GFS Pickups Lil Puncher Cool Vintage

These are passive, dual-blade humbuckers for Telecasters. The bridge pickup has an impedance of 6.5K. The neck is 5.5.

Info is available at http://store.guitarfetish.com/casetcvililp.html. I see that they misspelled "huge". Thankfully, I don't think the person who created the web page made the pickups.

I installed these in a project guitar I built. It has a Fender California Fat Tele body, a neck of unknown origin, and GFS hardware.

Although the neck and bridge pickups are also available seperately, I bought them as a set. I wired them to the volume and tone controls that came with the body.

The output level is about the same as the stock Fender pickups in my '99 Strat. This is fine with me. I'm not a big fan of high-output pickups. I like clean headroom. When I want overdrive, I have enough gain devices to get it. I see no need to slam the input of my amp with a super-hot signal.

I'm using these pickups with a variety of amps, including a vintage Fender Champ, a Lab Series L-5, and a Pod XT Live going through a Peavey tube power amp.

So far, they sound great with everything. They sound like single-coils, with just a touch more midrange. The bridge pickup is as snappy and bright as you'd expect from a Tele. Through a clean amp, it has all the twang you'd ever need. With the tone knob down just a bit, I can get a perfect rockabilly sound.

The two pickups together give you a much more balanced tone - useful for rock and funk. Chords ring out nicely with a lot of definition. There's a good balance of highs, mids and lows. Leads have that stinging Tele tone, but with a little more fatness.

The neck pickup alone is amazing - perfect for blues. At least it is NOW (read on). I can get a great David Gilmour, 70's Pink Floyd sound out of it. Here's the only complaint I have - GFS ships this pickup with wood screws that mount directly into the body. I tried it this way, and it sounded muddy and the output was too low compared to the bridge pickup. When I mounted it to the pickguard and raised it, it really came to life.

Best of all, every tone is completely noise-free. No hum whatsoever. I couldn't be happier.

I've been playing for about 25 years. I've had Strats, SG's, Ibanezes, a Vox, a BC Rich and various other guitars. But this is my first Telecaster. I chose these pickups because GFS compared them to the Joe Barden boutique pickups that Danny Gatton used. And the price was right. I had my doubts, but they are excellent.

I love the variety of tone I can get. I was expecting to use this guitar mainly for rockabilly and blues. But I'm getting sounds that will fit just about any style.

If these pickups were destroyed or stolen, I'd be back online ordering another set ASAP.

Dual blade humbucking Telecaster pickup set. This is what the GFS website says:

"FINALLY- a suitable replacement for those great Barden pickups of the 80's and 90's. A true side by side blade humbucker wound to vintage single coil specs. 4 wire for Coil Tapping."

"The 6.5K Bridge pickup has all the twang and snap of a great 60's Tele pickup- with NO NOISE WHATSOEVER- and a great gnarly edge.

"The 5.5K neck pickup is smooth and warm with a nice attack and great string response. We recommend mounting this so the top plat of the pickup is FLUSH with the pickguard- which might seem a little low for some of you- but these are very sensitive, and the extra space helps them "Breathe" a little."

These pickups were purchased to be installed into a Fender American Standard Telecaster, neck and bridge positions. I have another Fender American Standard Telecaster with Joe Barden Danny Gatton pickups installed, and wanted to have a backup telecaster. Since the Barden pickups cost me $280 for a neck and bridge pickup set, I was hoping to save some cash and decided to give the GFS pickups a try.

Since the GFS website boldly states that these pickups are "...a suitable replacement for those great Barden pickups..." I will be comparing these to the Joe Bardens in my other Telecaster.

The Joe Barden website describes its Telecasters pickups:

"The tone of these pickups can be described as absolutely vintage in character, but with greatly expanded fidelity. The lows, mids, and highs are all equal in strength, eliminating the thin, or "tinny" sound that is often a problem with Tele-styled guitars."

In comparison, the GFS pickups do fit in the same sized pickup openings in a Telecaster just like the Joe Bardens. The GFS pickups are black, dual blade humbuckers, like the Joe Bardens. But that's about where the similarities end. Quite simply, the GFS Lil' Puncher Cool Vintage pickups sound nothing like the Joe Bardens.

Every pickup sounds different through various amplifiers, so I can only give information regarding the amps listed. Through a Fender 65 Deluxe reverb, a 68 Vibrolux, and a 62 bassman, and a Marshall JCM800, the GFS pickups have a much more pronounced midrange, something like a regular full-sized humbucker. There is no twang factor, no vintage Tele sound. The Bardens on the other hand sound like Telecaster pickups, but without the hum.

Whereas the Bardens can do Twang and rock, the GFS pickups are pretty much standard rock. The Bardens have great high frequency response, which can be dialed out by turning down the treble or presence controls on an amp,to let the mid frequencies pass through for more of a standard humbucker sound. But the GFS pickups don't have that high end frequency sparkle like traditional Telecaster pickups do, and you can't add treble or presence to a pickup that doesn't have it to begin with. The volume and tone pots were even switched to 500k pots to let more high frequencies through, but it didn't help.

