GFS mini humbuckers

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:44 pm

Are they good? Theyre cheap as fuck so that intrigues me quite a bit.

theshadowofseattle · Post by **theshadowofseattle** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:58 pm

I've used and approved of:

Lil Puncher or whatever they call the strat rails
Lil Killer/tele rails bridge
Professional series '63 Tele bridge

Used and did not like:
Strat singles
Tele rails neck
'50's Pro Series tele neck

In other words, they're hit or miss in my experience. I say go for it since they're hecka cheap.

Their overwound stuff is trash because it uses the same magnets as the regular wind. Simple physics shows that adding windings to the same magnetic strength loses higher frequencies. DiMarzio and Duncan account for this usually, but Artec DON'T CARE.

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:31 pm

theshadowofseattle wrote:I've used and approved of:

Lil Puncher or whatever they call the strat rails

Lil Killer/tele rails bridge

Professional series '63 Tele bridge

Used and did not like:

Strat singles

Tele rails neck

'50's Pro Series tele neck
In other words, they're hit or miss in my experience. I say go for it since they're hecka cheap.

Their overwound stuff is trash because it uses the same magnets as the regular wind. Simple physics shows that adding windings to the same magnetic strength loses higher frequencies. DiMarzio and Duncan account for this usually, but Artec DON'T CARE.

I don't ussually go for overwound stuff anyway. Theres no need for them anymore with all these nice boost pedals and high gain amps.
but I'll try out one in the bridge of my mp jag thing and see how it sounds.

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:38 pm

unless anyone has any info on how terrible they are.

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:51 pm

Take back what I said about overwound. These sound really nice.
[youtube][/youtube]

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 5:12 pm

ykk211 wrote: I don't ussually go for overwound stuff anyway. Theres no need for them anymore with all these nice boost pedals and high gain amps.

This is a personal preference thing really, but I wouldn't say that's necessarily true. Right now it seems like more people are all about the low-watt tube amps for quick 'n' easy crunch with a booster/overwound pickup than using a pristine multi-channel hi-gain setup.
Also boosters colour the sound, so while you're driving the amp in a similar fashion just beefing up lower-output pickups with a booster isn't the big obvious alternative to overwound stuff it would seem, there's a lot of extra stuff going on. Guitar boosters actually preceded high-output pickups by years. They don't do quite the same thing, although they'd perhaps like to.

theshadowofseattle · Post by **theshadowofseattle** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:38 pm

ykk211 wrote:Take back what I said about overwound. These sound really nice.
[youtube][/youtube]

I don't hear any pickups through the distortion.

YuriK · Post by **YuriK** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:14 pm

theshadowofseattle wrote:
ykk211 wrote:Take back what I said about overwound. These sound really nice.
[youtube][/youtube]
I don't hear any pickups through the distortion.

They probably sound shit clean, but the guitar im thinking of putting them in wont really be doing clean. I may pick up a different one of their mini humbuckers though. The only fat one availible in p90 style is the overwound 13k one.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:08 pm

I've got my thoughts about mini humbuckers in general and directly about that one that has pole prices aka Les Paul Studio, Epiphone Wilshire pickup. I noticed that people expect different qualities from mini humbuckers. Those who got used to play single coils expect the same good clean sound and some punch of humbucker. Those who got used to play humbuckers expect very articulated notes and the sound that as thick as full humbuckers have. People who play P90s think that mini humbucker growls the same way as P90 when it is distorted, but only without hum. IMHO, traditional mini humbucker sounds nothing like all this. It has its own sound... which is unconvincing to me. Personally I played only Epiphone mini humbuckers on my Wilshire, but I was about to buy some replacements, even some boutique pups, and listened many sound samples, reviews and live shows(Townsend, MC5) to understand what original Gibson minibuckers sound like, and how boutique pups differ from them, etc. So my opinion they are not clean at least you can forget about sparkling cleans, they are thin sounding pickups if you compare them with full sized humbuckers, they are not as loud as full sized humbuckers, on my Epi there was always the feeling that there is something between guitar and amp that prevent you to sound good, it's like that you need to pick harder to get same sound than when you play on singles or humbuckers, the only convincing type of sound that they can produce is some ACDC style heavy rocknroll. My opinion they are pickups only for fans of such type of sound. Cheap minihumbuckers have all these flaws and sound even much worse. According to what I've heard Fire bird style pickups have better cleans, but they are not as good as singles, overall they are thin sounding pickups and to my ears even shrill. Boutique pickups are very expensive and sound different, Lollar I think makes all his pickups for good thick blues or mellow hard rock, so his minibuckers have everything for such type of music.
I can recommend you Dimarzio Vintage Minibuckers, they cost about $70 in the US, they have a different construction, they use ceramic magnets. There was a review of Japanese Fender Telecaster with them on YouTube, and that guitar has really sparkling cleans, at the same time bridge pickup growled pretty good, now I can't find that review. I wanted to buy that pickups but sellers in the US are not allowed to ship them abroad, and in Europe they cost about 100euro(how stupid is this?).
Other option, you can try to find used alnico mini humbuckers that appeared not so long ago on Gibson 70's tribute series, I think they are better sounding pickups than traditional mini humbuckers. You can find them for cheap on eBay, they appears from time to time, I bought myself a set of them but haven't tried them yet - my Wilshire has fret board and truss rod off and I don't know when I'm gonna repair it.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:51 pm

I luckily downloaded that video and have just uploaded it on youtube. So Fender Japan Thinline Tele with Dimarzio Vintage Minibuckers DP240, DP241
[youtube][/youtube]

EDIT: youtube link doesn't want to work properly

Fakir Mustache · Post by **Fakir Mustache** » Mon Apr 07, 2014 7:43 am

GFS also makes those Gretschy ones which fit mini-humbucker frames. You can only get those from GFS, the Artec Gretsch looking mini-humbuckers are bigger, not the same size.