GFS Pickups I27 Premium Alnico Staggers

this is a calibrated set of strat single coil AlNiCo 5 staggered magnet pickups. Impedance ranges between 6.0?? and 5.0??. They come with cloth covered wire but use a slightly different-looking pickup cover. I replaced my covers with Fender replacements. The magnets are slightly beveled.

These were installed in a Japanese Fender Strat with a maple neck and replaced 3 dimarzio "chopper" pickups that someone installed in it before I bought the guitar. I don't know of any popular artist who uses these GFS pickups (but who cares)... The reason I replaced the dimarzio's is because I wanted to bring this strat back to what it's supposed to sound like - and I was very successful. I searched the web for awhile and noticed lots of raves about these pickups. They're made somewhere in Asia but quality is pretty decent and the price can't be beat - at least for now.

My amp of choice for this strat differs widely but I find myself plugging into a vintage twin reverb more than anything else. Overdrive is generally something like a TS808 tube screamer.

The bridge pickup is slightly louder and nastier than the middle and neck. Perfect for that solo that needs to be heard. I detect no harshness in this pickup, clean or distorted. The middle yields a very Blackmore-sounding tone (specially with my marshall) and the neck is one of the best pickups I've heard, so far, it sounds so fat, yet not muddy. Thick, yet very cutting, big but not hairy. It's downright the woodiest sounding p'up I've heard. Lots of spank clean and tons of overtones when overdriven. These convincingly brought me back a few decades.

The in between positions, of course are noiseless, due to the RWRP middle p'up and do give a very convincing "quack".

I own 3 more strats: one with Voodoos, one with US Std and one with texas Special pickups. The GFS sound the brightest and loudest of the bunch, yet manage to stay just as quiet and dynamic as the others. Very nice.

Been playing on and off roughly about 20yrs. I'm more of a tech than a player these days... I have to admit, with tons of pickups to choose from out there, I have found the GFS to be the best bang for the buck and they hold their own pretty well. I'm very satisfied with these pickups in terms of bargain, quality and performance. I'm considering replacing the other strats' p'ups with these but some variation in tone is always good. Only thing I'd like to see is a more vintage-looking p'up cover for these guys, that's about it, everything else is just perfect. The folks at guitarfetish.com are pretty nice. They ship promptly and generally seem to have everything in stock.