alright, he's already working on a guitar of mine right now so I'm not going to go take it back from him before it's done or anything, but when he calls me to tell me it's done and I go to get it I'll double check to make sure he doesn't have a multimeter and if he for sure does not I'll go to guitar center instead next time. I'm hoping that he misheard me or something like that. Thanks again for the tip guys.
I bought a set of Fender cobalt tele pickups, one was doa, Fender required picks with the pickup attached to a multi meter before issuing me a new set. They did let me keep the one working one and set a complete set.
Harbor Freight has voltmeters for like $5. Luthiers not having one is a complete joke, even most guitar players themselves have no excuse for not owning one.
Sounds more like a crappy company than a scam. i mean having to pay shipping for returns is not customer friendly but its not that unusual. And you did get your pickups. I think your main problem is buying pickups based just on their look yet having specific expectations on how it sounds. And buying 8 unbranded pickups from a company you have no experience with or read reviews on. That's a lot of trust to have in unbranded pickups from some random shady company. I'd say its a learning experience. But more accurate would be to say that the company sucks not that theyre scammers.
Thank you for that lesson, you are right. Though in my defense I didn't purchase them based upon the look, but the description. I clicked on them to read more based upon the look and name, and then made my decisions based upon the description. But yea you are right I was too free with my trust and made too big of a purchase to a company I hadn't even used before.
Yea I had a successful online business back then. A lot of companies were doing well back then and thus these issues happened less. Now of days a lot of companies are pinching pennies and screwing customers. The economy is fucked so times are hard. Buyer beware.
I used to buy from GF and had no issues with their quality but in the past few years, they've doubled their prices and if I'm going to spend as much for their cheap pickups as I would for used Seymour Duncan's or Dimarzio's why go through the hassle. That said, I've never had a pickup not work and I've always been happy with them. Their medium output Lil' Punchers are great blues pickups, but I can get the same thing from Ali Express for half the price or go used for name brand. You're right about the shipping being horrible. Not only do they charge for shipping but it's not even particularly fast. Really, GF has priced themselves out of relevance and it sounds like they're quality is going downhill fast. If they don't get a clue, they'll be out of business very soon.
Yea raising prices while lowering quality is a problem, sometimes a business will do this once established and can get away with it for a while but its not fair and usually it catches up with them
So, food for thought...GF is a site that sells cheap replacement parts! You stated that spent almost $300 on 8 pickups? That should've told you something right there, along with the price shown on their site!!!! To me, that sounds like you purchased cheap electronics and was expecting huge sound! I know the feeling because I have done the same in the past and I learned quickly that sometimes, trying to save money will end up costing you more!
Yea I know, I appreciate you advising me respectfully rather than shit talking like some other people have on here, the internet can make some people so sociopathic, I didn't get that sense from you at all, and obviously I do need to learn. Why? Because I haven't had enough people like you to take the time to tell me shit I need to know. If we all could take the time to talk to each other and be more informative society would have a lot less problems but too many people would rather add insult to injury just because someone has issues they don't have from not knowing what they know.
I bought some Boston Blues pickups for my Mexican Strat. These Pickups are amazing! I absolutely LOVE them! I also bought one of their Carved body Basses for my Son in Law for Christmas in 2024. I was seriously impressed at the features for the money. I am planning to buy one for myself as well. Sorry you had a bad experience there but my experiences have all been very positive with them.
GF is like the Walmart of cheap guitar parts... I'm sure you're aware of that now. Pickups are hit or miss in my experience, I've found 3 categories: Crappy (microphonic and/or just lack luster, Normal (MOST brand name pickups I've bought fall into this category, nice sounding but nothing *amazing*), Amazing ( I've only encountered these a few times in 20 years with mostly small custom pickup winders but WOW will you hear the increase in detail and dynamics... Super rare in my experience). Last name brand pickups I bought were Bare Knuckle's Mother's Milk, they are nice pickups but didn't blow me away. I'll have to recall the last set that BLEW me away, some guy in the Netherlands, a completely different league, it was awhile back.
Yea I've bought things from wal-mart.com and think thats pretty accurate, though I'd say wal-mart is actually better than guitar fetish as they at least will return bad products, whereas guitar fetish didn't. So how much do truly amazing pickups usually cost?
It is a good thing you only have 143 subs. If you had 143k subs you would have likely received a lawsuit from GF. Calling a company a scam requires you can substantiate how they cheat and defraud people... you sir simply are not impressed with the quality of product. That is a big difference.
stop breaking his balls he did not like them and sue happy companies just don't seem to do good business afterward. for example, il never buy another Gibson anything after all the bad press, lawsuits, and owning a huge piece of shite Gibson BB King guitar years ago
I did substantiate how they cheat and defraud people. You obviously didn't watch my whole video. And if they can't afford to exchange a pickup that doesn't work they certainly can't afford a lawyer and cross country lawsuit.
GFS have been around for a long time, back when the only Chinese copies you could get were from Rondo music. The parts aren't junk, but the Chinese market has improved considerably, and they haven't changed to compete with it.
From what I've heard from multiple comments their quality has gone down as their prices have gone up. Something that is a major failing of many large businesses once they have laurels to rest upon. Like Gibson.
