Another Tele Pickup Question.

[Kazz]

Was looking at the GFS clearance section and wondered what any of you might think about...

Matched Pair Vintage Style Tele Pickups



This is the latest, and in my opinion, greatest BLOWOUT pickup deal we've scored yet!

A guitar manufacturer custom ordered this nice vintage styled Telecaster pickup pair for a new model. The guitars didn't sell- so the manufacturer was left with tens of thousands of dollars worth of custom ordered, custom wound pickups- We stepped in, ponied up the dough and bought 'em ALL- These are the real deal- brand new, factory fresh, unused-

These are WICKED nice. These are nice pickups- ceramic bar magnets, nice warm vintage output- Bridge clock in at a healthy 6.4K and the neck pickup a 50's correct 5.5K. This ridiculous price is FOR THE PAIR complete with mounting screws and springs!!

Since I only have a limited amount of these- it's first come-first serve. The last batch sold out in DAYS- So please don't wait around if you need a good set of pickups for a below-wholesale price.


Matched Pair Telecaster vintage Style Pickps- BLOWOUT - Now IN STOCK! BO_Tele_SetpadRetail price: $49.95padDirect Guitarfetish Price: $21.95pad

[Dauntless]

http://yhst-50206111187217.stores.ya...atevistpi.html

[WackyT]

I personally put the GFS Alnico Fatbody Oversized Polepiece Tele Neck and Bridge Pickups in my Mexican Tele, and love the sound from them.

[Spudman***]

Since these are OEM pickups and not GFS pickups it's hard to find any information on them. Looks like you get to be the product tester. They are pretty inexpensive so it's not a huge gamble. If you like them then you'll have one heck of a score. Let us know.

[Eric***]

I see I'm a bit late to this discussion, but figured I would add my two cents.

I bought an SX tele knockoff (SX STL-50 3TS) recently and hated the bridge pickup, so I bought the clearance tele set (the one linked to in this thread) on guitarfetish.com.

I'm no pickup expert (in fact, this was my first pup job), but by this point, I'm pretty sure that they help. It did take me a little while to notice the difference, because that's not something I'm really used to listening to, but I realized I'm no longer afraid of switching to the bridge position.

A couple of things I noticed were that they're not particularly hot, and the bridge pickup is raised pretty high to get enough output. For that matter, the neck pickup is actually a little dull, but I guess that's just kind of a neck pup for you. Also, at least with this SX guitar, I had a little trouble with the bridge pup, as it was kind of flared on the bottom of the pickup, which made it a tight fit in the cavity. It's only really an issue when adjusting the height, but I still intend to open it up and maybe sand it down or route it a little bit the next time I change strings.

Overall, I don't know how much I'd trust my opinion, considering I have little-to-no experience with changing/listening to pickups, but for $22, I think these did a pretty decent job of making a cheap guitar usable.

Hope that helps. I'd be interested if anyone else has any input on these.

[Duff49]

I thought about replacing the pups in my Squire Standard tele and figured the stock ones were about fifteen dollars a set or so.

I got a deal, 35 dollars, on a bridge Fender Custom Shop Texas Special hot pickup and put it in, 10.5kohms. I have a matching neck Texas Special on the way from another used source for 40 dollars.

The bridge Texas Special is awesome, hot twangy and quiet. A definite upgrade from the stock cheap pickups.

If it was me, I would go with a better set of hotter pups and pay the extra money to get something that should sound really nice. GFS has little punchers I think they are called that are for tele's and are probably really nice pups.

I like to experiment with putting in the best pickups I can find to work into some ideas I have on where I want to go with a particular guitar. I have been successful in getting some greatly improved sounds.

I just got a deal on a new Seymour Duncan little '59 single coil sized humbucker for 39 dollars and put it into the bridge of my "Cherry Burst" Squire standard strat and it sounds awesome. Did the bridge tone mod as well. The SD single coil sized humbuckers retain a lot ot the single coil type sound but are noiseless, while NOT sounding exactly like their full sized bumbucking brothers.

I'd say spend a little more and get a lot more pickup.

Duffy

[deeaa*]

All you need is a coupla EMGs :-)

Seriously, I don't really believe in a lot of differences in pickups as long as they are similar construction&well done.

IMO there are categories:

Single
Bucking
P-90
Stacked
Active

Those are really different from each other. If materials are sub-par, any pickup can be much darker than its sibling, and if it's got a metal cover that affects the sound some. But those are already pretty small differences. What it boils down to is the output power, for the most part.

