play through. These are PU's that you won't feel a need to replace. Played thru my Standel and Peavey Bandit II the PU's seem to sound more Tele-esk than Strat except when played in the 2nd and 4th positions. The hot bridge PU just sounds knarly with plenty of character.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a big fan of staggered magneted single coil pickups. Althought these PU's are as quiet as any non-stacked or hum cancelling pickup, to my old ears they lack sparkle and bloom. They quack just as you'd expect and would appeal most to the SRV fan just as they were intended. For that they deserve a 10 rating. They are as good as any single coil out there.

single coil

fender mexican strat

output noticably higher than stock pickups. very full rich sound when clean, fat crunchy distortion when driven. pick attack was what improved the most-i actually sounded like a better player after installing these!

i have been playing for about a year and a half. i have owned my mexi strat for almost the same amount of time. this was the first time i replaced pickups on any guitar, had my local music store do the work. the sound of these pickups is just amazing, full warm sound with lots of pick attack.

vintage style strat pickups. normal output with hot bridge output. nice cloth covered enamel wire. Very well made. I can see no difference with Fralins or Rio Grande and Custom shop Fender pickups which I have all owned.

These went into an 80's japanese(the best) strat. I switched because someone put aftermarket pickups in and I wanted vintage tone.

These pickups hang with all Ive tried. I have used the aformentioned pickups in other instruments and these sound as good. the materials are the same quality and they have nice quack in 2 and 4. The bridge pickup is overwound to 9.4k. That is very high ouptput but when hearing the pickups ,the guitar just sounds balanced in all positions. I have no volume jump just nice transitions.nice complexity with no harshness. Deep bass but no mud. Chimey high end butu no glass shards,

These are as good as anything Ive tried. Ive installed fralins in 2 strats, a tele and had fralin rewind a broken pickup on my 59 strat. To me Fralin is the benchmarck of single coil pickups. I think GFS staggers have met the benchmark.
Unbelievable Value