I bought a project L5 body from them once. I knew the binding was rough and unfinished, but when it arrived with one of the braces rattling around loose inside the body, I knew I was in trouble. What a nightmare trying to reglue a brace in the right spot without the proper tools. I was ready to install a neck and had all of the hardware necessary to make a decent, economical jazz guitar, instead, now I have a drawer full of parts and an ugly piece of modern art.
Yea like I said in the video I read reviews that their wooden parts were really bad, thought I was safe buying non wooden hardware but I guess I was wrong. Anyways I'm sorry they scammed you too man, it's not a good feeling. Did you try to return it or anything?
@@ScallywagArtist It would have cost more to send it back. I'll get around to fixing it someday when I have more time (and patience). Sorry about your situation, too. Take care.
Damn man, so they did the same thing to you they did to me. If a company sends out a faulty product they aren't supposed to be charging you to return it.
@@ScallywagArtist You're right. Unfortunately, the world doesn't always behave. Trying to pursue your rights sometimes costs more than what you originally lost. Have a great day.
Yea thats a very intelligent observation man that I have also learned through personal experience over the last 20 years, and why I think a lot of businesses and people know they can get away with fucking people out of money as long as the amount is less than the cost of a lawsuit, because if a lawyer costs $3,000 or $5,000 it doesn't make sense to sue someone over $300 or $500. You can go to small claims court if they are in your jurisdiction (in this case they aren't so I can't), but even that has some costs involved and without a lawyer to do the discovery work for you you will then have to invest a lot of time and energy too, and in the end without a lawyer you're unlikely to win. Our justice system unfortunately doesn't help us in these cases, so buyer beware.
Like the others commenting here, I’m sorry you had a bad experience with GFS. I only ordered from them a few times and I have been really happy with the quality and sound of the four pickups and wiring harnesses I got. I bought Texas wound Strat pickups and the high gain Lil’ Puncher. I also really like the Kwik-Plug system they have for just plugging your pickups in when wanting to change them. It does sound like their return policy leaves much to be desired though.
Yea to be fair I like the kwik plug system but my luthier says its one more thing that can go wrong. Anyways thanks and I'm glad you got lucky and didn't receive any duds.
Sounds like you got lucky, I'm glad you didn't have my experience. Unfortunately the Dream was one of the ones I couldn't use and returned without getting a refund. Ugh so frustrating.
I read one of your comments saying that you’d start bringing your guitars to Guitar Center... Don’t do that, most of their techs don’t have a clue about what they’re doing. I highly recommend buying a soldering iron and a multimeter and doing it yourself. It really isn’t that hard and yeah, it’ll take some practice to do a professional looking job. I started doing my own repairs 3 years ago after playing for over 20 years and it’s really cathartic. Good luck man.
Thanks for that info I won't go to Guitar Center then. I have been doing my own repairs and upgrades for 6 months now, but when I can't or screw it up then I take it in to my lutheir, as some jobs are too hard for me, like doing a hollow body that they are working on right now. I do have a soldering iron but not a multi-meter, I'll have to get one.
I've ordered multiple items from GF over the years, but never pickups. The items spanned from surprisingly awesome to barely functional. I never felt scammed outright as the quality overall was consistent with the low pricing. I do agree that customer service is definitely not the company's strong suit.
Yea well when you pay for something by law it at least needs to work or else you are due a refund and if you aren't given one its fraud, and I've reported them to the FTC
I replaced some fender MIM strat pickups with some GFS single coils and was pretty underwhelmed, they were my first pickups and at the time i thought all pickups must be the same and since then i spent some money on proper dimarzio and bill lawrence xxl pickups, and evh and have been blown away how much better they sound. you really do get what you pay for on electronics.
Underwhelming is how I've felt about their best pickups. Yea you do get what you pay for and if you are like me and are poor and cannot afford expensive things then these problems are bound to happen from time to time. I have to live off of about 1100-1200 a month these days, the only reason I had money for new gear at all was because I pillaged my savings account.
yeah i ended up using the GFS as _expensive refrigerator magnets,_ lesson learned. my heart goes out to you living on a shoe string, some of my favorite guitars are the ones i put together with nothing but elbow grease and copious amounts of hand sanding but spared no expense on hardware and electronics.
I wish I had your skill and talent bro. I was going to subscribe to your channel but then I read the description...do you really not want people to subscribe or are you being sarcastic?
@@ScallywagArtist yeah, it's been a few years, quality may have dropped as their prices went up...they have never been great with the shipping costs. The pups are likely all Arttech anyway. I get my cheapies from Ali Express, if theyre crap, well they were also only 10 bucks apiece.
I tried shopping at ali express and temu and won't go there anymore because I bought things like for instance this set of screws that were made with such soft metal that I twisted the head right off of a little screw trying to screw it in, and they tarnished quickly, like the pickup from GF. Some other commenters have said that the quality of GF's products have gone down and the prices have gone up in recent years. one even said that as recently as a year ago they would give him a shipping label to return/exchange a bad product they sent out. Oftentimes businesses will be high quality and cheap when they are getting started and then once they have some laurels to rest upon they'll lower quality and raise price. Were seeing that across our whole economy now, everything is getting expensive and enshittified.
