New Pickup Day: Dragonfire Gatebucker Review

As a musician I am always on a quest for tone.  I am fascinated by sound, and they way it can be expressed.  A few months ago I wrote a blog post about a set of pickups I bought at the Orlando Guitar Expo.  They were a set of Seymour Duncan 59 neck/Pearly Gates Plus bridge pickups.    I installed this set of pickups into an Epiphone Les Paul of mine.  The sound was amazing.  

Here's the link to that blog post.

Installing The Spoils Of Rock! 

The sound of the Pearly Gates set got me to thinking.  I looked up specs, EQ, and anything could find about the pickup set.  One thing caught my eye.  The price.  Back when I started getting interested in playing guitar, circa 1998, one Pearly Gates pickup cost $50.  Nowadays, that same pickup costs $120.  A set costs $240.  

So this lead me to more thinking.  Do any other pickup makers make a Pearly Gates clone?  After being in this business for a while I had many contacts.  I looked through a lot of pickup makers, but no one offered anything even remotely close to a Pearly Gates clone.  That is, except one.  

I was looking at the Dragonfire Guitars website.  Yes, the company that looks like it's website was designed in 1997, and hasn't changed since.  I can't lie, it needs an update.  But in their offerings of pickups was something called a "Gate Bucker."

Here's the link:

https://www.dragonfireguitars.com/Gate-Buckers-Alnico-2-A2-AII-Vintage-Humbucker-Pickups-12097.htm

They were selling the Gate Buckers set for a grand total of $60.  Not $60 a piece, but both pickups for a total of $60.  At first I passed on the deal.  I thought, "How good can they be if they are even cheaper than GFS pickups?"  

Also was the fact was the guitar I was going to put them in was an Epiphone Les Paul that had the new wiring system in it.  That's the one with the quick connect system.  It's not hard to wire it up, it's just time consuming.  And if I hated them, then it would be a pain to rewire it all again.  

So I looked some more around the net.  I still couldn't find anything close to the Pearly Gates set.  I ended up searching Reverb, www.reverb.com and the Gate Bucker set came up.  It got me to thinking... yet again.  I thought, well, I'm going to just have to give this set a shot.  

So I went ahead and ordered a set.  The company was great to deal with, and worked quickly to ship me the pickups.  As soon as I received the pickups I installed them.

Here they are.

Again they look like any other pickups, but something surprised me when I flipped them over.  Take a look.

Do you notice it?  These pickups actually have nickel/silver baseplates.  They may have not cost a lot, but they surely weren't cheaply made.  

So I started installing them right away.  Like I mentioned earlier I would have to deal with Epiphone's quick connect system.  That meant cutting the 5 wire connector  Next, I had to make sure I matched up the correct wires.  Dragonfire and Epiphone use different color codes.  After that I had to wire up five wires for each pickup.  

One of the best things I bought was a variety pack of heat shrink wire tubing.  That way I could cleanly connect the wires, and then use a larger heat shrink tube to hold all the smaller ones together.  Here are the photos so you can understand what I'm talking about.

  

As you see each pickup has five wires that I connected.  

It occurs to me now that I didn't take any photos of my blue Les Paul.  It is amazingly beautiful.  But in this photo you can see the edge of it.  Also in the photo are the pickups laid out.  At this stage I am going to put the large tubing over the end of the pickup wire.

Not too shabby, huh?  The important part is that it worked the first time.  Of course, I made sure to check my connections before any of the tubing went over any part of the wires.  

But now it was time for the sound check.  How would a cloned pickup that cost 1/4 of it's subject sound?  Would it sound only a quarter as good?  One thing that worried me was that the Gate Bucker had matched coils.  The Pearly Gates coils aren't exactly matched up.  That's one way it gets it bite among other things.  

So I plugged it in and was surprised.  The bridge Gate Bucker matched up really closely to a Pearly Gates pickup.  On a Pearly Gates bridge pickup the top three strings (E, B, G) are really bright, and almost separate themselves from the bottom three strings.  The bottom three strings (D, A, E) are bluely and a touch loose.  But overall, all the strings had a bite to them.  

I know it's tough to say a pickup's bottom is loose but still has bite, but I have to stand by that opinion.  I will say that the Gate Bucker doesn't have as much bite as the pickup it's based on, but I think I know why.  Like a lot of overseas made pickups, the Gate Bucker is filled with wax.  I am in favor of light wax potting, but the overseas made pickups are just soaked in wax.  

