GFS Vintage 59

Bought a pair to put in a BYO LP body with push pull pots to play with the Jimmy Page wiring. These are described as "four wire with ground" yet they are not. They are shielded two wire with a coil tap. One wire is grounded to the shield, one wire is the signal, and one wire (the tap) is the start/stop between the two coils. This is not four wire.

The base is no longer brass and is not stamped. Got these direct from GFS so no doubt about authenticity.

The impedance measured correct at 8.0 for the neck and 8.3 for the bridge.

The KwikPlug seemed to be built rugged enough and I've read about people with concern for failure. If you build a guitar with these and use the KP harnesses, you should be fine. The only problem that would come out of these is if you use the KP stuff with the intent of changing pickups periodically. It's not there for flexibility, it's there for ease of assembly. Not everybody has a solder iron or knows how to wire things up.

The price is good, but the wiring prevented me from using these. They will end up in an Epi 335 clone which has 10 year old strings right now, so I cannot give an accurate assessment of tone on that guitar.

The Vintage 59 Humbucker from GFS is a slight step down from their Fat Pat’s in my book, and also a slight step up in cost. They use a variety of cover colors so finding a classy looking match to your guitar isn’t a problem. They use Alnico V magnents, Delrin bobbins, Formvar 42 gauge enamel wire and nickel polepieces, so the quality of the pickup is really good for the money invested. These pickups sound very close to a Gibson Patent Applied For pickup, but the tone isn’t fully there. They aren’t a set of Classic 57s. They wind these just a tad bit hotter than a standard PAF at 8.5-8.8k for the bridge pickup and 8.0-8.2k for the neck, so they are not super high output and that’s a good thing. The clarity of this pickup is tad better than the Fat Pat, but the overall feel of the pickup is just a little bit warmer and thinner in my opinion. It lacks some of the rawness that the Fat Pat has, and just sounds a little smoother overall. This can be a good or a bad thing depending on the player. They impregnate these pickups with beeswax, so feedback and outside electrical noise is not a problem like other pickups in this price range. Another big perk of this pickup for the price range is the four wire shielded cables. Like the Fat Pat, this allows you access to the single coil tones as well as the humbucker tones via a coil tap switch. The single coil tones are about equal with the Fat Pat, neither great nor horrible. The pickups come with a wiring diagram to help you install them and the mounting screws and a set of black trim rings. Overall this pickup is pretty much on par with the Fat Pat from GFS, and around the same price point. If you want a very slightly hotter, more raw sounding pickup go for the Fat Pat and if classic gain and smooth sounds are your bag go with the 59. For around 35 dollars US you can’t go wrong with either choice.

These pickups are truly a vintage typs carrment labeled his blues / rock. Those who love contemporary rock may be frustrated. For those who love mtal, you carrment of, I think the microphones in raisin bread would be much more appropriate.

The sound of the vintage 59 is warm, serious and deep, with lots of sustain. This is the micro IDAL to cry a Lespaul. It quickly becomes crunchy and slimy in overdrive, and it gives a good EHJV distortion. Qualitprix a report which is frankly unbeatable!

The pair is really good balance (this would be a shame). They SH1 and SH4 rappellentles me home Seymour Duncan that I had a epiphone.

I now have Burstbuckers 2 & 3 (in alnico 2) are even better for me, but I admit that the report is much less qualitprix INTERESTED in GIBSON ...

8 for the report qualitprix