GFS were some of the last pickup brands I bought before I started making my own. I've been winding my own pickups since 2010. Last time I looked, my prices were generally about halfway between GFS and the big names. - Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
I know you probably did this to save money, but was it worth the aggravation? I have Seymour Duncan, EMG, Bill Lawrence, active and passive, with no issues. Sometimes just safer and less stressful dealing with name brand. It's a choice like anything right!
You are right charles, it cost me more than I saved. The problem is that I'm a disabled person who has to live off of just over $1,000 a month, and my rent cost $825 and then I have other bills so that leaves me with about $100 of spending money per month for other necessities. My budget for gear took years of saving and was really tight. Also I had no experience or way of foreseeing these problems. I was ignorant and had to learn this lesson teh hard way apparently. And now hopefully other newbies won't make the same mistake.
@ScallywagArtist oh brother I hear you. I've been unable to work for almost 15 years now because of a broken neck and ruptured disks in my back from a couple auto wrecks, so I understand. Alot if not most of my guitar gear is from late 80's and 90's.
Finally someone who understands what its like. Not only do I not own a car because I can't afford one by a long shot, but I also refuse to ride in them, haven't been in one for years. Do you still use cars after getting fucked up by them? They are the most dangerous thing in society. Even more dangerous than social media, online dating, and the toxic food we've been marketed.
I bought 2 guitars from them, a S-S-S strat knock off and a tele knock off just to purposely throw away all the electronics, dime pots, pickups, input jacks, cheap wire and all. I use them to test and prototype pickups I wind and wire the circuit to Fender spec with Fender components. I'd say you shouldn't have to much issue finding Fender branded pickups for about $100 for a 3 single coil set. The humbuckers are another story, average $150 each for real Gibson pickups. On the cheap guitars fitment can be a real issue. That being said I'd look for pickups and pickup covers separately. Bottom line is there will be a lot of hit or miss with all the factors involved, but stuff has gotten a lot easier to find and cheaper to buy than it was when I started playing back in the 80's. Sorry to hear GF rubbed you wrong, I guess I'm luck because I never intended to buy parts from them. On a side note you might have fun shopping Goodwill and the local pawn shops to get deals on guitars just to part them out I've had some good luck doing just that. Be sure to post an update video when you finish your guitar projects. You'll come out more knowledgeable and skilled at the end of this adventure. Enjoy it and the satisfaction of having made a guitar the way you want it yourself. Good luck man.
Hey there brother, thanks a lot for the info. There's a pawn shop across the street so I'll definitely start checking in for old beat up guitars, thats a really great idea. I've actually heard that GF is worse with wooden parts. Anyways, the two guitars that I've worked on that are done and worth showcasing are the ones I showed in the video, I will go ahead and make videos of them thats another good idea, but I obviously won't be able to show myself working on them since I already did it. I apprecaite you taking the time to write out all this info and advise to me thanks a lot man.
I've only sped it up by 25-30%, if I don't people complain I talk to slow and that my videos are too long. If I do they complain that I talk too fast. People apparently don't want to toggle the speed themselves and I'm damned either way. This is what its like being a youtuber. Everything you do is wrong and gets criticized by some.
I built 4 guitars with their bodies. Had an issue with one of strat bodies, the neck bolts were not drilled correctly. I was using a Fender neck that was pre drilled and wasn’t going to fill and drill it. After a few pics they sent me a knew one and provided the shipping label for the defective one. That was only a year ago, they must have changed their policy. Sorry to hear about your experience.
GFS pickups used to be great back in the day, I used them a lot in my modded guitars. With the price increase it is hard to justify them over used Dimarzio or Duncans though.
Yea raising prices while lowering quality is a problem, sometimes a business will do this once established and can get away with it for a while but its not fair and usually it catches up with them
Yea I also confused him saying listed for linked. Still, when you sell a faulty product you are legally obligated to return or exchange it regardless of policy. They broke the law, so it does qualify as fraud and I did report them to the FTC.
@@ScallywagArtist It was 5-6 years ago. Maybe I should have tried to return it, but for whatever reason, I kept it for a year or two. I sold it during the height of the pandemic when people were just buying anything with strings on it. The neck was super rough and felt like it burrs all over it. The high E string would mute out past the 8th fret. This probably could have been fixed as well, but I didn't want to pay someone to do it. And of course, the pickup (it only had one) sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I also remember the thing weighing a ton and the paint being more like a house paint.
Wow that does sound like the worst guitar ever. You probably wanted to give it a chance to see if you could get it to play well and then it took time to notice all the problems, am I right? We really need more than 7 or 10 days to return things like this, it just takes more time than that to see how they work. Their return policy is predatory.
Having a link to it on another page isn't the same though. Also it says 10 days there now when they quoted it as 7 days. Still not enough time to include installing 8 pickups, even at a luthier, especially including the time it'd take to try them out. And it doesn't say if shipping time is included.
the interactions are disconcerting, but im guessing they think you don’t know what you are doing or talking about. I understand why they give credit not refunds. how about what magnet and dcr you were expecting vs the originals? what were you expecting vs what you measured? pickup descriptions in general are completely worthless, but im also assuming they buy these from a company in asia, as has been mentioned on forums on the web. i always check continuity on a pickup and measure it before installing. edit: 2009 social media post by gfs: We use 6 different factories in Korea and China for pickup fabrication and assembly- Artec does some of the stuff, 5 other houses do other stuff. Many of the brightwork- the shells and baseplates make their way from one factory to another- I've seen our Retrotron shells on other people's stuff and even some of our baseplates with GFS logos!!
