GFS Pickups I28 Premium Overwound Stratocaster

Single coil overwound pickup for a strat. Nice fiber bobbins, cloth leads, staggered pole pieces but not beveled. These are about 9.5K ohms across the board the bridge is a little hotter.

I had a set of stock Fenders in an American Standard Strat that I did not think sounded that well. I was looking for more output and more "glass". These delivered.

I put in a set of 3. These sound great not just great for the money but great. There's lots of Fender glass on the neck position and the middle has lots of spank. I put these in with 300K pots and a .1mf cap and they scream. One thing with these that I found great is that the 2 and 4 positions have no loss in volume the in-between setting has lots of punch and no dropout like you get with a standard set of stock Fenders. The bridge is nice and fat and round and can really drive an amp. Bottom line I love these and would get them again. They bring my American Standard to life

Overall these are a really great set of overwound strat pickups. I'm very happy with the sound. When you play loud or when you use an overdrive pedal these are great. They sacrifice nothing when you play clean and bluesy. I had stock Fenders and I have had Fender Vintage Noiseless before and these are definitely better for that SRV, Hendrix glass. Love em. Like I said before these are great pickups and these are super great when you consider a set is like $62.00 not $200.

Single coil strat pickups. Measured them myself as 9.9k bridge 9,3k neck 9.3k middle. Cloth covered wire and wax potted, covers and all mounting hardware were included as well as a standard, single coil wiring schematic.

I replaced the original ceramic pickups in my MIM standard strat with these an economical upgrade looking for a more Jimi/Srv type sound.

Much higher output with a thicker tone especially on the neck position without loosing the strat sound. The output could be a little more on the bridge but I rarely play it anyway. I noticed much less of a volume drop when switching from neck to neck/middle together than the Fender Vintage noiseless pickups in my MIA strat and much less muddy than the Fenders. I play through a Fender blackface princeton and a Fender Vibro Champ with a HOA soul pressure overdrive, boss ce-3, boss os-2 digitech flanger, boss as-3 accoustic simulator and a boss reverb pedal. I play mostly blues and classic rock. These things do everything I need and sound even better with 11's.

I played through Lollers, Lindy Fralin, Dimmarzio, and a few other 200-250 price range pickups at a boutique independant music store and these things can go toe to toe with any of them. I would definately order another set. I give it a 9 only because I think the bridge pickup should be a little louder than it is, but don't let that stop you from getting a set. I sold my MIA strat and decided I actually like my MIM better with these pickups and I've been playing off and on for about 30+ years.

This is a single coil pickup issued as basically a Stratocaster replacement. Each are weighing in close to 9K the bridge is about 9.5K
They have fiber bobbins, cloth wrapped leads and they are nicely wax potted. The construction is adequate and the fit and finish on the covers is excellent.

I put this in an American Standard Stratocaster as a replacement to existing Fender Vintage Noiseless. They are a full set so they replace all positions, neck, middle and bridge. I changed these since the noiseless that came in the guitar are somewhat lifeless, they're close but no cigar. The Vintage Noiseless are definitely hum canceling but you don't get the true Strat tone you love IMHO. So I decided to put up with a little hum.

These are over-wound and have a definite higher output. The clean sound is not at all sacrificed you get plenty of glass. I played these through my Blues Junior and on the neck position I hear the full blown Hendrix glass. If you play Lenny with Neck/Middle combo your right there. With the amp cranked up these scream. You could play metal if you want to. I'm not a metal player or a shredder I'm mostly into blues but these could do it all.

What can I say, regardless of how much I paid I would love these Pickups. Given the fact that they are $62 well below any aftermarket name brand like Duncan, Fralin, DiMarzio etc these are amazing. They certainly blow the Vintage Noiseless away.

I'll begin this review by stating that I've owned loads of guitars over many years, and that I have in some way customised all of them, so I've heard plenty of pickups in my time. I'd also like to mention that I have had these pickups in my guitar for six months and deliberately waited before submitting a review - I often come across reviews saying "only got this yesterday and haven't really had the chance to play with it yet, but it sounds... blah blah blah". If you haven't fully used it, why review it?

Hot vintage-style strat pickups, middle is RWRP.

What model guitar or bass did you install this in?
80s Tokai Goldstar Sound strat copy

What position is it in?
All three

What pickups are you replacing?
Stock U pickups

Reason for changing the pickup?
Stock pickups had beautiful mellow, round clean tone but sounded mushy, thin and weak when driving a tube amp.

The I28s were noticably louder than stock pickups when I first installed them, but the tonal balance was almost identical - which is a very good thing, because the clean tone I got from the original Tokai U pickups was the best strat clean tone I'd ever had. Now that I'm used to them they don't even sound high output when clean, which is also a good thing.

With the amp cranked up and overdriven, these pickups suddenly sound totally different to the stock Us. They handle gain much better, keeping definition and clarity. They definitely drive the amp harder, but don't quite have enough top end for that Texas sizzle. A bigger improvement than I realistically expected though. Brifge pickup seems slightly hotter than the other two and is fairly punchy - I actually use it, which is saying something, because on every strat I've ever owned the bridge pickup has been pretty much redundant.

