GFS Pickups Dream 180

Bridge position, specs and other info can be found at GFS website.

Installed this in the bridge position of a Hamer XT sunburst. Stock pickup was on the weak side when clean and muddy when overdriven. I paired this with a GFS Retrotron Memphis in the neck. I was going for a 60's vibe with this guitar, but I still wanted some versatility in the bridge.

Low output bridge pickup. But that's not entirely a bad thing. I think sometimes people get too caught up in pickups and forget that a majority of your tone can come from the amp/pedals you have. I'm not a huge fan of of some of the more popular (read expensive) pickups out there and I couldn't justify putting $100+ in a $175 guitar. The Dream 180 is advertised as a combination of Filtertron and vintage PAF and that is a credible assessment. On a clean setting, you get a passable Gretch-like sound. Very applicable to the 60's type of music that I play, but also is suitable for REM/80's style music. All notes come out clear and bright when chorded, although to my surprise, slightly more bassy that I would have liked, no biggie, though. Distorted, you definitely can hear the PAF qualities in it. I'm not talking hard core Megadeath distortion, more like 70's era--Zeppelin, Stones, etc. Again, notes ring out well balanced, but a little more bass. I was surprised by the response to distortion because I had originally thought that the Hamer would end up being my "clean" guitar and I would have to use another guitar for "dirty" sounds. Not the case. The Dream 180 is extremely versatile and really doesn't lend itself to one particular genre of music. If pressed, I would probably bring this on a gig as my lone guitar and let the amp do all the work.

Very satisfied with the choice of Dream 180. Kind of gives you the best of many worlds with the clean and dirty tones you can generate from it. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this for any humbucker guitar, be it Hamer, Gibson, et al. And, it's cheap. So if you don't like it, you can return it or at the least, you won't be out too much cash.

Passive humbuckers.

These pickups were in a 335 copy that I bought. One in the neck and one in the bridge. I learned that they were in the right positions when I took them out of the guitar that they were in.

There was a strong signal (lots of output) coming from both pickups but the sound was harsh and brittle. The really high end seemed to be cut off by the brittle edginess of the pickups so there were no crystal clear highs. The low end seemed to be cut off like there was a built-in high pass filter in them. I tweaked these pickups up and down to find the sweet spot but the sweet spot just wasn't there.

I tried the guitar in a class A tube amp and a solid state amp both with terrible results. Amps through which nearly every guitar sounds decent.

I think the positions which are unsuitable for these pickups would be any position in a musical instrument.

If these pickups were stolen from my guitar I would chase down the offender and hand him or her some cash or ask them if I could do their yard work or something.

I took these pickups out of the guitar an replaced them with something nice. I actually will play the guitar now instead of leaving it in the stand all of the time. I've been playing guitars for 25 years or so and own everything from USA Gibsons to Indonesian Ibanez guitars. I have changed pickups on many guitars for myself and for others and believe these GFS pickups to be the worst ones I've ever used.

I loved the looks of the pickups and I hated the sound of them. Tweak them all you want and the things sounded poor.

I wish that it vaguely approached the product description that the company advertises it to be. Just in the ball park would have been ok.

I've compared these pickups to many different brands and models of pickups and yes, they are one of the cheapest pickups out there but the pickup is what takes the vibration of the string and sends it to your amp. DO NOT SKIMP on pickups. I used to think they were 'good for the money' but I cannot recommend them on that basis either as it would be dishonest.

They are not equal to or even close to Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Gibson, or Fender and shouldn't even be mentioned or in the parts bin of a shop that has pickups in it by Lindy Fralin, Jason Lollar, WCR, and countless other pickup makers.

I really wanted to rate it at '3' for this section but I just could not bring myself to do so.

passive humbucker. slightly hotter than a vintage bucker. chrome cover. 12 adjustable pole pieces.

bridge position of epiphone les paul.

a little bit hot but not really high output. claims to be a PAF with Gretch sparkle. I don't hear that. What I do hear is a big fat P90. A P90 with more output and a big punchy low end. pretty cool.

This isn't really what I was looking for but it is great quality pickup and if you are a P90 fan you may find true love in this pickup.

4 conductor passive humbucker, described by GFS as having "P90 tone with Filtertron jangle and PAF bottom". Actual impedance unknown, though my cheap VOhm Meter gave a reading of about 7.6K (can't b right, can it?). Gold cover.

It is in neck position of my home made DC Les Paul copy; replacing the Kent Armstrong OEM PAF I had previously installed there. No offence intended to Kent Armstrong users, but the ceramic pickups just sounded bland to my ears. The sonic description of the Dream 180 sounded like a refreshing change from the usual PAF sound so I decided to give it a try. I Googled for sound clips and found some on the Agile forum (on a guitar of similar build and woods as mine)and I was convinced I was making the right choice.