I'm not a luthier so I don't know what I'm talking about there, but I've been playing for 27 years. And yea I made an honest mistake of not clicking the "return" link at the bottom of the page, and thinking that when they said the return policy was listed at the bottom that it was going to be written at the bottom of the page not linked. But who checks return policies before buying things online? I've never had to do it before and never had this problem in over 20 years of online shopping. And NYS law says that if a product is faulty a return is due to the buyer regardless of policy. Anyways, I am surprised that their pickups are just bought from asia and then resold, I thought they made their own. No wonder they suck.
I feel for you man getting burned on anything shipped sucks . but your "luthier" really cant "test" anything on an electric guitar without a multimeter ... its a 10$ tool that you should have nearby as an avid guitar player . That is as bad as saying as he cant adjust my truss rod because he doesn't have any Allen keys ... To add to the previous comments about multimeters , The only way hes testing anything for you is soldering leads in and hoping for the best when its plugged in . pickup swap ,shielding of said pickups, and restring shouldn't take more than 2-3 hrs at a turtle pace for a first timer so maybe its time to watch some helpful vids on this platform and do the work yourself . Lastly as someone whos played guitar for 15 years your never gonna sound as good as the sales video for any piece of musical equipment so its important to curb expectations when someone is offering you a " new sound ". Never used the company but it seems as much buyers remorse as negligence from the company to clearly explain the refund policy from the first time you reached out .
Hmm, I'm going to ask the other guy who works there then because it does seem silly that they wouldn't have one, it was this really old guy who said he didn't, maybe he misheard me...so is that something that even I should have? I do work myself when I can but I can't do it all and I take it to them when I can't. Like this hollow body I have htem working on now that thomann sent me me in a state of disrepair, thats going to be my next review video. And yea I should have looked up reviews on GF before buying from them, I've learned a very difficult lesson here. A very expensive lesson that I couldn't really afford to learn that way, and I'm lucky my bank did get me my money back. I'm going to be very careful in the future.
They're not a scam. I bought Jazzmaster pickups from them during their recent sale and they're fine. Not amazing, but good for the price. I don't suspect Fender Pickups costing double would sound much better if they sound better at all. They should absolutely replace the non working one without you having to pay to send it back. Your luthier should also have a multimeter. I've gotten them literally for free from Harbor Freight. I don't know how you work on guitars and not have one.
It's ironic that you say that they are not a scam but then say they shouldn't have done what they did to me right after. What they did qualifies as a scam/fraud. They are still not responding to my emails. You got lucky, don't say I didn't warn you if you keep shopping with them, you now know what they will do if you are ever in my situation. And there's plenty of people in the comments saying similar things. But yea I'll get a multimeter.
@@ScallywagArtist Having bad business practices are different than being a scam. Selling Chibson as Gibsons is a scam. You not reading their return policy is not a scam.
Selling a product that doesn't work and not refunding it qualifies as fraud under NYS law as it is technically illegal and if you don't agree with me you can look it up this isn't my opinion.
Well obviously you were lucky and just because you haven't had a problem doesn't mean problems don't exist otherwise I wouldn't have had one and wouldn't be out $100
If your "luthier" doesn't have a simple multimeter to test and screenshot the output he is a joke! Go to someone else!
Really, huh...ok thanks for the tip man
Yes, really. A multimeter is the most basic piece of electrical test equipment. Absolutely essential.
alright, he's already working on a guitar of mine right now so I'm not going to go take it back from him before it's done or anything, but when he calls me to tell me it's done and I go to get it I'll double check to make sure he doesn't have a multimeter and if he for sure does not I'll go to guitar center instead next time. I'm hoping that he misheard me or something like that. Thanks again for the tip guys.
I bought a set of Fender cobalt tele pickups, one was doa, Fender required picks with the pickup attached to a multi meter before issuing me a new set. They did let me keep the one working one and set a complete set.
Harbor Freight has voltmeters for like $5. Luthiers not having one is a complete joke, even most guitar players themselves have no excuse for not owning one.
Sounds more like a crappy company than a scam. i mean having to pay shipping for returns is not customer friendly but its not that unusual. And you did get your pickups. I think your main problem is buying pickups based just on their look yet having specific expectations on how it sounds. And buying 8 unbranded pickups from a company you have no experience with or read reviews on. That's a lot of trust to have in unbranded pickups from some random shady company. I'd say its a learning experience. But more accurate would be to say that the company sucks not that theyre scammers.
Thank you for that lesson, you are right. Though in my defense I didn't purchase them based upon the look, but the description. I clicked on them to read more based upon the look and name, and then made my decisions based upon the description. But yea you are right I was too free with my trust and made too big of a purchase to a company I hadn't even used before.
