Dummy coil

[Mark Hammer]

The importance of location is a function of whether you are seeking to eliminate hum or simply seeking to reduce it to a manageable level. Complete elimination requires positioning the dummy coil so that it senses the EMI to the exact same degree as the actual pickup. However placement in other, sometimes more convenient, locations can result in a decent reduction in hum. I put a dummy coil in the control cavity of a buddy's Telecaster and the hum got dialed back enough that it made the guitar more usable.

[SoulFetish]

I wouldn't call GFS pickups great, in my opinion anyway. Once bought a tele bridge pickup and it was a physically exact copy of the cheap POS i took out, except was 300 ohms higher.

For my experience, I probably wouldn't go the GFS route again. Several years ago I bought a set of 70's strat single coils which were really decent, with a pretty solid build quality. However, I bought a bridge replacement a couple of years after that which was complete garbage and I ended up recycling it.