Pickup suggestions for GFI

Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

First of all, I'm a life-long confirmed Strat man. I crave the good, clean single-coil tone. I also only use tube amps and currently am using a new Vox AC30CC1.

My GFI uses a GFI-II pickup, which I understand is a slightly "heavier" George L E-66. It's a fine pickup, but I crave greater transparency in the mids and a less strident, more crystalline top end.

Suggestions? Both single-coil and humbuckers ideas welcome.

autry andress · From: Plano, Tx.

I remember reading on the forum a GFI owner
went to a True Tone @ 20.5 Ohms & was real happy with it.
Also Norm Hamlet had/has a BL 710 on the C6
neck.
How my favorite pick up is a LXR-16 but I
don't have a GFI.
Good Luck

Stephen Dorocke · From: Tres Piedras, New Mexico

Jerry Wallace will wind a pickup to your specs. Whether you indicate actual resistance or just describe what you'd like tone wise. He wound a replacement pickup for an Eharp of mine that needed a replacement, and I'm very happy with it. His trade name is Trutone.

Al Terhune · From: Newcastle, WA

I just ordered a TrueTone from Jerry this past Friday to replace my GFI II. He's sold a number to GFI players and he's not had any bad feedback -- everybody loves them.

Al

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Hmmm - I have the GFI -II in min and think it's pretty Fendery, and I'm a yed-in-the-wool Fender guy.

If anything, I'd have Jerry do a single coil, but keep the impedance very low - like 9.5k or so. Having a pickup wound up in the 20k range will take it completely away from "Strat" territory, and give you even more of a generic "steel" sound ("happy with it" doesn't mean they were ooking for the specific sound you are).

Bob Carlucci had a similar pickup experiment done on a Carter, and got a great Fender tone out of it - it sounded almost lik a newer 400, which as a Strat/Jaguar blended sound.

If you give Jerry the general low-impdance spec idea and what sound you're looking for, h'll probably nail it. H did a great job on one of my 1000 pickups - I didn't want it too "neat" like modern ones, which I think loses a lot of resonance. He got it just right, and is a great guy to deal with as well.

If you do have Jerry make a pickup, please let me know how the esults are. If it really nails the Strat sound, I might have one made and either replace mine - or ADD a second pickup, which i reall what I think steels should have anyway.

[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 15 October 2006 at 06:04 PM.]

Sonny Priddy · From: Elizabethtown, Kentucky, USA, R.I.P.

My GFI Has The GFI 11 Pickup Great Sound Don't Think I Could Beat It. SONNY.

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Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

I kinda figured most folks would steer me towards the TrueTone, and that's the direction I'm leaning in, but I'd still be interested in a clear, "transparent" humbucker. As an example, I currently have an old GFI student model with a Barcus Berry pup that I really like. I think I'd be pretty happy if I could find that tone to fit the GFI II slot on my Ultra!

As for strat tone on a steel, I think if it'd be possible to get the sound of a strat neck pup from the standard position on a PSG, I'd be ecstatic!

David Higginbotham · From: Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA

Although I have 10-1's on my GFI because I like a darker tone, I can recommend the Lawrence XR-16 Hunbucker as well for the sound you seem to be seeking. Crystal clear with a bit of bite to it!
Dave

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GFI D-10 & Evans FET 500LV

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Twayne - If you didn't just add the pickup but added a tone pot - or even a set-value resistor and cap tone circuit - to the guitar you could get really close, even with the "bridge" position of the pickup. It's the old Fender Esquire trick - 3 basic tons, one of them variable - on a one-pickup guitar.

That's my beef with PSG guitar manufacturers. Why they do not have volume and tone controls on the guitar, or multiple pickup options, is completely baffling Is the market so limited that there's only a need for *one* basic sound, varied only by the type of pickup and the amp used?

Incredibly limiting. One of the first things I did on my 400 was add the second pickup. Fender was smart enough to have the controls already there. so I just has to ass a switch. Not hard routing a spot for the pickup - a little tougher on the GFI but I'll find a way.

Anyway - if you have Jerry shoot for the basic Strat-type tone, adding a tone circuit to offset the position of the pickup would be a piece of cake. Worth a thought, and you'd have your own sound - not another one-pickup-and-out typical PSG sound.

Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

Hmmm, that esquire tone trick's an interesting idea, I might try it out on my goldtone lap first to see how I like it.

As for the Lawrence XR-16, does it have four leads + shield? I frequently prefer humbuckers wired in parallel as opposed to the more standard series configuration.

Al Terhune · From: Newcastle, WA

Twayn -- interesting. I had a GFI student model about 9 years ago and liked BB pickup better than the GFI II, also.

Al

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

The Lawrence XR-16 might be just what you want. Or for even more sparkling top end and transparent mids, you could try the Lawrence 710 (or 712 for 12 string.)
I think that Paul Franklin and Lloyd Green have used the 710 on most of their recordings in the past decade. So you have probably heard the 710 a lot on Franklin guitar and Sho-Bud.
In my experience, GFI guitars have a distinctive sound of their own. I really like the GFI sound, but I would not call it transparent and sparkling. If I want that, I would just play another guitar.

Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

Well, I've dropped Jerry Wallace a line to see if the True Tones are for me, so we'll see. The BL 710 also intrigues me. I've got a set of his SCN pups that I like quite a bit for noiseless strat pups (though I've put a keeper set of Fender Fat 50's in instead.) The problem I've always had with bright humbuckers is that they tend to get "shrill" instead of "crystalline" like singles do. OTOH, 60-cycle hum has driven me into the arms of humbuckers and noiseless strat pups on more than one occasion!

