Selling: GFS P90-sized humbuckers

Clearing more stuff to fund my chemo... Selling this pair of GFS P90-sized humbuckers (H-178/ H-179). Got them at a clearance for one of my Gibsons but decided not to mod the guitar. It's absolutely unused, screws & boxes included. Selling as a set only, thanks.

• Selling: GFS P90-sized humbuckers in cream finish. Unused, screws & boxes included. Selling as a set only.
• Self-collect: CCK / Yew Tee mrt station
• No reservations / trades
• Queries / confirmation: subversion.sg@gmail.com
• Price: $79 (final)

Marauding midweek

Had been playing my Marauder for the last few days or so. Since I had been spending time with some offset Fenders, why not this one? Come to think of it, this guitar is my least problematic Fender I own & every mod done on it was a value-added move.

The pickups are GFSs: Power Rails (B) & JM90 Vintage Overwound. You might read elsewhere in cyberspace, a good amount of thrashing by skeptics who deemed GFS stuff as over-celebrated cheapos. This, together with Tesla & Artec, always get the basement treatment from people who qualify themselves as tone-meisters of sorts. I value tone over any brand name & had always, time & again, stick to what works (for me). GFS website- one of the more reliable & safe references for online purchases but sometimes, it takes a little too long to get here. 

The rounded string retainers here are definitely replacement pieces. They don't snag strings as much & look good so that's a plus.

And these are Tusq (by Grpah Tech) saddles; self-lubricating & don't sport those tall adjustment screws that kill the picking hand. White to match the pick guard. 

When I got the Marauder about 5 years ago, Swee Lee was still doing their 50% end-of-year sale event. I remember being there a little late & seeing the good stuff all snapped up, was on the verge of leaving when I saw this one with some Squiers & Epiphones next to the bag deposit counter. It was a high risk purchase because during sale time, there's a strict no trying policy so I relied on its acoustic/ unplugged tone more than anything else. It was also a good decision partly because I purchased a Jazzmaster from the same Modern Player series with no issues so the quality inference was there. 

Wishing everyone a great midweek. 😎

Slick guitars

Earl Slick has a proven resume as a guitar player, David Bowie & Yoko Ono among others. He's not the 1,000 notes per second type of shredder but he's someone in this turf. His name commands respect. I first came across Earl Slick in Guitar World's Guitar That Rule the World. Mr. Slick's concluding track, Surfer Junkie Dude, is something. 

Seen here is Mr. Slick's range of guitars he designed personally. Please don't confuse this as his signature model, it's his name on the headstock, it's a brand name, just like EVH is to Van Halen. He recently did a collaboration with GFS & the instruments you see here are all available online for less than USD200.00 each. Please do not be dismissive of the product in view of the price. Yes, they are also inviting specific interest by finishing the guitars in a relic presentation but in any case, the considerations for a good-playing, good-sounding instruments are all there.

Pic: GFS

In the mail

This one took a little later than expected but it's finally here. I need something with more muscle in the neck for driven tones so this is it.

Twin over

In the mail- this is actually my first gear acquisition for 2014; a modest GFS Twin OD pedal. I enjoy saturated signals more than intensity so an overdrive unit was chosen instead of some OTT distortion. I'm still heading towards that smooth OD voicing, something a Fuchs Plush pedal would deliver but I'm not about to put all the money in a single brand name. The thrill of trying out lesser known brand names is the discovery of something personal. 

The Twin OD has 2 channels which are excellent in their respective territories.The OD channel covers drive from a slight nudge to some degree of intensity that would do some punks proud. The Boost channel gives you a clean push but spills into some drive at higher settings. From my initial test, the boost at its maximum setting, sounds very intense, in fact, there's a coarse voicing in there that simply sounds more intense than the OD channel. The magic with such 2-in-1 pedals is the endless drive permutations once you get the hang of what the master controls & gain knobs can muster.

Is this any smoother than the Fuchs' Plushes? In terms of this considerations, the Fuchs are masters of their own offerings. There is convincing smoothness in the Twin OD; the TONE knobs would give you some but the voicing remains to be within GFS' interpretations. I very happy with what GFS has to offer but a Fuchs it is not. I'm not putting the GFS name as second fiddle to Fuchs; they are very different in terms of product philosophy. It's a first wonderful purchase for 2014, definitely :-)

The lone cruncher

The lonely humbucker in my recently re-finished S-Series is the GFS Crunchy Rails. It's a super-charged pickup with reduced mids but not really a scooped sounding unit. Those vintage-inclined dudes won't like it, it's all modern, high output whack. If you are looking for something good in the cleans, it's also not quite the pickup to look up to. I was gonna try something different so here it is.