GFS -- Pickups and bodies?

[Gordy01]

I know this is an Epi forum, but I've gotten so much good info

from all of you, I'm actually starting to trust you?? LOL

I'm thinking about building a guitar from parts.

How good are the GFS pickups?

Are the bodies and necks any good?

Sure are inexpensive.

[brianh]

I don't know, but I'm gonna find out - thier parts prices are great. And at $159 for a tele copy with rosewood fretboard, it might be worth the risk.

[jcwillow777]

I have GFS pickups in several guitars, and I am happy with them. Good quality at an affordable price. I particularly like thier Vintage 59s. I don't know about their bodies and necks, but I have read a few reviews on their guitars and they are favorable. They make some LP copies with 3/4" maple tops, for about $200. I have been tempted a few times to pick one up, but I haven't yet.

[Gordy01]

I have a Strat and an Epi Les Paul.

I'm thinking that I might build a Tele.

I see the prices are very low for those parts.

$69 for a body, and 49 for a neck.

Pickups for under a 100. Hard to beat.

[Swoop]

Does anyone have any experience with their P90 single coils? I'm thinking of going for their Mean 90, humbucker sized P90s. Like this.

 

They're dirt cheap, and I have heard nothing but good things about Guitar Fetish pickups, which leads me to believe that they will be an awesome replacement for the standard humbuckers, which don't really give the sound I want. I recenlty bought a Squier Strat and the single coil sound is so gorgeous I find myself neglecting the SG a bit. I don't want to do that, because it's a great guitar to play, but just doesn't quite do it for me soundwise. I'm more into that vintage, rounded, almost romantic sound, and the SG with the humbuckers is a bit too grungy sounding for me.

 

I've bought some stuff from Guitar Fetish in the past, and found them to be a pleasure to deal with, though they did forget to send me the control knobs I ordered when I purchased a new pickguard for the Strat as well. No matter though, I needed to order a matching rear trem cover, which I forgot to do initially, so they just sent them with that. I have no qualms with their service, or their prices, but I want to be sure the P90s are really as good as they seem!

 

Also I was wondering how easy it is to wire the P90s in, in palce of the Humbuckers. Is it a case of removing the humbuckers, and wiring the P90s in an identical manner, or more complex than that? I've done electronics at school so I have a fair amount of knowledge on electronic components, I know how to solder, and I can read a wiring diagram, so I'm sure it won't be too difficult.

[Gordy01]

Yeah. That's part of my line of questioning as well. I want to know which of the

GHS humbuckers are good. I've read all the advertising on their site,

but really not many independant opinions.

[InsideMan]

I was looking at the gibson-esque offerings on the Guitar Fetish site. I really like their XV-580 double-cut. But something occurred to me looking at these pictures--how the heck do you get to the electronics? There doesn't seem to be any access plate on the back (as there is with the Les Paul). While this is more attractive, how do you access the pots to repair/replace/whatever? Just wondering...

[Ricochet]

I suspect they use the pickup-cavity. Might eventually be a lot easier than cramming it through an ƒ-hole.

[jcwillow777]

I was looking at the gibson-esque offerings on the Guitar Fetish site. I really like their XV-580 double-cut. But something occurred to me looking at these pictures--how the heck do you get to the electronics? There doesn't seem to be any access plate on the back (as there is with the Les Paul). While this is more attractive' date=' how do you access the pots to repair/replace/whatever? Just wondering...[/quote']

 

I don't think there is a plate on the back of the guitar, I think you need to go through the F hole. It doesn't look to hard though, considering the F-hole is pretty good sized and the pots a pretty close to the F-hole.

[wiggy]

Does anyone have any experience with their P90 single coils? I'm thinking of going for their Mean 90' date=' humbucker sized P90s. Like this.

 

They're dirt cheap, and I have heard nothing but good things about Guitar Fetish pickups, which leads me to believe that they will be an awesome replacement for the standard humbuckers, which don't really give the sound I want. I recenlty bought a Squier Strat and the single coil sound is so gorgeous I find myself neglecting the SG a bit. I don't want to do that, because it's a great guitar to play, but just doesn't quite do it for me soundwise. I'm more into that vintage, rounded, almost romantic sound, and the SG with the humbuckers is a bit too grungy sounding for me.

