GFS selling noiseless Strat pickups

[chevalij]

they're coming out with noiseless pickups. The cool part is apparently they use Neodymium / Alnico magnets! Probably like their plain enamel formvar wire?

[GlennW]

They'll sound great if the body is painted with nitro/acrylic lacquer.

[EtLa]

lol...

Edit: delete my poorly written joke

[David Schwab]

For that Vintage/Modern tone!

I bet they are using alnico slugs with a neo bar on the bottom.

[Stan H]

I wonder where they get their clear pickup covers?

[chevalij]

For that Vintage/Modern tone!

I bet they are using alnico slugs with a neo bar on the bottom.

Why bother? I mean, what effect would it have? Honestly I'm asking a question here

[spud1950]

Why bother? I mean, what effect would it have? Honestly I'm asking a question here

I was curious so I actually emailed them.

Question:"Could you please explain the Neodyminum/Alnico aspect of these new pickups. Are the pickups available with a choice of either type of magnet or are they constructed using a combination of both types of magnet?"

Answer:" The concept is they are a side by side humbucker using very narrow
aperture coils. One of the side effects of narrow aperture coils a
pronounced midrange and diminished low end- so the polepices you see are
actually a molded ground plane that is used as a notch filter. The coils
are also wrapped in copper foil which is grounded and the whole assembly
epoxied into a strat pickup case. We've gone to great lengths to
magnetically and acoustically tune the components to produce a certain
sound, rather than just monkeying with magnets and wire the way most
pickup makers do. The result is a pickup that looks 100% vintage, has
almost zero handling noise or squealing, and is very quiet. Of course
all of this means nothing if the sound isn't right, and we think the
balanced sets we will be offering are the best sounding noiseless sets
on the market. We mix neodymium, alnico and ceramic magnets of different
physical size and different magnetic gauss- really each single pickup is
fine tuned for the exact response we want. We do not mix magnets
together- tried it in protos but I think we produced a better sounding
set with individual magnets of one particular type."

I'll leave it to the experts to interpret it.The answer about the magnets seems somewhat confusing.The GFS site says that there will be six calibrated sets available,so I'm assuming that,depending on the set,they will have magnets of one individual type or another rather then a combination of different types.

[David Schwab]

Answer:" The concept is they are a side by side humbucker using very narrow aperture coils. One of the side effects of narrow aperture coils a pronounced midrange and diminished low end

That's pretty much true, and why I used neo magnets on a set of narrow aperture bass pickups. The two blades where so close together that it needed a high end boost.

- so the polepices you see are actually a molded ground plane that is used as a notch filter.

Huh? So they have fake metallic poles that are grounded. Aluminum or zinc maybe?

The coils are also wrapped in copper foil...

Well that just killed off some of the top end... which might be a good thing.

We've gone to great lengths to magnetically and acoustically tune the components to produce a certain sound, rather than just monkeying with magnets and wire the way most pickup makers do.

Monkeying... heh... what they are saying is they spent a lot of time monkeying around until they got something they liked... or that they say they like.

Possum, you have a bunch of drastically different sounding pickup models.. was that from monkeying around?

I got their money right here...

The result is a pickup that looks 100% vintage, has
almost zero handling noise or squealing, and is very quiet.

Read: "it has a strat case, and is potted in epoxy, and is a humbucker." Same twin blade humbucker they sell on other parts of their page, but with fake rod pole pieces shoved up the middle.

We mix neodymium, alnico and ceramic magnets of different physical size and different magnetic gauss- really each single pickup is fine tuned for the exact response we want. We do not mix magnets together- tried it in protos but I think we produced a better sounding set with individual magnets of one particular type."

Read: "we want to use the neodymium buzz word, so we use them on a few models"

So they aren't neo/alnico at all. And what, we don't mix magnets of different specs to get a particular tone?

I make some of my pickups with ceramics, and some with neos.. but I name each model as such, even though they are based on similar coils.

I'm sure they will sell a bunch of them. After all, they are "new".

[spud1950]

Thanks Dave.So ,basically single coil sized humbuckers made to look like traditional Strat pickups.

[Possum]

....

well yeah I monkey around until it works, thats all any invention is, usually when an engineer type sits down and invents something on paper its not going to work right off the bat any better than physically trying different things, which in some ways is a better way to go in my opinion. All that matters is how does it sound, not how it was born :-) Some stuff I made worked great first time, some of it took months of adjustments and listening tests til my ears bled and my brains fell out, I'm sure they did that too....

[soundmasterg]

some of it took months of adjustments and listening tests til my ears bled and my brains fell out, I'm sure they did that too....

You had brains?

Greg