The output level is hot, but expect to do some tweaking to get "that sound". I found it to be a fickle pickup, too close to the strings sounded boomy and dull; backing it off from the strings improved things slightly but I lost pickup balance with the (excellent) Liverpool Retrotron and the overall tone lacked definition.

What I ended up doing is lowering it to just above pickup mounting ring level and compensated the loss of volume by raising the polepieces. I posted a few clips to my pals on the Cyberjammin' board and that seems to have fixed it - the tone is now clear, jangly and well balanced. The combined neck and bridge position has been described as "surfalicious"!

The Dream 180 sounds good, no question about it, but I'm giving it a chance to grow on me; it's not 100% what I had in mind for the neck pickup. I'm sitting on my hands not to swap it for a Dimarzio Humbucker from Hell immediately, as the HFH has a reputation to "open up" that neck tone quite nicely.

I definitely like the Dream 180 better than its predecessor; does it fullfill GFS' claim that it sounds like the Dream 90 with the jangle of a filtertron and the bottom of a PAF? I'd say pretty close. I can definitely hear the PAF bottom end, and my buddies at Cyberjammin' can hear the jangly top end (sometimes I don't hear it...call it ear fatigue?)I'm honestly not familiar enough with P90's to say whether it has that sound or not.

Now, if it were to crap out on me I'm not convinced I'd reorder that particular one...I might get a Dream 90 instead, or swap it for the HBH and see how well it blends with the Retrotron...

Not to say that it's a bad pickup, it sounds fine it's not just quite "it"...then again it might grow on me and I might say it's the best thing since sliced bread in a few months from now! ;)

Humbucking pickups Didn't measure DC resistance

Installed in a project guitar. Samick MB1 body UCACG neck. Put in bridge & neck positions. I didn't have any pickups to begin with & needed something. Don't know of any artists using these.

Fairly warm pickups. My amp is a Fender Dual Showman & a homebuilt 412 cab. Also using a Digitech RP 80 & a MXR Dynacomp. Tone wise they're a bit on the trebly side. But that's what tone controls are for. I have them wired using individual series/off/parallel switches, one vol/one tone. I play a wide range of music. Jazz, classic rock, country. I get the sounds I need with this setup. I'd look elsewhere for metal.

If stolen I'd hunt the thief down & beat them senseless with the guitar. I've been playing for over 35 years & had a number of different guitars. A Strat, SG & 335 were my favorites. I like the versatility of these pups. And the articulation is the best I've ever heard. But I wish they weren't so trebly. When I switch to another guitar I have to turn the treble on the amp back up. But overall I can't complain. Better to have that high end & tone it down then to not have enough. You can even get some twang, which saves me reaching for my tele. These are the best pups for me.

Passive humbuckers... I'm told they are two P-90 type pickups put together

These pickups, both neck and bridge, came stock on an Xaviere XV-650 double cutaway (similar to Fender Strat) shape. The guitar has a poplar block to which the pickups are attached directly (no pickup rings). The top back and sides are ~ 1/4" maple full hollow on both sides with an f-hole on the top. I haven't tried them in anything else yet but may replace the pickups in my Epiphone Les Paul with dream 180's, we'll see...

The output level of these is noticeably higher than my stock Epiphone Les Paul pickups. The rig I'm playing through consists (tonally... minus delays, expression pedals, etc.) of a Boss CO-3 Compressor > Ibanez TS-9 OD > Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive > Boss CS-1 Chorus (stereo out) > Boss RV-5 Reverb (stereo in, stereo out). One cable runs to a Mesa F-50 1x12 combo (2-6L6 power tubes), the other cable runs to a late 50's / early 60's Sano WR-30 combo (double power amps = 2-EL34's to the 15" driver, one EL84 to the 8" driver) with a homebuilt open back 1x12" extension cabinet loaded with a Celestion Greenback plugged into the external speaker jack. I was very surprised by the tone coming out of these pickups. It doesn't matter how much they cost, these pickups are great. They seem to have better bass response capabilities than the epi's and the highs are rich and full not painfull at all. Compared to the Epiphone Les Paul I found I had to turn the amps overall volume down a touch and boost the treble on both amps a notch, no big deal. I am definitely happy I heard about these pickups and gave 'em a try. My ears are pleased. I play all kinds of music country, reggae, rock, classic rock, jazz, blues, heavy distortion (ween), etc. These pickups are definitely not bright but I've always liked the chunkier sound of hums but despite the fact that they're a bit darker than most they are still full of tone.