Be a little more discerning this is a sample of One you can’t base an opinion on the input of only one stranger.
Yea you are right, but I'm getting a lot of input from a lot of people here in the comments section so I'm able to detect patterns
Bout 6 or 7 yrs ago i used to buy from GF. Never had an issue. Seems like times have changed.
Yea I had a successful online business back then. A lot of companies were doing well back then and thus these issues happened less. Now of days a lot of companies are pinching pennies and screwing customers. The economy is fucked so times are hard. Buyer beware.
I used to buy from GF and had no issues with their quality but in the past few years, they've doubled their prices and if I'm going to spend as much for their cheap pickups as I would for used Seymour Duncan's or Dimarzio's why go through the hassle. That said, I've never had a pickup not work and I've always been happy with them. Their medium output Lil' Punchers are great blues pickups, but I can get the same thing from Ali Express for half the price or go used for name brand. You're right about the shipping being horrible. Not only do they charge for shipping but it's not even particularly fast. Really, GF has priced themselves out of relevance and it sounds like they're quality is going downhill fast. If they don't get a clue, they'll be out of business very soon.
Yea raising prices while lowering quality is a problem, sometimes a business will do this once established and can get away with it for a while but its not fair and usually it catches up with them
So, food for thought...GF is a site that sells cheap replacement parts! You stated that spent almost $300 on 8 pickups? That should've told you something right there, along with the price shown on their site!!!! To me, that sounds like you purchased cheap electronics and was expecting huge sound! I know the feeling because I have done the same in the past and I learned quickly that sometimes, trying to save money will end up costing you more!
Alright man thanks for letting me know. Unfortunately, being poor, I've had this problem before with other DIY projects.
@ by no means was I taking a shot at you, I was merely stating about what I took from your video. It’s a learning experience!
Yea I know, I appreciate you advising me respectfully rather than shit talking like some other people have on here, the internet can make some people so sociopathic, I didn't get that sense from you at all, and obviously I do need to learn. Why? Because I haven't had enough people like you to take the time to tell me shit I need to know. If we all could take the time to talk to each other and be more informative society would have a lot less problems but too many people would rather add insult to injury just because someone has issues they don't have from not knowing what they know.
I bought some Boston Blues pickups for my Mexican Strat. These Pickups are amazing! I absolutely LOVE them! I also bought one of their Carved body Basses for my Son in Law for Christmas in 2024. I was seriously impressed at the features for the money. I am planning to buy one for myself as well. Sorry you had a bad experience there but my experiences have all been very positive with them.
You're lucky
GF is like the Walmart of cheap guitar parts... I'm sure you're aware of that now.
Pickups are hit or miss in my experience, I've found 3 categories: Crappy (microphonic and/or just lack luster, Normal (MOST brand name pickups I've bought fall into this category, nice sounding but nothing *amazing*), Amazing ( I've only encountered these a few times in 20 years with mostly small custom pickup winders but WOW will you hear the increase in detail and dynamics... Super rare in my experience).
Last name brand pickups I bought were Bare Knuckle's Mother's Milk, they are nice pickups but didn't blow me away. I'll have to recall the last set that BLEW me away, some guy in the Netherlands, a completely different league, it was awhile back.
Yea I've bought things from wal-mart.com and think thats pretty accurate, though I'd say wal-mart is actually better than guitar fetish as they at least will return bad products, whereas guitar fetish didn't. So how much do truly amazing pickups usually cost?
Pickup sound is subjective. What sounds good to you might sound terrible to me.
Watch the whole video this isn't about me not liking the sound
i'm fortunate that I bought plenty from them and everything sounded and fit fine.
Yea you are lucky I wish that was the case with me
It is a good thing you only have 143 subs. If you had 143k subs you would have likely received a lawsuit from GF. Calling a company a scam requires you can substantiate how they cheat and defraud people... you sir simply are not impressed with the quality of product. That is a big difference.
stop breaking his balls he did not like them and sue happy companies just don't seem to do good business afterward. for example, il never buy another Gibson anything after all the bad press, lawsuits, and owning a huge piece of shite Gibson BB King guitar years ago
I did substantiate how they cheat and defraud people. You obviously didn't watch my whole video. And if they can't afford to exchange a pickup that doesn't work they certainly can't afford a lawyer and cross country lawsuit.
I've heard gibson isn't good anymore, I'm an epiphone guy
GFS have been around for a long time, back when the only Chinese copies you could get were from Rondo music.
The parts aren't junk, but the Chinese market has improved considerably, and they haven't changed to compete with it.
From what I've heard from multiple comments their quality has gone down as their prices have gone up. Something that is a major failing of many large businesses once they have laurels to rest upon. Like Gibson.
I have a neck pickup that’s kinda weak. But I did not expect an SD Jazz.
I knew what to expect.
Yea and now I do too lol
I bought a project L5 body from them once. I knew the binding was rough and unfinished, but when it arrived with one of the braces rattling around loose inside the body, I knew I was in trouble. What a nightmare trying to reglue a brace in the right spot without the proper tools. I was ready to install a neck and had all of the hardware necessary to make a decent, economical jazz guitar, instead, now I have a drawer full of parts and an ugly piece of modern art.
