« Nice sounding PAF »

The Alnico Fat Pat “Boutique” humbucker is my favorite humbucker by the relatively unknown GFS pickup company yet. They say it adds “meat” to your sound, and it does have a very good low end to it without being too bassy or thuddy. The high end of this pickup is clear, but not super detailed like a real boutique handwound pickup should be. The middle and low end is where this pickup really shines, it cuts very well. The pickup seems to be made well. According to their manufacturer it has alnico magnents, black Delrin bobbins, and nickel plated polepieces. It isn’t an overly hot pickup, but it has a little more juice than a regular vintage Patent Applied For (PAF) pickup found in vintage Gibsons would have. They are not equal to an old school Gibson pup, those are super for classic rock. What these have over the old Gibsons, is that they are wound just a tad hotter and potted very well. They are a very full sounding pickup and have just the right amount of edge to them to get a vintage vibe, but with more “meat” as they like to say. I have no problems with feedback and I run into a Marshall JCM2000 DSL with a decent amount of gain dialed in, it just sounds great. I also like that these are four wired pickups, that allow you to throw in a switch allowing access to the single coil as well as the humbucker tones. Now they don’t sound as good as a standard single coil, so don’t think you’re going to get great Strat tones out of your Les Paul, but they do a good approximation. I mostly stick on the bridge pup, so I don’t have a lot of experience with the neck pickup, but it’s very bluesy sounding and does a great Clapton styled “Woman Tone”. I have bought a few of these for different Les Paul and Paul Reed Smith styled guitars and I think it would be hard to find a better new bridge humbucker for 30 dollars.