FuseG4
Our Neighbor Totoro
I bought a GFS pickup recently, a "Lil Puncher" Tele lead rails humbucker job.
Sometimes for the price you can't complain but really this thing is pretty bad to these ears.
First of all, the pickup comes with the wires prepped as in red and white soldered together and the ground and shield braided together and soldered, then they cut it to have just enough wire to install it. Well they screwed that up and I had to switch hot and ground and that sucks when you have to remove an inch of shielding wrapped around one of em.
So when I got it wired in right, using 500k pots which they recommend, It was a terribly thin sounding pickup. Very clean good dynamics but with that it seriously lacked character. It distorted smoothly like a humbucker should but it sure didnt sound like a Tele.
The worst part by far though is the middle position sound. with the stock rhythm pickup, it was like the volume was cut in half and the sound got even thinner. Like no bass! It was NOT a useable config. and trust my I tried switching the wires but it got worse when i did that so I switched em back. Screwdriver test revealed that it splits the coils on the lead pickup and so I guess that's a big part of it.
So, i didn't think I'd ever put a stock pickup back into a guitar but I did and YAYYY I'm so glad I did.
Thank you Squier, for proving to me that single coil Alnico tone is where it's at.
I'm sure GFS makes good pickups, but now I may never find out for sure cuz I'm sticking with SD, Fender, and to a much much lesser extent, Dimarzio.
So, who else has had a similar experience?
Also, does anyone think the middle position with the Lil Puncher would've sounded more typical if it was paired with the matching neck rails? or is that like "one low-output rail + another low-output rail in parallel = :earl:"
I'm really happy with Squier, i still think their pickups are sub-par but at least they're not ceramic like the MIM fenders.
Sometimes for the price you can't complain but really this thing is pretty bad to these ears.
First of all, the pickup comes with the wires prepped as in red and white soldered together and the ground and shield braided together and soldered, then they cut it to have just enough wire to install it. Well they screwed that up and I had to switch hot and ground and that sucks when you have to remove an inch of shielding wrapped around one of em.
So when I got it wired in right, using 500k pots which they recommend, It was a terribly thin sounding pickup. Very clean good dynamics but with that it seriously lacked character. It distorted smoothly like a humbucker should but it sure didnt sound like a Tele.
The worst part by far though is the middle position sound. with the stock rhythm pickup, it was like the volume was cut in half and the sound got even thinner. Like no bass! It was NOT a useable config. and trust my I tried switching the wires but it got worse when i did that so I switched em back. Screwdriver test revealed that it splits the coils on the lead pickup and so I guess that's a big part of it.
So, i didn't think I'd ever put a stock pickup back into a guitar but I did and YAYYY I'm so glad I did.
Thank you Squier, for proving to me that single coil Alnico tone is where it's at.
I'm sure GFS makes good pickups, but now I may never find out for sure cuz I'm sticking with SD, Fender, and to a much much lesser extent, Dimarzio.
So, who else has had a similar experience?
Also, does anyone think the middle position with the Lil Puncher would've sounded more typical if it was paired with the matching neck rails? or is that like "one low-output rail + another low-output rail in parallel = :earl:"
I'm really happy with Squier, i still think their pickups are sub-par but at least they're not ceramic like the MIM fenders.