A few months after installing the I28s I replaced the 2nd tone control with an EMG SPC - fantastic little mod. EMG don't make much fuss about the fact that you can use it with non-EMG passive pickups, but they should because it works a treat. I recommend it to anyone who wants to beef up a strat. It's not too pricey either - worth checking out before you install a humbucker or SC-sized humbucker.

One drawback is that the volume and treble drop noticably in positions 2 and 4, but this doesn't bother me too much.

GFS pickups are cheap. When I got them out of the box it was immediatley apparent that the bobbins were good quality, but that the QC was probably not up to much - pole-pieces has varying degrees of bevelling, plastic covers were very cheap, last winding on one of the pups a little loose - physically, these are far from boutique/hand-made quality. However, they do sound much better than I expected, and though I'm sure that spending twice or three times that money would've got me physically better produced pickups, I doubt that it would've got me significantly better sounding pickups. The money I saved on the pups meant that I got 3 new pups, a new circuit built from top-quality components and an EMG SPC all for less that the cost of a set of Texas Specials.

The 10 is for value - I don't think for a second these are perfect pickups but they exceeded my expectations and cost very little.

US STRAT built from all genuine US fender parts via ebay
all 3 positions
replacing none
none
none
none

pretty loud almost so high as a rail type strat pickups
1979 musicman 212 hd amp {same as fender twin}marshall mg30dfx,digitech rp250
very balanced very nice mids
i play metal ,rock, blues learing county
all positions are great .blues,country,clasic rock,even some metal

i'd buy again
i've been playing for 20 years
charvel model 4,charvel model 475 special,bc rich classic mockingbird,lado ii,fender us strat,
its a great srv sound
no
gibson les paul standard
i love it, for that hot strat sound

Pickup features: single coil
Impedence or other specs:

Model of guitar or bass:
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: fender standard
Other pickups on guitar:
Artists using this pickup:
You musical style(s):
Reason for pickup change: ceramic Fender standard pickups SUCK fat eggsacks.

Perceived output level:
Tone: Balanced, warm and full
Sonic evaluation:
For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable:

Comments: This is a followup to my previous post. GFS pickups are Korean imports and are of good quality. Labor costs in Korea have risen significantly in the last year, so get them before they are as pricey as American and Canadian (Kinman) pickups.I have noticed that after a few months the magnetic strength of the pickups magnets has dropped tremendously. this has mellowed the fat, round tone of the pickups, increased the sustain and they sound better than they did when first installed. From all information I have heard from all makers of pickups, manufacturers generally insist that the magnet's strength will only drop 2-3% in the lifetime of the pickups. I have no way of measuring this, but when I made early adjustments to pickup heights, I notice a very strong pull on the screwdriver. I recently felt that I needed to adjust them, again. When doing so, I noticed that the magnetic pull was significantly weaker than I remembered. I am quite satisfied with the pickups and plan to buy a set of GFS pickups for the SX 62 "reissue" I bought her for her birthday.

Pickup features: Passive, Single Coil Pickups
Impedence or other specs: 9.0 neck, 9.5 mid, 9.85 bridge

Model of guitar or bass: 1993 fender standard stratocaster MIM
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: fender standard stratocaster ceramic magnet pickups
Other pickups on guitar: None
Artists using this pickup: Unknown
You musical style(s): blues rock/punk rock
Reason for pickup change: the standard stratocaster pickups were cold, thin and harsh sounding without the level of output that could excuse some of this sort of noise.

Perceived output level: Much higher output that the stratocaster pickups. Played on volume level 3, these babies are smoother, round and warm as hell.
Tone: Great bottom end, no mud in the mid and nice, glassy treble; balanced.
Sonic evaluation: These are incredible pickups and are a bargain at the price. They are wound with 43 gauge wire, as opposed to 42 gauge wire. this gives them the warm, full sound of the telecaster, with the desirable glassy highs of the stratocaster. They are much quieter than fender standard pickups, with far more output. But, i also changed out the pots, completely replaced every wire(go to radio shack and get their 3color pack of 22 gauge hookup wire; $4.59 retail) and replaced the capacitor with a .0223umf sprague orange drop cap. on top of that, i ordered a `62 reissue guitar pickup shield from http://www.guitarpartsresource.com cut and paste this site. they have all kinds of incredible stuff for guitars at great prices... i ended up going to charley's guitars on royal lane in dallas, texas and bought one of the 5-way switches they use on their repairs/modifications. charley is the best shop in the southwest. check them out when you are in the area...
before i did all this, you had a noticable drop in output at 7. now, i get this level of output at 2 1/2. do your research before you buy parts from guitarfetish, as the site isn't too well written and they offer .0475umf caps and say they are for strats. that would muddy up the sound of a strat, so don't bother getting one, but order the .0223, instead. i am playing my strat through a much under-rated, 1966 gibson skylark ga-5t, with 15 watts coming out of two el-84's, and a jensen c10q speaker. My advice is to buy a set of pickups from guitarfetish now, before he becomes the next big thing and sells them for $260, like kinman, or lindy fralin.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: I don't like labels.

Comments: My Made in Mexico standard strat i paid $75 for is now better than any american made custom shop, reissue strat around. it was alot of work, but it is a guitar i am very proud of and have bonded with through this project.