When soaking a pickup in wax it's innevitently going to kill off the highs and the bite.  I know some boutique pickup winders won't wax pot a pickup.  If they are requested to do so. they lightly pot the pickup so only the outer windings are wax potted.  This leaves the inner windings untouched.  

So my final grade for the bridge Gate Bucker pickup is an "A."  I have to admit I was shocked.  I didn't think an overseas made pickup could sound so close to a Seymour Duncan pickup.  So now onto the neck pickup. 

The neck Gate Bucker was what I would call a Blues Machine.  It had rounded off treble, but was very nicely balanced.  I would say it's not for everyone.  And by that, I mean, those would turn their gain up to "dentist drill" setting.  But if you love rock n' roll, and want a neck pickup that has tone that will express how your soul feels the Gate Bucker neck pickup is for you.  Again, I would give it an "A."

I am thankful that I took a chance with the Gate Buckers.  I may have to write Dragonfire Guitars and tell them just how wonderful their pickups are.  That, and to completely update their website.  Seriously, they really need to do something about that.  

But I will say, I am going to keep the Gate Buckers in my favorite blue Les Paul.  I think they are without a doubt my sound.  Well, at least until my search for tone takes me elsewhere.  

Hunting Season 2012: Story 4, Cypress

Story 1:  http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2012/12/hunting-season-2012-story-1-gator.html

Story 2:  http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2012/12/hunting-season-2012-story-2-hoggin-it-up.html

Story 3:  http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2012/12/hunting-season-2012-story-3-mystery-at.html

On the day we were coming home from hunting, we decided to make a little detour.  Before we hooked the truck up to the trailer we went down the road to visit Bo Swindell's Sawmill.  Bo is a true old timey Florida Cracker.  I mean that in a good way, as most people have no clue what a true Florida Cracker is.  It's a term from the 1920's that referred to Floridians who raised cattle, and used a whip.  Hence, the cracker. 

But Bo is a great guy to talk to, or should I say listen to.  I gotta be honest, the man had a lot to say.  He had hurt his back, and hadn't cut any fresh wood in a while.  But he was sitting on a lot of new-old stock.  The good news about that was the wood had dried out, and was ready to go. 

We took a tour of the sawmill, and all the wood he had.  I think Bo was more interested in talking than actually selling wood.  He was 75 years old, and was concentrating on building tables and such.  As we wandered the piles of wood, Dad managed to find some persimmon. 

We then came across a pile of wood that surprised Bo.  He thought he had sold all of his cypress, but he had a giant pile of it stacked chest high.  I looked at a few boards, and picked one out.  Bo wanted all of 12 dollars for it.

The neat thing about this cypress is that it was old growth fallen cypress.  You see, over the years the cypress trees get old and when they die they fall into the water and much where they live.  These logs are then submerged in the water for many years.  The oxygen can't get to them, so they don't rot.  What's really neat is that the tree then soaks up the minerals in the mud and water. 

The tree harvesters then pull the logs out of the Florida/Georgia rivers and swamps.  The logs are then dried out, and sold as old growth fallen trees.  The good news is that they are not cutting down live trees.  These trees have been dead for many, many years.

So here is the board I bought in its rough sawn form:

Now here is a picture after I had run the boards through a planer.  Notice the golden yellow color?

Here's a picture of the growth rings.  Notice how they are black with the minerals in them.

So the main question is, "What am I going to use it for?"  Well, I'm not sure yet.  But cypress is used on acoustic guitar tops.  The most popular acoustic top wood is spruce followed by red cedar.  Cypress is a great tone wood, but is much more expensive than either spruce of cedar.  That's one reason why it is not used that much. 

I tap toned a few pieces of the cypress at the sawmill before I decided on the one I did.  But I have to admit, I liked them all.  The cypress's tone is not as bright as spruce, but not as dark as cedar.  The one thing I like about it is how loud it is.  It really surprised me at how the sound seemed to jump right off the board. 

So hopefully I will be able to write a post a year or so from now telling what magic project I have created with this cypress.  But I have to admit, I'm in no hurry.  I have more guitars than I really know what to do with.  But I guess I could always use one more.