NGD, it sparkles

[chadd]

How do the pickups sound compared to other humbuckers?

It's a couple years old, so just a regular humbucker in the neck under a cover with a lot of wax. Bridge isn't bad, but they shouldn't have used 1 Meg pots for both volumes. I've been debating one of the cunife reissues and a 250k pot for the bridge vole. Other option is all new pickups and electronics

[Mincer]

I would try swapping out the pots first...maybe to 500k first. Just to see where you are with any harshness.

[allbutromeo]

Nice! I have the same guitar in the Orange Flake finish. I wanted to get a purple one too, but couldn't find one locally. I have my tech making a new pearloid guard routed for a filtertron in the neck and putting a Creamery Sonic 60 in the bridge.

[GuitarDoc]

Oh man! Great looking guitar. Normally I would think that you're crazy to trade a Strat for a Tele, but in this case I can certainly see why.

Unless there is something that you really don't like about the neck pup, I'd keep the wide range in there. I've got a couple and think they really sound good. I agree with 500k pots. If they sound too bright, you can always turn the tone knob down a bit...you have that option, especially with a 2 tone knob configuration. 250k pots may make it sound a bit dark and mushy and then you don't have the option of brightening it up a bit. I agree with Jeremy on the pick guard...see what the pearl looks like next to the guitar before actually installing it. It may detract from the clean look that it has now with a plain guard. I might be tempted to reshape the top of that white guard to be more like a conventional Tele guard to show a bit more of the purple, though.

[chadd]

Oh man! Great looking guitar. Normally I would think that you're crazy to trade a Strat for a Tele, but in this case I can certainly see why.

Unless there is something that you really don't like about the neck pup, I'd keep the wide range in there. I've got a couple and think they really sound good. I agree with 500k pots. If they sound too bright, you can always turn the tone knob down a bit...you have that option, especially with a 2 tone knob configuration. 250k pots may make it sound a bit dark and mushy and then you don't have the option of brightening it up a bit. I agree with Jeremy on the pick guard...see what the pearl looks like next to the guitar before actually installing it. It may detract from the clean look that it has now with a plain guard. I might be tempted to reshape the top of that white guard to be more like a conventional Tele guard to show a bit more of the purple, though.

These aren't really WRHB. All of the WRHB-looking pickups since they started making the reissues has been standard humbuckers with a ton of wax to hold them on the wider base plate and cover. Fender didn't make a real CuNiFe WRHB again until last year. If I keep the WRHB format, I'll spring for one of the new CuNiFe pickups. The bridge is tolerable with the tone rolled halfway back, but drops off immediately after that. I'm thinking a hotter bridge pickup and 500k pot may work together to tame the brightness there.

As for the pickguard, the pearl will help add some sparkle to all that flat white without being too over the top, like a mirror or something crazy like that.