 

I've bought some stuff from Guitar Fetish in the past, and found them to be a pleasure to deal with, though they did forget to send me the control knobs I ordered when I purchased a new pickguard for the Strat as well. No matter though, I needed to order a matching rear trem cover, which I forgot to do initially, so they just sent them with that. I have no qualms with their service, or their prices, but I want to be sure the P90s are really as good as they seem!

 

Also I was wondering how easy it is to wire the P90s in, in palce of the Humbuckers. Is it a case of removing the humbuckers, and wiring the P90s in an identical manner, or more complex than that? I've done electronics at school so I have a fair amount of knowledge on electronic components, I know how to solder, and I can read a wiring diagram, so I'm sure it won't be too difficult.

 

I bought a set of Mean 90's and Vintage 59's to replace the nasty things that came as standard on my Dot Studio. I was planning to A/B them to decide which I preferred.

 

The P90's went in first and are still there - the Vintage 59's never even made it out of the boxes. They are really really good and will go all the way from sweet jazzy tones to that really biting growl when pushed hard.

 

In terms of wiring them in they are a direct swap for the HB's. You can either just cut the existing HB wires and splice the P90's in, do what I did and split the wires and add quick connectors, or do it the 'proper' way which entails fishing out the pots/switch/wiring through the F hole, soldering the new pup wires and then feeding it all back through.

[Swoop]

 

I bought a set of Mean 90's and Vintage 59's to replace the nasty things that came as standard on my Dot Studio. I was planning to A/B them to decide which I preferred.

 

The P90's went in first and are still there - the Vintage 59's never even made it out of the boxes. They are really really good and will go all the way from sweet jazzy tones to that really biting growl when pushed hard.

 

In terms of wiring them in they are a direct swap for the HB's. You can either just cut the existing HB wires and splice the P90's in' date=' do what I did and split the wires and add quick connectors, or do it the 'proper' way which entails fishing out the pots/switch/wiring through the F hole, soldering the new pup wires and then feeding it all back through.

 

[/quote']

 

Hey thanks for that. In terms of wiring I was going to melt the solder on the Humbuckers, pull them out, and wire the P90s in their place. These are for my SG, so there will be no fishing required. What sort of connectors did you use, do you have a pic? I have always thought it would be a great idea to have little plugs, similar to auto electrical ones, but smaller, so you can plug and unplug your pickups and other electronics, and switch them around with ease. While I'm at it, I might add them to my Strat too. It needs some attention anyway. Ever since I replaced the pickguard it's had a horrible buzz, I figured I must've bashed the wiring about a bit.

[wiggy]

I haven't got any pics to hand but I'll try and sort something.

 

I couldn't find the sort of plugs I was looking for anywhere and then I came across some computer fan speed reduction cables (basically a male and female QC plug with a four wires and a resistor between them) in Maplins. They worked out about £3 per cable and were exactly what I needed. I just cut them in half, removed the resistor and hey presto just had to solder one half onto the pup leads and the other half to the guitar.

 

The strat's even simpler - all you have to do is superglue a shielded terminal block to the scratchplate and just run you pup wires in that.

[Gordy01]

This may be a dumb question, but when you changed the pickguard

on your Strat, did you shield and ground it?

[Swoop]

No I didn't. I've never changed a pickguard, so I wasn't aware of anything of the sort. Is this something I should have done, and something which may stop the buzzing? I just thought I might have knocked the wiring about a bit. It buzzes more when it's plugged in, but sitting on the stand. When I hold it properly, it doesn't buzz so much, and when I touch the strings, it stops completely. So it's not really a huge issue, because whenever I play, I'm never not touching the strings, but I'd still like to stop it.

[Duffy]

Your guitar shouldn't buzz and then stop when you touch it.

 

A lot of us do not have any knowledge of electronics and are unable to identify and correct

electrical problems. If you own a guitar and an amp it might be the time to start learning]

to do some small things but you will need some basic equipment.

 

A flashlight, a multimeter which is a device to check electrical circuits and is available at any

Walmart, etc., a soldering kit with a pencil soldering iron about fifteen to twenty watts, some

thin one mm "lead" containing electrical rosin core solder, and a tin of paste flux and brush.

 

Your pickguard should be grounded to the guitar. You may have broken the tiny wire that

grounds it when you took the old pickguard off, or forgotten about it. They sometimes break

easily. Sometimes the ground will go to the bridge or even lay under the bridge as on a strat

type bridge.