I would definitely buy these again (not to mention the Xaviere guitar... for the price, they can't be beat). I've been playing for around 15 years. I've tried them through the mesa alone and the Sano alone and a Kalamazoo Model 2 and it sounds great through them all clean or distorted... I'm happy

5-wire humbucker style advertised as double P90 Filtertron meets PAF, whatever that means.

I bought a set, the neck pickup measured about 12kohms, the bridge around 12.25kohms.

I got the ivory pearl (the yellow ones). The colour is awesome. It matches the binding on the guitar but not the inlays, the white might have been a smarter choice but they do look awesome.

Installed in a 2008 Agile AS-820 hollow-body. The stock pickups were ceramic. The neck pickup sounded pretty good but the bridge pickup was really boring. I replaced both pickups with a set of Dream 180s.

These are 5-wire and I really wanted to try some different wiring mods. I did full coil tapping on each pickup with a SPDT on/off/on switch for each one so I can get humbucker or either north or south pole single coils. This alone is amazing. I also did a phase reversal switch so that the humbuckers are out of phase when both humbuckers are used. All this is still controlled by the regular toggle switch. I got the wiring ideas from guitarelectronics.com but bought the switches locally. Here's the modded guitar: http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll312/Nathan_AS/AGILE_AS_820_MODDED033.jpg

These really breathed new life into the guitar. I own a 1997 Gibson Les Paul Studio with stock Alnico pickups. I've played some boutique guitars/pickups in stores but can mostly just compare to the Gibson with my setup. The tonal options I have with the coil tapping and phasing seems endless. I had to drill 3 holes in the guitar but if you're able to replace pickups you might be able to do this mod. I completely re-did the wiring harness and used 500k pots and 0.022uF film capacitors.

The humbucker settings sound great. Really high output, clear as a bell, well balanced, etc... just like all the other reviewers have noted. It's cool flipping the coil tapping switch and hearing the hum come out of the single coils. If you use a neck single coil with a bridge single coil it kills the hum and sounds incredible.

I bet handwound $400 pickups sound great but for $32 each and a bit of time sticking these in your cheap guitar you will have a total tone monster.

My Agile is meant to be a total different guitar/sound in comparison with the Gibson but I would consider putting these in my Les Paul as well.

I would buy GFS again. Honestly they need to team up with Agile because I hear of a lot of people matching up the two. I would recommend trying these out.

Double coil humbucking size. This one has a pearl/chrome cover with 12 pole pieces, 6 adjustable.

In my Epi Dot Studio. tried in both the neck and bridge. The other pickup was a dream 90. See my review for the dream 90 - I love that pickup.

Didnt really give me the sound I expected, but I really didnt know what to expect either. I tried thisd with a dream 90.. swapping positions, etc.. but ended up really LOVEing the dream 90, but not so much the dream 180. Just my persona preference. The 180 sounded really great clean with some rolled back tone, but I didnt like the over-jangliness and high end in distortion mode. I think this would make a great pickup for someone playing petty, byrds, and even some other popish clean guitar.. but it didnt give me the bottom end and warmth I needed. Cant rate it bad since it did what it was inteded to do, I just didnt like it that much.

Rates a 9,Only because it simply wasnt for me. You really have to try it. I ended up loving the dream 9o though. I might have to get me a mean 90 to try too. I love gfs pickups - I use them in other guitars, my strat, les paul, etc. They are great - better I think than dimarzios. But you have to listen to the specialty pickups like this one to really decide if it fits. If you want to be absiolutely safe, they have great overwound pafs and of vourse, their overwound strat pickups are great too! I love the dream 90 in the neck of my 335!

Dream 180 Filtertron meets PAF

I haven't tested the output and probablly will not. My can ears tell me all I want to know because I'm not going to play any better wheather they are they are putting out 15,000 kajillagiggaherts of load or not.

I installed these pups in a Fender Custom Shop WR Signature series guitar (retail: 3,999.00). I was extremelly saddened with the custom shops approach to a guitars tone. The pickups were Duncan made by the custom shops specs (Duncan only did what they were paid for, not slammin' Duncan at all) but the craftsman ship was sad...they used capacitors, resistors and wiring trickery to acheive thickness and tone. I have to do fly gigs and the two pickups making up the bridge humbucker actually came apart during flight due to the heat in Mexico melting the freakin' potting wax which was THE only thing holding them on the cardboard mount PLUS...PLUS get this...cosmetics was nothing more than a plastic cover to fill a Jazzmasters cavity with HA! aluminum foil mimicing pole pieces in the pickups!!!!!!! not windings!!! not metal!!! or not even real magnets!!!! I completely stripped the circuit naked and had crap left to deal with so I went hunting for new pickups that would compliment a $4,000.00 guitar. I tried Fralins, Duncans, Dimarzio all good but just not what I was looking for then gentlemen, I found these (with extensive research on GFS) and man let me tell you..these babies scream, they plunk, pop, soar, and land with flawless sustain from Haties PLUS to boot they look absolutely incredible in the Mojo. I am very impressed with GFS even though they are a Foreign crafted product (but what isn't....you buy gasoline don't you?
I have wired them up three different ways to see if they lacked beef or tone and all three have unique characteristics of their own wheather series, paralell or splitting the coil..

