A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

I am wanting to try some humbuckers for a few guitars and wanted to know if any of you have experience with GF pups or Drangonfire pups. I want to find some good pups that are not expensive in my book over $50 each is getting expensive. This set will go in an AL-3200MCC . If anyone has any recommendations for pups please share. I put a set of rewinds by@andrewsrea in my PRS SE Standard 24 and they sound great but just looking for something good that won't break the bank.

I did not particularly care for the GF "Classic II" Alnico 2 humbuckers I tried in my old AL-2000. They were kind of...bland, I guess is the best way to say it, and while I'm not against low-output pickups by any means, these just felt low-output.

I was really fond of the GF Mean 90s, and they seem to be one of the few GF pickups that get almost uniformly positive reviews, but then they are P90-ish, and not humbuckers.

GFS pickups are kind of hit or miss in my experience. I think their Tele pickups are great, but when it comes to humbuckers; some were good, and others were just 'meh'.

I have had many GFS pickups. Some are great, some are just okay, some are not that great at all. The humbuckers are the most hit and miss pickups they make. The Classic II's sounded dull, the VEH sounded to bright, and their blade pickups sounded like crap to me. But, the '59 Classic's sounded really good (expecially the neck pickup), and I thought the Fat Pat sounded good for a hotter PAF style (Duncan JB-style). The Crunchy Pat was a good value if you want a Super Distortion clone.

For me, GFS really excels with their single coil offerings, and their P-90's (Mean 90 is a P-90 type pickup in a humbucker shell). I also like them for their more unique offerings, like the Dream 180 humbucker, their Surf 90, their Retrotron series, their GfTron series, their Gold Foil series, and for their '59 Classic mini humbucker.

There's a few people on TDPRI who like Donlis.

Oh yeah, and the whatever-it-was set in my Xaviere XV-700 was pretty good too. A little too hot and one-dimensional, maybe, but good for hard rocking styles. Of course, since I can't tell you exactly what it was, I realize exactly how much that helps you...

I have a FatPat in the bridge pickup of one guitar and I think it sounds awesome. Very versatile.

And there is Giovanni/Artec GVH-1 that some folks are getting stock in their 3200's I think.

69$ new set on reverb, or just neck for 27$ there too.

They are good sounding 8.8/8.0 PAF style.

So far I have purchased MeanP90s, lipsticks and gold foils from GFS and multiples of some. I have not been disappointed in any of the ones I have purchased from them. Other than that I had Rockfield humbuckers I took out of a MK Hourglass Q and put in a Squier strat, Kent Armstrong Skys and Stealths (which I really like a lot) and some dragonfire single coils. I have not purchased any humbuckers as I do like the stock hums in my Agile and my Ibanezs,

Guitar Madness on eBay. Very hard to beat for the price. I recently bought a set of TV Jones pickups and going to order a few individual Guitar Madness pickups as well. Big price difference between the two, but I have been happy with what I have bought so far from GM. Looking for something to put in a new to me PRS SE, and they will be a Guitar Madness set.

Weird, I've got the Classic II Alnico pickups in an AL 2000 and love the sounds as a contract to my other AL's with Seymour Duncan's . Just a different sound that I can't get out of the other guitars. More jangly.

I hate you people.
I don't really, but you are over enabling me today. I was thinking about replacing stock Pups in my MIM HSS strat and ya'll are taking into a rabbit hole. Was gonna go with SD but now I'm looking at guitar fetish. I have a pair of Mean 90's in another guitar and am happy with them. At least I might save money since I was thinking about it anyway.

devdem wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 8:42 pm Weird, I've got the Classic II Alnico pickups in an AL 2000 and love the sounds as a contract to my other AL's with Seymour Duncan's . Just a different sound that I can't get out of the other guitars. More jangly.

This is the definition of "subjectivity". You liked the Classic IIs (and so did I), but @glasshand and @Gergo thought they were "bland". Conversely, Gergo likes the '59 Classics, and I thought those pickups sounded flat and boring.

ID10t wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:17 pm I hate you people.
I don't really, but you are over enabling me today. I was thinking about replacing stock Pups in my MIM HSS strat and ya'll are taking into a rabbit hole. Was gonna go with SD but now I'm looking at guitar fetish. I have a pair of Mean 90's in another guitar and am happy with them. At least I might save money since I was thinking about it anyway.

For GFS strat pups, I've tried a few of the pro 59, and 63 series mid-hot pups...but the strat set I like from GFS the best is the Earl Slick 56' set. It sounds nice and big. "Piano tones" makes sense with that set.

I've got a set of dragonfire screamers in my rhoades, they're solid, clear, good bit of "oomph".

And I have a power rails & '59 combo in the explorer I built, no complaints, the '59 in the neck is super creamy and smooth, the rails in the bridge has nice harmonics and plenty of punch.

LancerTheGreat wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 3:45 am I've got a set of dragonfire screamers in my rhoades, they're solid, clear, good bit of "oomph".

And I have a power rails & '59 combo in the explorer I built, no complaints, the '59 in the neck is super creamy and smooth, the rails in the bridge has nice harmonics and plenty of punch.

Why have I never heard off this dragonfire? I'm gonna go spend a few days there, anyone else used dragomfire stuff. So many colors and pickguards and stuff.

Mossman wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:55 pm This is the definition of "subjectivity". You liked the Classic IIs (and so did I), but @glasshand and @Gergo thought they were "bland". Conversely, Gergo likes the '59 Classics, and I thought those pickups sounded flat and boring.

