ratter
New member
I bought a set of their reverse stagger Jimi pickups to put in this Kramer Focus...
http://www.rig-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26328
... that I'm working on. I don't know the make of the previous pickups - if they were stock Kramer or what. The originals had cloth leads but the previous owner had hacked them all up and taped plastic in their place. I started by putting new cloth leads on the original pickups and wiring it back up with new CTS pots and a CRL switch, but I wasn't impressed. The lead pickup was ok, but the neck pickup was real dark and dull.
The GFS replacements were in the same output ballpark as the originals, but the tone is much better. They sound on par with the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage/Area pickups in my other guitar. Only, these GFS pickups were $60 for the set!
http://store.guitarfetish.com/jrestalprpis.html
The cloth wire on the GFS pickups isn't great. It's thin and the braid has a bit of a plastic quality, and the cloth doesn't push back nicely like it does on most cloth-covered wire, where you can pull the cloth back, then solder, then move it back into place. The insulation on the GFS wire just kind of stuck there. Minor complaint. The tone is good and that was my first concern.
So all in all, two thumbs up for the GFS. They shipped promptly and the pickups all measured out as advertised. They include covers and mounting hardware.
Two thumbs down for the ebay seller that hacked up the wiring in the first place. This place is a guitar store and they advertised that they had rewired this guitar! Duct tape doesn't mean rewiring, in my mind. Not to mention, it flat out didn't work. They wired both the hot and ground to the sleeve of the output jack and nothing to the tip. They offered to pay for repairs after I bitched about it. Luckily somebody didn't buy this as a first guitar for their kid or anything, or they would have been SOL.
Before wiring:
After:
http://www.rig-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26328
... that I'm working on. I don't know the make of the previous pickups - if they were stock Kramer or what. The originals had cloth leads but the previous owner had hacked them all up and taped plastic in their place. I started by putting new cloth leads on the original pickups and wiring it back up with new CTS pots and a CRL switch, but I wasn't impressed. The lead pickup was ok, but the neck pickup was real dark and dull.
The GFS replacements were in the same output ballpark as the originals, but the tone is much better. They sound on par with the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage/Area pickups in my other guitar. Only, these GFS pickups were $60 for the set!
http://store.guitarfetish.com/jrestalprpis.html
The cloth wire on the GFS pickups isn't great. It's thin and the braid has a bit of a plastic quality, and the cloth doesn't push back nicely like it does on most cloth-covered wire, where you can pull the cloth back, then solder, then move it back into place. The insulation on the GFS wire just kind of stuck there. Minor complaint. The tone is good and that was my first concern.
So all in all, two thumbs up for the GFS. They shipped promptly and the pickups all measured out as advertised. They include covers and mounting hardware.
Two thumbs down for the ebay seller that hacked up the wiring in the first place. This place is a guitar store and they advertised that they had rewired this guitar! Duct tape doesn't mean rewiring, in my mind. Not to mention, it flat out didn't work. They wired both the hot and ground to the sleeve of the output jack and nothing to the tip. They offered to pay for repairs after I bitched about it. Luckily somebody didn't buy this as a first guitar for their kid or anything, or they would have been SOL.
Before wiring:
After:
