GFS Pickups Crunchy Rails

THIS PICKUP IS A GREAT PICKUP BUT HERE IS THE CATCH....GFS ALWAYS TOUTS THEMSELVES AS THE CREATORS OF THEIR PICKUPS....WELL FOLKS THEY ARE MADE OVER SEAS AND A COMPANY CALLED ARTEC AND ANOTHER COMPANY CALLED SJK MAKE THE SAME PUPS...GFS ACTUALLY CHARGES A BIT MORE DUE TO SOME OF THE EXTRA COSTS RELATED TO FANCY PACKAGING AND SOME CUSTOM FEATURES IE: MOP TOPS ON SOME OF THEIR PUPS...HERE IS THE STORY OF HOW I CAME TO KNOW THESE FACTS.I PURCHASED A PAIR OF GFS RAIL PUPS ONE WAS MADE WITH BLACK RAILS AND ONE CAME IN WITH CHROME RAILS EVEN THOUGH I ORDERED BOTH WITH CHROME RAILS...I WAS TOLD THEY WOULD MAKE MORE SOON...WELL THREE MONTHS LATER AND FULLY FRUSTRATED I STUMBLED ON SOUTHEAST MUSIC ONLINE SELLING WHAT LOOKED LIKE THE SAME RAIL STYLE PICKUPS SO I WENT FOR IT TO COMPLETE MY PROJECT. I RECEIVED IT ALMOST THREE DAYS LATER IN A PLAIN PACKAGE WRAPPED IN THE SAME FOAM WRAP THAT GFS USED...I MEASURED THE OUTPUT ITS THE SAME AS THE GFS PUP. THE ENTIRE PICKUP DOWN TO THE MULTI CONTACT WIRE USED IS IDENTICAL.

I REALLY NEEDED A HIGH OUTPUT PICKUP WITH THIS LOOK TO RESTORE AN OLDER IBANEZ GUITAR I HAVE WHICH CAME WITH THE V7 RAIL STYLE PUPS WHICH OBVIOUSLY AREN'T MADE ANY MORE SOME 20 YEARS LATER. THEY WORK GREAT NOT QUITE AS GOOD AS THE ORIGINALS BUT GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE ME HAPPY WITH THE RESTORATION. GFS SELLS GREAT PICKUPS BUT I MUST SAY THAT MANY OF THEM ARE STANDARD FOREIGN MADE PICKUPS WITH ALOT OF HYPE...DIESEL AND SEVERAL OTHER COMPANIES BUY THESE AND PUT THEIR NAME ON THEM TOO....WHAT WAS REALLY STRANGE TO ME WAS WHEN I RECEIVED THE TWO DIFFERENT COLORED RAIL PUPS FROM GFS ONLY THE NECK PUP WAS STAMPED ON THE BOTTOM WITH THE GFS LOGO THE OTHER HAD THE STANDARD F OR B STAMP THAT DESIGNATES FRONT OR BRIDGE POSITION FOR THAT PUP AND THAT MADE ME QUESTION THEIR HONESTY ABOUT MAKING THESE...I'M NOT NAIVE AND WHEN GFS SAYS "WE WOUND'EM HOT" THEY MEAN THEY ORDERED THEM HOT WOUND FROM SJK OR WHOEVER IS MAKING THEM OVERSEAS. NOW FOR MY HONEST REVIEW.

THE OUTPUT MEASURED OUT AT 15.4k AS ADVERTISED BY SJK NOT GFS WHO SAYS THEY ARE HIGHER...IN FACT TO QUOTE "THE HOTTEST PICKUP WE MAKE" IT SUITS MY PURPOSES WELL AND SOUNDS GOOD. A GREAT HIGH GAIN METAL PICKUP!

I'D BUY MORE BUT AT THE CHEAPER SJK PRICE NOT THE OVER HYPED GFS PRICE. SJK SELLS THESE AROUND 20 BUCKS A GREAT DEAL GFS WANTS MORE COIN TO SUPPORT THE PACKAGING...I'M NOT USING A FANCY BOX ON MY GUITAR JUST THE PUP RIGHT? SJK SELLS THEM WITH BLACK RAILS CHROME RAILS AND SOMETHING GFS DOESN'T DO IN GOLD RAILS WHICH I'M CONSIDERING FOR ANOTHER PROJECT.
GFS NEEDS TO DO SOME MORE INVENTORY CONTROL SO THEY DO NOT MIX UP RAIL COLORS AND PICKUP RING SCREW COLORS. MINE CAME IN WITH THE BLACK RAILS WITH CHROME SCREWS AND VICE VERSA ON THE OTHER PUP...LETS GET IT TOGETHER GUYS...THESE ARE JUST FACTS...OVERALL A GREAT PICKUP BUT IT IS A GENERIC PUP SOLD UNDER MANY NAMES...

A passive 16.2 impedance humbucker with a single rail across each coil. My review is for the bridge. Professionally wired for coil tapping (comes with a color installation guide!). An utterly professionally made pickup in every way.

I dropped it into my Fernandes Revolver Pro, which is equipped with the Fernandes Sustainer. The sustainer has its own active EMG in the neck, and the stock bridge passive PU wasn't all that bad, but I wanted more tone from my bridge PU. Since I didn't want to totally re-wire the guitar to be able to accommodate another Active pickup, I looked for a good, hot, passive PU. Rather than go with a Dimarzio Evolution, which I already knew would be a good choice. I took a gamble and went with the GFS Crunchy Rails. I know sometimes we reviewers can be a little overblown in the way we praise the equipment we love, but I can tell you without a doubt this is as good a hot humbucking pickup as you'll ever find - at half the price of most quality PU's!

"Crunchy" is indeed a good way to describe the tone, but I'd describe it as muscular. In my opinion hi-impedance aspect of a PU like this is overstated. This isn't merely a uber-hot PU for death metal kids. I play a range from Van Halen to Dimebag. The gain is good, but it's TONE that make this PU great. I was concerned that the rails would cause the strings to dissolve into each other, and string separation would be lost. Not so. This PU has all the separation of a Seymore Duncan PAF or a Dimario Evo, with an added muscular tone or crunch.

Every once in a while, I happen upon a small company out there on the Internet that's doing something better than the overgrown companies. I love the story of the GFS company, which is basically a guy named Andrew that was able to make an array of homemade PU's that were as good or better than the big companies made. Fortunately for us, he found a manufacturer that could mass produce his PU's identically to his originals and now sells them exclusively through his website (guitarfetish.com) and his eBay store (UserID: guitarfetish_parts). I feel like I'm in on a secret that the rest of the world will soon discover. In the meantime, I get to have the best PU's in my guitars turn heads everywhere I go. I can't wait to drop a set of these in my Ibanez Prestige. I'll deffinately review the Neck Crunchy soon after.