GAK shop an 'investment opportunity'

[Tigerdaisy]

I, also am not a 'fan' of Gary Moore- too many frenzied and meaningless notes. So called 'blues', which I hate as they are almost all the same around those three chords. At least Clapton bought something new to the 'blues'.

[JimN]

The only 'winners' in the covid pandemic seem to have been gear4music who cashed in with their slick mail order business when people wanted musical instruments to while away the hours of lockdown. Maybe those instruments, like the puppies and kittens bought as playthings, will turn up on ebay quite soon.

Gear4music no longer seem to stock most of their advertised stock but rather they appear to be working in conjunction with Thomann in Germany. I've sent at least two items back to Gear4music and recently I bought a Pacifica 612 there and it basically shouldn't have been sold in its condition- frets that needed badly smoothing, a trem that was a real pain to adjust, pickups (Seymour Duncan) that were uneven in response- the humbucker needed its bass string pole screwing right down quite a very long way- the single coils had an over high pole, which brings me onto- why don't Fender make non staggered pickups with the current range of flatter radius necks? I think its G&L for me in the future with their adjustable pole pieces. Fender seem to be stuck in the past with a reluctance to make even simple changes to their line up...unless you perhaps are prepared to pay loads of money for the so called 'custom shop' offerings.

You were obviously unfortunate with that Yamaha Pacifica. Several Yamahas have passed through my hands over the years (I still have three of them) and I have always honestly felt that there is no such thing as a bad Yamaha electric guitar, at any price. Their acoustics, on the other hand, are a different kettle of fish, with the much-admired-at-the-time MIJ FG range from the early seventies varying in quality to say the least. I once heard them described as as "dead as a box of spanners" and could not disagree. They are nowhere near Gibson, Martin or Taylor; that's for sure.

Like you, I am fond of adjustable polepieces on pickups and I bought a pair of USA G&L ASAT pickups to install into my USA Telecaster but haven't got round to doing the work yet. I find Strat staggered pickups balance OK with a wound third, though I could not bear the horrific imbalance with a plain G. A set of 10-46 (plain G) seem OK on the Telecaster, though I still intend to do the swap the G&L units in.

I can't help feeling that the adjustment on the Pacifica needn't have been as extreme as you describe. A loud low E suggests a need for a tilting of the pickup as well as polepiece adjustment - obviously, down at the bass end. The same is true of Fender Strat, Jazzmaster and Jaguar pickups!

[Tigerdaisy]

Thanks for the reply Jim. I've had a Yamaha Pacifica with Seymour Duncan pickups in the distant past (over twenty years ago) and it was much better than this current offering and it sounded better. As this is a Shadows forum I'd assume players want pickups with a fairly even output, playing melodies as they do... I feel that tilting the whole pickup is at best a compromise and I've certainly done it for sure on many guitars. Maybe the current Pacifica I've got is a Fri aft job, but I've also had incredibly duff Fenders, one where the pickups 'failed' after half an hour and the jack plug escutcheon plate was all bent up (from Thomann)