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View Full Version : GFS Alnico Fatbody Tele Neck Pickup



Spudman
September 21st, 2006, 05:32 PM
I finally got this installed in my Squier Tele Special. I am very happy with this choice. The Tele Special has a really nice bridge humbucker that reminds me of a hot Tele pickup. The stock neck pup didn't balance well with this.

The stock neck pup on the Special while being alnico as well seemed a little weak and sterile. The same goes for the Squier 51. They both suffer from the neck pup not being up to par with the bridge humbucker.

I noticed pretty much the same thing Kerc did. I'll include his post from another thread as well. The stock pickup seemed weak, maybe brittle and a tad anemic to my ears. Since I'm hard of hearing from too much RnR I wanted something that would cut through and was more pleasant to the ears, but still had that alnico sound. This pup does it very well and is not too hot.

I've got it pretty close to the strings and have not experienced any "stratitis" string warble and the notes still have good clear definition. It sounds great with any distortion from Bad Monkey, Tonebone, DS1, BD2. Smooth and singing and the bottom strings with or without distortion are tight and full sounding. I'd describe the tone curve as maybe a very shallow smile ). The highs come through and the lows do too, but there is no upper mid harshness like the stock pups have.

Link to the makers web page.http://store.guitarfetish.com/alfaovpotene.html

Kerc's post:[quote]
My MIM Tele has a GFS Fat Alnico on the neck and a GFS Hot TC Alnico on the bridge. I was looking for hotter output while still keeping the Tele sound. Let me tell you that I hit jackpot!

With my Tele I get the classic twang with...spheres... ;), getting overdrive easier, but if I wanna keep it clean I just roll back the volume. The neck pickup is very deep, round, quite different from the bridge, and with this one I can get easily into humbucker territory. Both pups on land me into Strat territory, not sounding exactly like one, but close enough...

Yeah, Teles are very versatile [quote]

All in all a nice economical way to add something to a Tele neck sound or a Squier 51.

SuperSwede
September 22nd, 2006, 02:43 AM
Any chance of hearing the Idaho national anthem with these new pickup Spuds? :D

Spudman
September 22nd, 2006, 07:12 AM
Any chance of hearing the Idaho national anthem with these new pickup Spuds? :D

ROFL. Idaho National Anthem?! Um, our mouths are too full of potatoes to sing it so we usually just humm it?:confused:

kerc
September 22nd, 2006, 07:46 AM
That Fat Alnico is a great pickup, eh? :D

One way I love to play it is playing high on the neck (10th fret upwards) and picking almost over it...It gets soooooo sweet and sirupy!

Spudman
September 22nd, 2006, 08:14 AM
That Fat Alnico is a great pickup, eh? :D

One way I love to play it is playing high on the neck (10th fret upwards) and picking almost over it...It gets soooooo sweet and sirupy!

Ya! Totally is. I'm sure there probably are other pickups that would have been good too, but price wise/value/tone wise it is a hard one to beat.