output is strong, stout, smooth, responsive, and clear as a set of tunned wind chimes in a cool summer breeze on the back porch.
From top to bottom (with correct pole heighth naturally) the output is the same, even with no compressor. I am having to pull back on the Keeley fat/mod Blues Driver just don't need as much drive anymore to break up the amp and give me that Nashville grit. I also run through a Keeley compressor Boss TU-2, Boss Blues Driver (no mod) and a Boss Overdrive/ Distortion into a Line6 Flextone XL manual mode on a Black face setting. I re-wired the amp to accomodate a 2 x 12 ext cab loaded with Black widows.
I play professionally for a signed artist in Nashville, TN(sorry cant say who).. so I play mostly country rock/blues based sounding material. Lotta Mason based qualities, after all he played on the CD. I'm not a thrasher or a metal jammer but these pickups WILL foot the bill if needed be. I can play that stuff, I just don't make a living with it.
Bridge and Neck are ballanced perfect with plenty of bottom low mid-thicknesss and a nice high cutting transparency that doesn't make your ears bleed like a cheap radio cranked. Theres no need to apply a boost when going to a neck pos solo. Trust me it's there.
Don't get offended here ok...K. I don't think (personal opinion here)these pickups are for the average Joe Blow looking for something to come flying out of their guitar that they have never heard. You need to be able to play and understand what a boutique designed pickup is all about in order to get it's full potential. Analogy here...its kinda like High Deffinition Television and 4 leaf clovers...you have to know what to look for to see it. Make sure you wire the bridge and neck in-phase or out together. IF one is in and one is out the middle pos will sound like a cheap strat with an even cheaper analog phaser kicked in. cool effect though if your into that...lol! options, options, options...

I will definatelly buy more GFS pickups. I have been playing
26 years professionally so I've been around a few guitars in my day. Any vetran will tell you this, you don't know what tone is untill you have the right gear to achieve one plus having it infront of 20,000 people is the bomb. Kinda makes you feel like it what it's like to be Ron Jeremy.LMAO here! Tone is like trying to find Atlantis, but when you select the right components (that fit your style) and along with a comfortable playing ability, you will find a tone or find your tone or figure out what it is you're looking for. (My opinion) GFS pickups are a definate beginning or the ultimate solution to that gateway of tonal heaven.

Thank you for your time, I hope my review was some kind of insight to maybe some of your unanswered questions and I trust my explanation was clear and thorough enough that everyone knew what I was talkng about. My price includes bridge and neck together 7 bucks ea shipping my total was $81.90 in three days. Now thats the way it suspose to be.

S

Tap-able humbucker with 2 rows of adjustable pole pieces.

Beautiful franken-Tele:
- maple highway-1 neck
- midnight wine mim body
- Wilkinson bridge, with 3 brass swivel saddles
- Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder in bridge, and chrome Dream 180 in neck

Both pickups are well matched (high output). The SD is slightly hotter (as suspected), but adds a desired punch in bridge position.

I first used the Dream 180 in the bridge of a Squier 51. I was very impressed by how well it's balanced, and how harmonics cut through. It has a nice natural compression which really allows for pick definition and detail. Further, this thing is dead quiet.

Curious enough, I put one in the neck of my franken-Tele (honestly, not expecting much, since experience usually reveals that my favorite pickup in one position is characterless in another).

To be shocked, I was blown away by the Dream 180 in the neck position. You can receive surreal jazz tones; particularly noticeable on the mid and high strings high up the fretboard. Again, this thing really shines with harmonics and pick definition.

I call my franken-Tele the 'Bi-Polar Beast': the neck tones are so sweet and defined, ideal for jazz and clean classic rock; the SD QP is pure power and hard rock.

I have been playing for 12 years, and modding for roughly 3.

I've tried a lot of pickups (a lot of Duncans, Dimarzios, and Lace).

I truly believe MOST of the GFS line is comparable to more expensive pickups. I did not, however, have a good experience with the retrotron pickups (cheap sheet metal cover, and devoid of character).

The D180s are cheaper than most of their line. I wouldn't write this review if I didn't think they were fantastic.

I've tried most of their line; the other pickup that is memorable is the alnico fatbody in the neck of a tele (certainly worth checking out for 30 bucks).

Regards,

A.