I used to sell guitars for a living for a few years...we did all these tests to pass the time. One was testing whether we could tell the differences between various strat pickups...so one of us played from our stock of maybe two dozen strats with most any given pickup combinations while the others tried to guess which they were without looking. Not a chance. The only real differences were some were more powerful, but a slight twist on the guitar volume and it sounded just like the weaker ones. Some cheapos were audibly darker, but again with a slight increase in amp treble and no way you could tell them apart. Same with buckers too.

All in all we decided even the body woods make more of a difference in the sound than the pickups in general.

Ever since I've used EMGs because I want very powerful pickups so I get my toob amp to OD naturally, plus they are noiseless for recording.

[ibanezjunkie]

not a big fan of active pickups.

i prefere duncan invaders to EMGs, and wouldnt want to go putting actives in a tele, would prefere some vintage fender pups or twang kings.

[deeaa*]

Yeah, actives usually divide people. I like it simple, mostly I like to play direct to amp and actives are great for that, you still get lotsa kick outta amps.

For a large part actives don't work so well with SS gear - they're best enjoyed with all-tube amps. When I play direct to Tech-21 for instance, I drop the guitar volume to half or it's all too buzzy from too hot input. But the Ceriatone really loves them EMG's.

I have no experience of Invaders, but I don't like the EMG81 which seems the industry standard so much. 85's are much much better, warmer, wider, bigger sounding - they're usually necks but I use 'em on bridge.

My main axe, I keep an SA single and the 85 both on simultaneously pretty much 100% of the time. That's a great combo.

[ibanezjunkie]

These for metal/rock



these for most everything else



and these in your teleh

[Kazz]

Tele has to quack....Question for you...who uses the neck pup in a tele?

[ibanezjunkie]

alot of people do, my cousin does in his MIA tele, too bad he uses a marshall MG with it :

[Wolf Garcia]

I've been playing teles for over 35 years (not exclusively...I like lots of different tones for different things) of my 40 plus years of electrics, and in my opinion, ahem, the stock neck pickups suck. Always have, always will...lots of people I know stuck a gibson style humbucker in there. Consequently, from about 1979 or so I've used a strat pickup. Then a single pole strat humbucker for quiet...and NOW, since selling my last original "actual" tele after not feeling like re-fretting it, I'm using a Reverend Buckshot...it's just better tele style guitar and the neck pickup is AMAZING...a "revtron" humbucker that's a sort of filtertron-esque tone monster. Highly recommended.

[wingsdad]

Tele has to quack....Question for you...who uses the neck pup in a tele?

I've played Tele's in one form or another since 1966. I didn't get into the Strat until the late 70's. FWIW, Kazz: Strats quack; Teles twang.

In its original Leo Fender design, as in a true '52 vintage Tele, and the '65 Tele I had in High School, the Tele's neck pickup didn't truly connect to the tone pot, it was a preset thing. That's NOT the technically accurate way to describe it, but the practical. (I'm sure someone else here with the electronics wizardry brain I don't have can 'splain it better). The tone pot was strictly for the bridge pup. Most people didn't and don't realize that. So the neck pup and that wiring scheme is/was misunderstood.

EDIT: CORRECTION One must remember that before the Telecaster came to market in late 1951 , the original guitar with 2 pups that went into production in 1950 was named the Broadcaster (briefly nicknamed 'Nocaster' in 1951 after Gretsch had them pull the name) briefly replacing a single pup design,the 'Esquire', bridge pup only. The neck pup was added for the purpose of softening the bridge pup's characteristic biting Twang... inherent to the bridge assembly design. Rememember again that in the earliest forms, amps had no tone circuitry (e.g., Fender Champ). The guitar had to handle it.

So as for using the neck pup, I seldom if ever use(d) it alone, and always found it best in combination with the bridge pup. The combination of the 2, clean, with the tone dimed for max treble on the bridge, gives a nice crystalline 'jangle'. Roll off some treble, and the tone fattens up.

Eventually, after Leo sold to CBS, the Tele came out in the early 70's adding a neck humbucker, then a 2 humbucker model. I moved to the neck bucker model in the mid-70's, but returned to a 'pure' Tele in the 80's. My main axe then, and sitll my go-to axe, is a Strat. If I wanted 'buckers, I'd use a Les Paul. Today, my 'Tele' is a G&L ASAT Classic Bluesboy, sporting a Duncan Seth Lover SH55N in the neck position.

[sumitomo]

Hey wings I had heard that that boxy flappy sound from the early teles on the neck pup was because the electric bass had not come out yet and thats what they were using and I heard this from Jim Weider.Sumi

[wingsdad]

Sumi, that theory makes some sense...but the Precision Bass, the first electric bass, actually was introduced in '51, too. But the original Broadcaster/Telecaster wiring scheme was as I described it.