Yeah, there's subjectivity in tastes, and then there's also the fact that the pickups are just one part of the signal chain - a pickup that sounds bad in one guitar or with one amp might sound good somewhere else.

glasshand wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:27 am

Mossman wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:55 pm This is the definition of "subjectivity". You liked the Classic IIs (and so did I), but @glasshand and @Gergo thought they were "bland". Conversely, Gergo likes the '59 Classics, and I thought those pickups sounded flat and boring.

Yeah, there's subjectivity in tastes, and then there's also the fact that the pickups are just one part of the signal chain - a pickup that sounds bad in one guitar or with one amp might sound good somewhere else.

Not connected, but also connected, I was pondering this last night and looking at no load Pots. It seems often overlooked. Even the best have tolerances that subjectively make one sound better than the other. A signal chain is only as strong as its weakest link.?

glasshand wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:27 am

Mossman wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:55 pm This is the definition of "subjectivity". You liked the Classic IIs (and so did I), but @glasshand and @Gergo thought they were "bland". Conversely, Gergo likes the '59 Classics, and I thought those pickups sounded flat and boring.

Yeah, there's subjectivity in tastes, and then there's also the fact that the pickups are just one part of the signal chain - a pickup that sounds bad in one guitar or with one amp might sound good somewhere else.

Yep... That's definitely a factor too. Now that I think of it, I put the '59s in a used Epiphone Dot that I just couldn't bond with. It wasn't a bad guitar, per se, but it was just kind of mediocre and lifeless. I came to the conclusion that no set of pickups were going to provide the spark that would make me enthusiastic about it, so I sold it, and didn't even bother to put the stock pickups back in (anyone who's ever swapped pickups in a semi-hollow will understand why). The buyer, on the other hand, was completely knocked out by the guitar, so go figure.

glasshand wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:27 am Yeah, there's subjectivity in tastes, and then there's also the fact that the pickups are just one part of the signal chain - a pickup that sounds bad in one guitar or with one amp might sound good somewhere else.

Totally agree. I personally feel that much of the "tone chasing" that we do ( and I do it too ) is largely between our ears, vs what is coming into our ears. It's pretty well accepted that the power of suggestion is real, and honestly if you think a particular kind of pickups are going to sound better they probably will.

On the practical side of things too - there's many things you can do to change the tone along the signal path that are cheaper/easier to do than installing a new set of pickups ( amp tone stack, those knob thingy's on your guitar, etc ).

I recently bought an AL-3000 with all intents on replacing the pickups, in fact I even ordered a set for that purpose. But now that I have the guitar, I have to say that the stock pickups sound great. They are stock and have no markings of any kind on them, so I am guessing they are the alnico V ones that were advertised. A/B against my LP Traditional with 57 classics and if anything they sound a little more "Scooped" but for the most part with a couple of tone adjustments they sound very, very similar.

ID10t wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 9:57 am Why have I never heard off this dragonfire? I'm gonna go spend a few days there, anyone else used dragomfire stuff. So many colors and pickguards and stuff.

I think I heard of em on the original AGF back in 2009 or 2010.
Their licensed floyd and floyd hardware were (are?) supposed to be pretty good bang for the buck.

Mood can effect one's reaction to a pickup. The guitar and most definitely the amp as already stated can have a really big effect on how a set of pups sounds. I have used quite a few GFS pups.

Dream 90's - Had those in an SX 335 style. Chimey, pleasant and really nice cleans.
Nashville - Had those in 2 Xaviere semi hollow guitars. Not bad at all, very serviceable but not outstanding.
Memphis - Wanting to get that Ric jangle. Installed in a Semi Hollow - No real opinion
Liverpool - Same guitar as Memphis just don't recall much. Not as nice as a Gretsch HS Filtertron.
Surf 90's - Had these in a big 17" full hollow body. Very weak and anemic for some reason. Uninspiring. Wanted to recreate Dynasonic sound in a humbucker route. Fail for me.
Mean 90's - Had these in 3 guitars and have been satisfied. Currently have a set in my Grote 335. Fair approximation (not exact) of a P-90.

So many folks liked the Surf 90's I would ignore my bad experience. May have been bad pups. I still have a set of GFS 59's that I have never installed. My current quest has been low output humbuckers/filters but not really feeling the motivation to mod anything. My preference is to buy a guitar that has the pups I prefer stock.

The key is playing the new pups/guitar through different amps and adjust the settings.

I’ve put these in two of my guitars (an SX and an Agile 3100) and also installed a set in my buddy’s Agile 3100.

They are great sounding pickups. I have a set of Buddhas that I still say are the best I’ve ever heard.

But these are a pretty close second.

https://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-profes ... 35044.html

Mossman wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:55 pm

devdem wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 8:42 pm Weird, I've got the Classic II Alnico pickups in an AL 2000 and love the sounds as a contract to my other AL's with Seymour Duncan's . Just a different sound that I can't get out of the other guitars. More jangly.

This is the definition of "subjectivity". You liked the Classic IIs (and so did I), but @glasshand and @Gergo thought they were "bland". Conversely, Gergo likes the '59 Classics, and I thought those pickups sounded flat and boring.

And so I just dont buy anything at all

nomadh wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 3:02 pm
And so I just dont buy anything at all

You get nothing and like it!