Gregwinds? Not much info out there

[Ting Ho Dung]

I have a set of Gregwinds, WCR, I believe. My meter took a shit and is now in the landfill. And there doesn't seem to be much info out there on them. It looks like they were originally done by WCR and then possibly Peter Florence and then onto someone else. I could only find one video demo on them and that was done by Greg on an Huber IIRC with a crappy cell phone recording. I didn't get anything out of it. His playing is fine I just didn't hear much in the recording. Listener fatigue I think is what it's called. 

Are these another PAF copy or is there a special BCR Greg twist to them? What magnets are used, are they potted, what is the impedance, specs, etc? 

I know a lot of you, or at least some, have these and am wondering what you like / dislike about them. Are they best suited for high gain or Bonamassa-ish type stuff?I haven't been thinking much about pickup swaps as of late as I'm concentrating on my 2016 challenge which I'm using a JB exclusively. High gain. But every time I look over in their direction I'm reminded that I have these questions and have quite honestly spent a bit of time googling info for them. Most of which ends me on TGP or the Les Paul forum. Neither of which I find much help. 

Dank,

--TING 

[BubbaVO]

Call Greg for more info.

[dgstandard]

I don't remember much about them as my buddy won't give me back my MONEL that has them in it!

[atquinn]

They were made by Florence first, not second. Other than that, IIRC, they are hot PAFs.

-

Austin

[Ting Ho Dung]

18 minutes ago, BubbaVO said:

Call Greg for more info.

I thought about that but I hate to bother him. 

[veatch]

I can't speak for Greg, but I've never had a bad conversation with him when it involves gear, particularly gear he was involved with...  

My vote is to call him.  

They sound great tapped, BTW...

 

 

[serial]

The Florence Gregwind 'DooDoos' are one of the worst set of pickups I've ever been suckered into spending too much money on.  Pure garbage.

The WCRs were much better and I really liked those, but that guy was a flake and a half with more issues than a magazine stand. Too bad, he made good pickups.  I was so pissed off about the DooDoos, I almost passed on the GW WCRs, but liked them enough to buy a second set, so I was glad I gave them a shot.  

Greg can make any pickups sound good.  If a pickup makes ME sound better  or worse, I tend to give that much more value and honestly feel that it's a better measure of whether a pickup does anything.

Personally, none sound or perform anywhere close to Gravelin's stuff, but YMMV.

[Navigator]

Hey now. I'm no expert on the Gregwind pickups, but weren't they made by WB, not WCR?

[The Shark]

I have two sets of the Will Boggs "WB GregWInds".  One set resides in my 1985 quilt '59 Re-issue. 

One set resides in my favorite "recent" Hamer Standard.  I think Mike Shishkov had a hand in this one.  Double black GregWinds with no covers.

Will was a flake.  WB GregWinds are really killer.  I can't tell you about any of the pickups that came after. 

I don't want any pickup in every guitar.  The GregWinds I have are not for sale.  They are WB's.

[Ting Ho Dung]

Jesus, now I'm confused. I think they are WB. You guys are much better versed than me. I'll have to check.

 

[murkat]

They were will boggs / WB's rewound (and some not) gibson pickups parted out, re worked. Fact.

 

[BubbaVO]

9 hours ago, Navigator said:

Hey now. I'm no expert on the Gregwind pickups, but weren't they made by WB, not WCR?

You can search the history of gregwinds on this site.  Greg worked with a number of pup makers, including WCR, WB and Lindy Fralin.

I liked my WB GW very much.  But I sold them off to an HFC'r in Eastern Europe.  

Another one of those " shouldn't of sold" pieces of gear.  But if you don't try different things how do you really know what suits you?  

[cynic]

8 hours ago, murkat said:

They were will boggs / WB's rewound (and some not) gibson pickups parted out, re worked. Fact.

Whaaaaaa????

[serial]

9 minutes ago, cynic said:

Whaaaaaa????

Mine certainly appeared as-new component-wise and I got them in the configuration I requested (double cream/zebra).  And yes, WB, not WCR.

They were excellent pickups.  Again, the Gravelins are better, but the WBs were nice.

[BCR Greg]

Voodoos first.  That guy made me two excellent sets and a bunch of shit thereafter.

WB next.  Fantastic pickups, loser builder.

WIZZ now.  Best of the bunch.  Now called GregBillys.  Good enough for Ed King(several sets), Walter Becker (MANY sets), Jon Bonjovi, some guy with a beard.....

 

Never used WCR, they guy was a dick on the phone and that was that.

 

 

[bubs_42]

Gregwinds are/were fantastic pickups and I liked them very much and they should not be downplayed. I didn't hear one HFC Member back in the day say they didn't sound F'ing Amazing, except where Greg noted above. 

[shredmeister]

WB made them.  The dude went out of business years ago.  He made amazing pickups.   Best in the business by my tastes at the time.  I have 3 sets of his pick ups.

Hot PAFs, Heaven and Hells and Firewaters.   Each different and each fantastic.  They split better than any pickups I have seen as well.

If you can get anything made by WB buy it.

[SteveB]

WB Gregwinds in my PRS, asymmetric wound to sound good with split, work great with Duncan Triple shot surrounds for a lot of sound variations.  I run the coils in parallel for a very nice low noise p90 vibe.

[it's me HHB]

Surprised to hear the Florence stunk. I loved the Voodoo59s I had in a Tokai 335 clone._  as much as I can love a humbucker lol

[serial]

Yep-lousy pickups.

[Ting Ho Dung]

2 hours ago, it's me HHB said:

Surprised to hear the Florence stunk. I loved the Voodoo59s I had in a Tokai 335 clone._  as much as I can love a humbucker lol

I have some Florence Voodoo single coils in my noStrat and love them. 

[serial]

I guess some guys have good stuff and still can make garbage.  I got garbage and was pissed that I got suckered into lousy overly-expensive pickups.