Yea like I said in the video I read reviews that their wooden parts were really bad, thought I was safe buying non wooden hardware but I guess I was wrong. Anyways I'm sorry they scammed you too man, it's not a good feeling. Did you try to return it or anything?
@@ScallywagArtist It would have cost more to send it back. I'll get around to fixing it someday when I have more time (and patience). Sorry about your situation, too. Take care.
Damn man, so they did the same thing to you they did to me. If a company sends out a faulty product they aren't supposed to be charging you to return it.
@@ScallywagArtist You're right. Unfortunately, the world doesn't always behave. Trying to pursue your rights sometimes costs more than what you originally lost. Have a great day.
Yea thats a very intelligent observation man that I have also learned through personal experience over the last 20 years, and why I think a lot of businesses and people know they can get away with fucking people out of money as long as the amount is less than the cost of a lawsuit, because if a lawyer costs $3,000 or $5,000 it doesn't make sense to sue someone over $300 or $500. You can go to small claims court if they are in your jurisdiction (in this case they aren't so I can't), but even that has some costs involved and without a lawyer to do the discovery work for you you will then have to invest a lot of time and energy too, and in the end without a lawyer you're unlikely to win. Our justice system unfortunately doesn't help us in these cases, so buyer beware.
Like the others commenting here, I’m sorry you had a bad experience with GFS. I only ordered from them a few times and I have been really happy with the quality and sound of the four pickups and wiring harnesses I got. I bought Texas wound Strat pickups and the high gain Lil’ Puncher. I also really like the Kwik-Plug system they have for just plugging your pickups in when wanting to change them.
It does sound like their return policy leaves much to be desired though.
Yea to be fair I like the kwik plug system but my luthier says its one more thing that can go wrong. Anyways thanks and I'm glad you got lucky and didn't receive any duds.
I bought a Dream 180 for my Squire Esquire…. Absolutely love it! Sorry for your bad experience
same! dream 180 and mean 90 in a tele and they sound AMAZING
Sounds like you got lucky, I'm glad you didn't have my experience. Unfortunately the Dream was one of the ones I couldn't use and returned without getting a refund. Ugh so frustrating.
I read one of your comments saying that you’d start bringing your guitars to Guitar Center... Don’t do that, most of their techs don’t have a clue about what they’re doing.
I highly recommend buying a soldering iron and a multimeter and doing it yourself. It really isn’t that hard and yeah, it’ll take some practice to do a professional looking job. I started doing my own repairs 3 years ago after playing for over 20 years and it’s really cathartic.
Good luck man.
Thanks for that info I won't go to Guitar Center then. I have been doing my own repairs and upgrades for 6 months now, but when I can't or screw it up then I take it in to my lutheir, as some jobs are too hard for me, like doing a hollow body that they are working on right now. I do have a soldering iron but not a multi-meter, I'll have to get one.
I've ordered multiple items from GF over the years, but never pickups. The items spanned from surprisingly awesome to barely functional. I never felt scammed outright as the quality overall was consistent with the low pricing. I do agree that customer service is definitely not the company's strong suit.
Yea well when you pay for something by law it at least needs to work or else you are due a refund and if you aren't given one its fraud, and I've reported them to the FTC
I replaced some fender MIM strat pickups with some GFS single coils and was pretty underwhelmed, they were my first pickups and at the time i thought all pickups must be the same and since then i spent some money on proper dimarzio and bill lawrence xxl pickups, and evh and have been blown away how much better they sound. you really do get what you pay for on electronics.
Underwhelming is how I've felt about their best pickups. Yea you do get what you pay for and if you are like me and are poor and cannot afford expensive things then these problems are bound to happen from time to time. I have to live off of about 1100-1200 a month these days, the only reason I had money for new gear at all was because I pillaged my savings account.
yeah i ended up using the GFS as _expensive refrigerator magnets,_ lesson learned. my heart goes out to you living on a shoe string, some of my favorite guitars are the ones i put together with nothing but elbow grease and copious amounts of hand sanding but spared no expense on hardware and electronics.
I wish I had your skill and talent bro. I was going to subscribe to your channel but then I read the description...do you really not want people to subscribe or are you being sarcastic?
Never had a problem with GFS pups.
you're lucky
@ScallywagArtist A bunch of times I suppose.
And yet it only took me one time to get a dud
@@ScallywagArtist yeah, it's been a few years, quality may have dropped as their prices went up...they have never been great with the shipping costs. The pups are likely all Arttech anyway. I get my cheapies from Ali Express, if theyre crap, well they were also only 10 bucks apiece.
I tried shopping at ali express and temu and won't go there anymore because I bought things like for instance this set of screws that were made with such soft metal that I twisted the head right off of a little screw trying to screw it in, and they tarnished quickly, like the pickup from GF. Some other commenters have said that the quality of GF's products have gone down and the prices have gone up in recent years. one even said that as recently as a year ago they would give him a shipping label to return/exchange a bad product they sent out. Oftentimes businesses will be high quality and cheap when they are getting started and then once they have some laurels to rest upon they'll lower quality and raise price. Were seeing that across our whole economy now, everything is getting expensive and enshittified.