Nathan Delacretaz · From: Austin, Texas, USA

I've just taken the leap towards an XR-16 for the E9 neck of my GFI D10. Without the ability to truly comparison shop, I did some informal polling and consulted the pickup comparison page on the Carter site. The XR-16 seems like the happy medium between the transparent/crystalline sound of single coils and the beefy lows & noiselessness of humbuckers.

It's so subjective!! Unfortunately, steels loaded with various pickups aren't just sitting around at our local music shops...So a leap of faith is required of anyone wanting to try out different sounds...

Ken Metcalf · From: San Antonio Texas USA

I was looking for a pick-up with cleaner low end, while playing through a fender twin.
Although I am not partial to Peavey amps.
When I played through a Nashville 400, it was
bam!! low end big strings sounded clear as a bell. now no need for pup shopping.

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Ken Metcalf/ San Antonio
Carson Wells D-10
Nashville 400
Peterson V-Sam

Darryl Hattenhauer · From: Phoenix, Arizona, USA

In his latest newsletter, here's what Bobbe says about puke-ups. He learned all of this from me.

Hello fellow players,

Here are some facts that I need to go over again because of questions I’m getting on the phone and ridiculous misconceptions that I’m seeing on the steel guitar forum.

Concerning pickups for your steel guitar, you cannot make a guitar have better timbre or improve the actual tone by changing pickups. Different pickups will however, give you crisper highs or vary in the amount of output according to the amount of magnetic power they have and as we all know by now, a pickup having two coils 180 degrees out of phase with each other will result in a pickup that will not pickup AC hum as easily. But as far as changing the timbre of your Zum, Rains, Derby, Mullen, MSA, Sierra and several other brands to make them sound like Weldon Myrick’s push pull Emmons on the Opry, it’s just not going to happen.

One of my experiments several years ago was to put a brand new Emmons pickup on the MSA guitar that was being made at that time to see if it would have any of the Emmons characteristics. It had none. So I thought I’d go one step further and put the MSA single coil pickup on the Emmons guitar. The Emmons guitar retained all it’s qualities and sounded as fantastic as ever.

Again, if you’re trying to change the actual timbre and tone of your guitar by changing pickups, you may be better off to change the guitar and keep the same pickup.

The reason I’m rehashing this subject and saying this again is because we only had about a thousand subscribers to this newsletter the last time this subject was covered. We now have over 30,000.

Like I said the last time, when I gave Dolly Parton’s microphone to Porter Wagoner, he still sounded like Porter. It didn’t make him sound a bit like Dolly. Go figure! A pickup is just a guitar’s microphone.

My recommendation for a good all-around, no trade-off pickup would be one of the George L models, preferably, the no-nonsense E-66 or 10-1. The main difference in these two pickups is the 10-1 has more wire in the coil which hurts highs and bottoms slightly but some of the newer zingy guitars need these frequencies rounded off. For most guitars, the E-66 which was designed by Buddy Emmons and George Lewis initially on the EMCI guitar, is about as good as it gets.

This is also the opinion of every customer we’ve ever sold one to.

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"I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back." --Henny Youngman

Mike Cass · Posted 27 Oct 2006 3:14 pm

I keep falling in and out of love with the GFI-II. It is 1000k hotter than the E-66,and from time to time(in a live setting)I do notice that bit of mid-honk which comes with heavier windings,esp noticable on the E9.
To its credit; on tape the GFI Ultra w/the GFI-II p/u does seem to accurately reproduce what you put into it. That guitar,imho,is the smoothest recording guitar that Ive ever owned,going dead straight into any board from the volume pedal,with the board eq set flat. And in the case of recording I feel that the p/u is certainely part of it.
Not to mention the lack of hum. Hence,I've strived to get that guitar's recorded tone in a live setting. Therein lies the rub.
Lots of things come into play though when youre trying to set a tone or try a different p/u,amp,etc. Where does one play their volume pedal,and what type of pedal do they use? What kind of cables is a person using? where do they place their right hand? Do they use stainless or nickel strings,
etc,etc,etc?
A couple of years before I went to work for Ray Price,I subbed for Danny Muhammad on the gig and was using an EMCI w/newly added GeorgeL "TW" series p/u's,which feature 1 iron and 1 stainless blade,wound to 18.5k.
My feeling though,was that they were too thick for that gig,esp at the low volume we played at. Live,I was missing the transparency of the formerly installed
E-66's,but the 18.5k TW turned out to be great in the studio. For me they were better than the E-66. After Danny left Ray and I joined up,I had gotten the Ultra,playing it thru a new reissue Twin Reverb w/15" spkr.
There have been nights since when I wanted to sh**-can the whole rig,then others where I couldnt believe what I was hearing,or as Clem Schmitz likes to tell me:"Son,you ain't
"that" good..."

This pickup thing reminds me of the "rack wars" we went through here in the studios in the 80's and 90's; 10:00am,on top of the world,quiet,effortless to play;
2:00pm,"what the he** happened??"
5:20pm,Im slinking out the door with my tail between my legs,grateful that I was done for the day.
Maybe the E-66 or the Wallace is the answer, or maybe I'll mill out the front of my E9 neck ala MSA,wire it up to accept slide-in p/u's and start experimenting. Im glad I saw this thread, makes me not feel so alone

[This message was edited by Mike Cass on 27 October 2006 at 04:22 PM.]

Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

Bobbe makes some good points. The main character of a guitar is shaped by its contruction more than its pickup. You can't make a strat sound like a les paul by slapping a pair of paf's into it! But, if you want to fine-tune your sound, the pickup's one of the first places to start.

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