[markb]

EDIT: CORRECTION One must remember that before the Telecaster came to market in late 1951 , the original guitar with 2 pups that went into production in 1950 was named the Broadcaster (briefly nicknamed 'Nocaster' in 1951 after Gretsch had them pull the name) briefly replacing a single pup design,the 'Esquire', bridge pup only. The neck pup was added for the purpose of softening the bridge pup's characteristic biting Twang... inherent to the bridge assembly design. Rememember again that in the earliest forms, amps had no tone circuitry (e.g., Fender Champ). The guitar had to handle it.

Hmm, [pedant mode on]

The original Broadcaster circuit used a blend pot. The three way switch gave bridge only, bridge + neck via blender, neck only with preset tone rolloff. This changed to bridge only, neck only, neck with preset tone rolloff after about the first year of production. Telecasters were all wired this way from the factory until 1968 when Fender switched to bridge only, neck + bridge in parallel, neck only.

The Broadcaster/Telecaster did not replace the single pickup Esquire. They were both in the catalogue until the late 60's. The name "Nocaster" was never used by Fender until they produced the recent Custom Shop reissues. It was a collector term for the unlabeled "teles" of 1951.

I'd love to know where you found that bit of info, Wings. It's right in only one respect. That, for a while the bridge and neck pickups could be blended. This was not an option between 1952 and 1968 unless you could find the in between spot on the switch. [\pedant off]

[Duff49]

I put a Fender Custom Shop Texas Special 10.5k in my Squire Standard Tele and is sounds great and is quiet.

I still have the cheap Squire neck pickup in place.

I have a line on a used Neck Texas Special that I want to pick up and install. I think this would be a good combination.

Routing the pickguard for a full sized humbucker would also be a great idea but I'm not sure if the Squire Standard tele is routed for a full sized humbucker. I'd probably put a '59 or a JB Seymour Duncan in there; but I might consider a Duncan Custom Custom, or an Invader. I'd like to get a nickel plated version of something though, that would match up with that hot Texas special bridge and complement its tone well. Probably a '59 would match the output fairly well.

As far as stock single coils does anyone have any better ideas for a direct drop in than the Texas Special neck? I suppose there are other direct drop ins, like GFS 'lil Punchers, ect., but I would be concerned that that tone would not be close to the Texas Special.

Help is appreciated,

Duffy

[wingsdad]

Old Coot that I am, I should probably stop posting stuff from memory, and instead have references out & open for accuracy ...no problem, I stand humbly corrected, as I value & respect your knowledge of things Fender, mark...

...The Broadcaster/Telecaster did not replace the single pickup Esquire. They were both in the catalogue until the late 60's. The name "Nocaster" was never used by Fender until they produced the recent Custom Shop reissues. It was a collector term for the unlabeled "teles" of 1951....

I shouldn't have said 'replaced' the Esquire; only in the sense that they made a few, then stopped to make the Broadcaster (all 200 or so of them), then went on to make both. This info from Tony Bacon's history 'The Fender Electric Guitar Book', now that I went back to check. And, FWIW, I did say 'nicknamed' the Nocaster. Again, Bacon's book lists the chronology of the model production, and even cites 'Nocaster', if only top lace it in time. Indeed, they were both in the catalogue thru the 60's, and I recall as a kid in '64 trying to decide if I wanted a new Esquire for $130 (US) or a Tele for about $30 more.

...I'd love to know where you found that bit of info, Wings. It's right in only one respect. That, for a while the bridge and neck pickups could be blended. This was not an option between 1952 and 1968 unless you could find the in between spot on the switch. [\pedant off]

The wiring stuff, well...that's purely from personal experience, first & foremost, and as ingnorant as as a 14-15 yr-old kid who knew nothing about technical stuff, just how to play the damn thing.

First playing OP's Teles and then actually owning & playing a '65 Tele with a '65 Deluxe Reverb or '66 Bandmaster...just knowing the neck pup alone was a pure dull, thick bassy tone, the bridge twanged like hell, and in between (mid-switch), the tone pot acted really cool in what happened. Secondly, for technical wiring, I had read it a while ago, but now I just pulled it off the shelf, so I'll refer to Dan Erlewine's 'Guitar Player Repair Guide (3rd Ed), pgs. 262-263 for the various wiring diagrams of the Esquire, Broadcaster, 53 Tele, 66 ('or 67') Tele, and a '67 Tele variant with a 4-way switch.

Next time, I'll look it up first, or just shut up.