GFS were some of the last pickup brands I bought before I started making my own. I've been winding my own pickups since 2010. Last time I looked, my prices were generally about halfway between GFS and the big names. - Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
That is really impressive I'll check it out
I know you probably did this to save money, but was it worth the aggravation? I have Seymour Duncan, EMG, Bill Lawrence, active and passive, with no issues. Sometimes just safer and less stressful dealing with name brand. It's a choice like anything right!
You are right charles, it cost me more than I saved. The problem is that I'm a disabled person who has to live off of just over $1,000 a month, and my rent cost $825 and then I have other bills so that leaves me with about $100 of spending money per month for other necessities. My budget for gear took years of saving and was really tight. Also I had no experience or way of foreseeing these problems. I was ignorant and had to learn this lesson teh hard way apparently. And now hopefully other newbies won't make the same mistake.
@ScallywagArtist oh brother I hear you. I've been unable to work for almost 15 years now because of a broken neck and ruptured disks in my back from a couple auto wrecks, so I understand. Alot if not most of my guitar gear is from late 80's and 90's.
Finally someone who understands what its like. Not only do I not own a car because I can't afford one by a long shot, but I also refuse to ride in them, haven't been in one for years. Do you still use cars after getting fucked up by them? They are the most dangerous thing in society. Even more dangerous than social media, online dating, and the toxic food we've been marketed.
I bought 2 guitars from them, a S-S-S strat knock off and a tele knock off just to purposely throw away all the electronics, dime pots, pickups, input jacks, cheap wire and all. I use them to test and prototype pickups I wind and wire the circuit to Fender spec with Fender components. I'd say you shouldn't have to much issue finding Fender branded pickups for about $100 for a 3 single coil set. The humbuckers are another story, average $150 each for real Gibson pickups. On the cheap guitars fitment can be a real issue. That being said I'd look for pickups and pickup covers separately. Bottom line is there will be a lot of hit or miss with all the factors involved, but stuff has gotten a lot easier to find and cheaper to buy than it was when I started playing back in the 80's.
Sorry to hear GF rubbed you wrong, I guess I'm luck because I never intended to buy parts from them. On a side note you might have fun shopping Goodwill and the local pawn shops to get deals on guitars just to part them out I've had some good luck doing just that. Be sure to post an update video when you finish your guitar projects. You'll come out more knowledgeable and skilled at the end of this adventure. Enjoy it and the satisfaction of having made a guitar the way you want it yourself. Good luck man.
Hey there brother, thanks a lot for the info. There's a pawn shop across the street so I'll definitely start checking in for old beat up guitars, thats a really great idea. I've actually heard that GF is worse with wooden parts. Anyways, the two guitars that I've worked on that are done and worth showcasing are the ones I showed in the video, I will go ahead and make videos of them thats another good idea, but I obviously won't be able to show myself working on them since I already did it. I apprecaite you taking the time to write out all this info and advise to me thanks a lot man.
I had to check I wasn't watching this on 1.5 speed
I've only sped it up by 25-30%, if I don't people complain I talk to slow and that my videos are too long. If I do they complain that I talk too fast. People apparently don't want to toggle the speed themselves and I'm damned either way. This is what its like being a youtuber. Everything you do is wrong and gets criticized by some.
I built 4 guitars with their bodies. Had an issue with one of strat bodies, the neck bolts were not drilled correctly. I was using a Fender neck that was pre drilled and wasn’t going to fill and drill it. After a few pics they sent me a knew one and provided the shipping label for the defective one. That was only a year ago, they must have changed their policy. Sorry to hear about your experience.
Wow yea they must have changed their policy I'm going to ask them why thanks for telling me.
I’ve never had one problem.
You're lucky
GFS pickups used to be great back in the day, I used them a lot in my modded guitars. With the price increase it is hard to justify them over used Dimarzio or Duncans though.
Yea raising prices while lowering quality is a problem, sometimes a business will do this once established and can get away with it for a while but its not fair and usually it catches up with them
Bootstrap pickups. Handmade in USA in a garage. $50 for a set.
What? Are you making an offer or saying thats what GF's source is or what are you saying?
@@ScallywagArtist He saying google them they are handmade pickups in the usa and ill second that
they are killer quality
@@ScallywagArtist Bootstrap has a website nice pickups don't think they meant gf uses them
Oh bootstrap is a name of a company or kind of pickup ok thanks for clarifying guys I'll look that up now
I think you're confusing "refund policy" for return policy. When you click that link, it talks all about the refund policy.
Yea I also confused him saying listed for linked. Still, when you sell a faulty product you are legally obligated to return or exchange it regardless of policy. They broke the law, so it does qualify as fraud and I did report them to the FTC.
I bought a Slick guitar years ago from GF. It's one of the worst playing and sounding guitars I've ever owned.
Wow that sucks man I'm sorry to hear that. Do you know what the problems with it are? Did you try to return it?
@@ScallywagArtist It was 5-6 years ago. Maybe I should have tried to return it, but for whatever reason, I kept it for a year or two. I sold it during the height of the pandemic when people were just buying anything with strings on it. The neck was super rough and felt like it burrs all over it. The high E string would mute out past the 8th fret. This probably could have been fixed as well, but I didn't want to pay someone to do it. And of course, the pickup (it only had one) sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I also remember the thing weighing a ton and the paint being more like a house paint.