 

Also, all other grounds must be solidly connected. Everything has to be grounded. The jack

has to be grounded and that is easy to check by pulling the jack out and looking at the wires.

The switch has to be grounded and that is easy to check too. The pots also have to be grounded

and the pickups of course have to be grounded, usually to the top of a pot where you

will see a lot of wires are soldered. This will be a ground point. But the whole electrical system

has to be grounded too; usually to the body at the bridge.

 

If you replaced just the pickguard you could have loosened a ground wire on a pot or at the

jack or elsewhere, but it sounds like you didn't ground the pickguard to the guitar. Also, the

pickguard should be "shielded", meaning that it should have some metallic sheet on the bottom

of it that looks like aluminum or another metallic material. That will be a conductor and should

be grounded to the guitar bridge or other recommended ground.

 

A quick trip to a good guitar tech should quickly and inexpensively correct the problem.

Maybe fifteen dollars US for a good tech to correct the buzz.

 

Your guitar should not buzz like that and you should have the problem identified and corrected.

 

 

Guesswork is no substitute for the knowledge of a good tech. A good tech can really

take care of your guitar well, for not much money. When I have a problem beyond my

limmitted knowledge I always take my guitar or amp to a tech. I don't even like to

adjust my truss rods anymore. I used to do it a lot but you can easily get things all

messed up tweaking the truss rod and raising and lowering the saddles or bridge.

Usually a tech can correct the problem cheaply, but the more you mess with the set up

the more you can get it out of wack and the more it could cost for a tech to get it right.

 

I hope this info helps you. I do a lot of my own electronic work but try to know when the

problem is too big for me and then I go to the tech. Some problems can be easily solved

but others require a good tech, needlesstosay.

 

Peace

Duffy

[Swoop]

Is each component grounded individually, or is there just one wire that grounds everything? I would have thought that each component would have a grounding wire coming off it, going to a common point. I am yet to look at my Stratocaster to resolve the issue, but the Telecaster I recently bought has the same issue, and when I took that apart today I noticed that there was a blue wire coming from one of the pots, but it was not connected to anything? Should this have been connected to the bridge? It may well have been connected to the bridge, but fallen off when I removed the bridge. Would this single wire ground everything? There is no sheilding on the Tele guard, but there is on the Strat. No pickups are directly attached to the Tele guard, unlike the Strat which has all 3 pickups attached to it. So by this reasoning there should be two grounding wires, one to ground the pickguard, and one to ground all the other electronics. Is this correct?

[Ricochet]

Not sure I'm stating the obvious. It's not the pickguard that is grounded. It's the electronics fitted in the pickguard that are grounded.

Check the bridge of the tele for a ground, if it has none it could the blue one. Check if it is soldered to the back of a pot.

[Swoop]

Yes the blue wire is soldered to a pot, so I think that's the ground wire. The tele is getting a new bridge shortly, so I'll be sure to reconnect that when I fit it.

 

Yes, the electronics on the pickguard are what are grounded, not the pickguard itself, this I understad. However by attaching the wire to the metallic shield on the guard, and then to the grounding point, in this case the bridge, this will ground them, yes? Or does the wire need to be attached to one of the pups, then the metallic shield, then the bridge? If that were the case, why not just go from the pup straight to the bridge? It's difficult to know without opeing the Strat up, something which I don't really want to do at the moment as this means destringing it, and I don't have any more strings for it at the moment. Plus I just put new strings on it!. If I can sort out what to do to properly ground it all, then I'll whip the guard off next time I restring it and fix it up then. I'm certain that everything else is where it should be, on both the Tele and the Strat, I just did not realise nor notice any lose wires that may have been the grounding wire on the Strat, and the only thing loose on the Tele was that blue wire which I think is the grounding wire. I'm confident that by reattaching these wires, the small issue of the buzz will be solved!

[Ricochet]

 

However by attaching the wire to the metallic shield on the guard' date=' and then to the grounding point, in this case the bridge, this will ground them, yes?[/quote']

 

Yes, in a very unconventional way.

 

Or does the wire need to be attached to one of the pups, then the metallic shield, then the bridge? If that were the case, why not just go from the pup straight to the bridge?

 

The PU always have a ground wire(going to the back of the pots). They wouldn't work without one.

The shield and the bridge are no inherent part of the electronic circuit. By attaching them to ground they just help shielding the electronic circuit.