You might say that the GFS pickups sound like Barden pickups, if you are playing a guitar with Bardens and cotton stuffing your ear canals.

Since I am comparing them to standard Telecaster and Joe Barden pickups, I would have to say the GFS pickups don't come close to sounding the same. So are they suitable replacements for Joe Bardens? I say no, but check them out for yourself. Sound is subjective, but for my applications, the GFS pickups won't work. So I give them a 1.

These pickups will be installed in another guitar, or traded to someone looking for a traditional humbucker, midrangey tone. These pickups are not harmonically rich, and do not exhibit the complex overtones found in great sounding pickups. They're just kind of blah. Since these are the first pickups I've bought from GFS, I can't say how their other pickups sound. I was only able to contact them through email, but the response I got when I asked them why they didn't sound more like 'traditional Tele pickups was, "...Well, they're humbuckers, what did you expect?" I felt that was kind of rude, especially since they advertise them as having all the twang and snap of a great 60's Telecaster pickup. Maybe they meant a 60's Telecaster full-sized humbucking pickup like the ones in the deluxe and thinline models? If there was a rating for customer service I'd give them a 2. I felt more like an inconvenience than a customer. Since these pickups were only $50 for the set, I'd say I got what I paid for, although Fender Texas Special custom shop Telecaster pickups would be a better choice for $100, and still cheaper than a set of Bardens.

Twin Rail Telecaster Neck Position passive humbucker 4 conductor Cloth wrapped coils

90 Fender Telecaster Neck Pickup Replacement
Replaced the stock which is long gone
Companion to a Duncan lil 59 in Bridge w/ standard 3 way wiring
Like the way my old Tele feels but Wanted PAF / maple neck, ash body tone while maintaining the apperance / integrity of guitar

Hotter than stock pickup of course. Many more windings and 2 coils.
I keep it down low for more PAF vintage tone. Could be split or paralleled if wanted.
Clear tones and evenly balanced, rich and complex harmonics are there. Little Middy but it is a neck humbucker...Warm,Fat and strong when clean. Distorted it is creamy and rich (Santana, Clapton ZZTop man!). Beautiful tone. Used in combo with bridge it brings out a chimey tone similar to the middle tele position but a bit darker. Very useful.
Use for a variety of styles, I play Contemporary Christian Music which covers the gammut, Funk, Blusey, Soul,Rock,and a bit of country and Jazz. Will use this everwhere I need the LP Neck sound but it has more character than the std neck pickup to me, probably cause of the guitar bolt maple neck /ash wood combo.

Been Playing 25+ years. Grew up on Classic Rock and Blues. Played Modern Country Professionally for a few years in Guitar-town. Wish I would have had this axe when I was on the road. It's a keeper. Looked at all other twin blade pickups (all to fit a strat). This was the only one made for the Tele.... go figgure. Only problem I had was it was out of phase with the Duncan and it was easier to change the leads on this than the Duncan (which was a pain but worked fine). Screws that came with it were not std tele pickup screws so i had to go a hunting. Had to enlarge the neck slot on the pickguard a bit but it is not any wider than a stock pickup.
I use modeling amps for the variety. This sounds good with all the settings I use. Really cool tones with a hard pushed Boogie or Deluxe with a tubescreamer.Will look at GFS pickups for sure on my next project. Great value and workmanship. Played and heard lots of amps, guitars and pickups. I like this one . No changing it when it suits my ears this well. Maybe if someone just gave me an old SG to compare?

Pickup features: single coil sized humbucker
Impedence or other specs: bridge-6.5k neck-5.5k

Model of guitar or bass: 52' telecaster reissue
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: stock
Other pickups on guitar:
Artists using this pickup:
You musical style(s): rock
Reason for pickup change: the stock tele pickups were a little weak, and overdriven, they just weren't giving me the sound i wanted

Perceived output level: these are very powerful and very sensitive
Tone: these pickups were really well balanced all across the spectrum
Sonic evaluation: 52' telecaster reissue
vox ac-30, 65' fender deluxe reverb, and a really old fender tweed deluxe
various effects

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: these pickups seem suited to just about anything.

Comments: i had already tried some other pickups from GFS so i was pretty convinced from the get go that these were going to be really good, and i was right!!! all across the board they sounded fantastic. really well balanced, great output, and the tone was just beautiful. understand that these pickups are described as an alternative to joe barden pickups, now selling for over $500 if you can find them. after i installed them in my tele, i had one thought in my mind. FUCK JOE BARDEN!!! i advise anyone to give these a try, they are simply the best tele pickups i've ever tried. there's a point when you pick up your guitar and it does what you want right from the start, it sounds better, you play better, it sounds BETTER, you know what i mean. anyway, get them and if you don't like them, you shouldn't play guitar