Wow that does sound like the worst guitar ever. You probably wanted to give it a chance to see if you could get it to play well and then it took time to notice all the problems, am I right? We really need more than 7 or 10 days to return things like this, it just takes more time than that to see how they work. Their return policy is predatory.
Dude... The Return Policy, is literally at the bottom of your screenshot. Just sayin'.
Crappy experience though. That sucks.
Having a link to it on another page isn't the same though. Also it says 10 days there now when they quoted it as 7 days. Still not enough time to include installing 8 pickups, even at a luthier, especially including the time it'd take to try them out. And it doesn't say if shipping time is included.
Iron gear pickups are the way to go
Thanks for the tip I'll check them out now
I only buy iron gear, and they are fantastic at awesome prices. give them a try
Yea I will I wrote it down thanks
Get you some P90's or Seymour Duncan
alright thanks
the interactions are disconcerting, but im guessing they think you don’t know what you are doing or talking about. I understand why they give credit not refunds.
how about what magnet and dcr you were expecting vs the originals? what were you expecting vs what you measured?
pickup descriptions in general are completely worthless, but im also assuming they buy these from a company in asia, as has been mentioned on forums on the web.
i always check continuity on a pickup and measure it before installing.
edit:
2009 social media post by gfs:
We use 6 different factories in Korea and China for pickup fabrication and assembly- Artec does some of the stuff, 5 other houses do other stuff.
Many of the brightwork- the shells and baseplates make their way from one factory to another- I've seen our Retrotron shells on other people's stuff and even some of our baseplates with GFS logos!!
I'm not a luthier so I don't know what I'm talking about there, but I've been playing for 27 years. And yea I made an honest mistake of not clicking the "return" link at the bottom of the page, and thinking that when they said the return policy was listed at the bottom that it was going to be written at the bottom of the page not linked. But who checks return policies before buying things online? I've never had to do it before and never had this problem in over 20 years of online shopping. And NYS law says that if a product is faulty a return is due to the buyer regardless of policy. Anyways, I am surprised that their pickups are just bought from asia and then resold, I thought they made their own. No wonder they suck.
I feel for you man getting burned on anything shipped sucks . but your "luthier" really cant "test" anything on an electric guitar without a multimeter ... its a 10$ tool that you should have nearby as an avid guitar player . That is as bad as saying as he cant adjust my truss rod because he doesn't have any Allen keys ... To add to the previous comments about multimeters , The only way hes testing anything for you is soldering leads in and hoping for the best when its plugged in . pickup swap ,shielding of said pickups, and restring shouldn't take more than 2-3 hrs at a turtle pace for a first timer so maybe its time to watch some helpful vids on this platform and do the work yourself . Lastly as someone whos played guitar for 15 years your never gonna sound as good as the sales video for any piece of musical equipment so its important to curb expectations when someone is offering you a " new sound ". Never used the company but it seems as much buyers remorse as negligence from the company to clearly explain the refund policy from the first time you reached out .
Hmm, I'm going to ask the other guy who works there then because it does seem silly that they wouldn't have one, it was this really old guy who said he didn't, maybe he misheard me...so is that something that even I should have? I do work myself when I can but I can't do it all and I take it to them when I can't. Like this hollow body I have htem working on now that thomann sent me me in a state of disrepair, thats going to be my next review video. And yea I should have looked up reviews on GF before buying from them, I've learned a very difficult lesson here. A very expensive lesson that I couldn't really afford to learn that way, and I'm lucky my bank did get me my money back. I'm going to be very careful in the future.
Well, quit buying cheap crap
I hear you loud and clear man, this is a lesson I have learned the hard way and thus I will certainly retain it
I wanted pickups for my prs se standard, so I ordered american 85/15 pickups. Now im happy 😂
From GF?
Cancel your Visa ‼️
I got a chargeback from my bank thankfully
They're not a scam. I bought Jazzmaster pickups from them during their recent sale and they're fine. Not amazing, but good for the price. I don't suspect Fender Pickups costing double would sound much better if they sound better at all. They should absolutely replace the non working one without you having to pay to send it back. Your luthier should also have a multimeter. I've gotten them literally for free from Harbor Freight. I don't know how you work on guitars and not have one.
It's ironic that you say that they are not a scam but then say they shouldn't have done what they did to me right after. What they did qualifies as a scam/fraud. They are still not responding to my emails. You got lucky, don't say I didn't warn you if you keep shopping with them, you now know what they will do if you are ever in my situation. And there's plenty of people in the comments saying similar things. But yea I'll get a multimeter.
@@ScallywagArtist Having bad business practices are different than being a scam. Selling Chibson as Gibsons is a scam. You not reading their return policy is not a scam.
Selling a product that doesn't work and not refunding it qualifies as fraud under NYS law as it is technically illegal and if you don't agree with me you can look it up this isn't my opinion.
What a beach ⛱️
Lifes a beach
I never had a problem with them. Certainly not a scam.
Well obviously you were lucky and just because you haven't had a problem doesn't mean problems don't exist otherwise I wouldn't have had one and wouldn't be out $100