TELE me about caster pickups.

[GuitarDoc]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

A fair point, but I don't believe it. Pickups sound drastically different when rolled off, but each pickup retains a certain fundamental tone. Also I feel like this thread has, unfortunately, become more about the tone in that video than just.. giving me a suggestion to a smoother sounding tele pickup along those lines, something melodic, warm, something that sounds fuller but still clear enough to play complex chords. The rig isn't really an issue, I have a great compressor, I usually throw everything through a klone, so my fundamental sound is pretty damn good for what I want to play, but I feel like these specific tele pickups are kind of spikey, plasticy and lifeless, when I often hear them sounding fat and sweet.

I don't need huge twang, but I will settle for jangle.

Like I said earlier, the STR-1 is a versatile, great sounding neck pup. But for a sweeter, fatter sound you might consider the STR52-1 or even the STR-3 (very ballsy) with more output, bass, and mids. Yet when tapped it still sounds very vintage when you want it.

[jimijames]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

Just one more thing to note - with bright pickups like tele pickups, people typically use .047 (I think that's it? It might be .47 but you know what cap I'm talking about) which have a drastic impact on the sound. You can use a .022 cap which has a much less pronounced roll off than the .047 - and I find with a .022 the fundamental sound of the pickup stays very close to the original. You're really just rolling off the brightest of the bright frequencies.

The downside to that is even rolled to '1' the pickup may still be too bright for your ears, especially if you're coming from humbuckers.

IMO a humbucker in the neck is the most versatile option for a telecaster. It isn't that telecaster neck pickups aren't good - some are downright fantastic - but if you're primarily concerned with neck pickup sounds, a humbucker will give you a broader palette fwiw. You can get a full and fat humbucking sound, and a very good facsimile of a tele neck pickup in parallel. If you call up one of the custom winders you can even get one of the coils tapped for a (really good actually) single coil sound. If not I think a floor shop custom Seth Lover neck with 4-conductor wiring would give you what you want.

If you're coming from humbuckers you'll probably want a really hot bridge pickup as even the jerry donahue (A2 and wound to 7.8k) is a very bright pickup.

[elelpe]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

so how it blends with the neck pickup in the middle position is probably the most important part for me, so I'm more likely to get a pickup set of some kind. I'm looking for something that sounds full, it doesn't have to sound dark or warm, but it does have to sound fuller, with clarity in complex chords.

Bill Frisell always sounds like that ... and pretty, whatever the pickup is (tele, mini, gold foil, CC ...). Maybe it's not just the pickup. That said, I'd suggest you check out Wilde pickups by Bill Lawrence like Microcoil and L202TN. Even the cheapest set, Keystones, sounds pretty particularly in neck and middle position. Some tele players also rave about Analogman/ Jim Weider Big T. Way more expensive though.

[TimmyPage]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

Bill Frisell always sounds like that ... and pretty, whatever the pickup is (tele, mini, gold foil, CC ...). Maybe it's not just the pickup.

Definitely, every clip I see of him, he sounds pretty similar, no matter what kind of guitar he's using. It's really in his phrasing and how he uses his effects. That's why I'm not too picky about pickups in the first place, as long as they don't sound BAD I can deal and sound like myself.

Though, all of the players that I posted are like that, Scofield has switched over to a tele recently, and his tone is really similar to when he was using the 335 clone, it's so much in the rest of his equipment, and in his hands.

[DreX]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

Just one more thing to note - with bright pickups like tele pickups, people typically use .047 (I think that's it? It might be .47 but you know what cap I'm talking about) which have a drastic impact on the sound. You can use a .022 cap which has a much less pronounced roll off than the .047 - and I find with a .022 the fundamental sound of the pickup stays very close to the original. You're really just rolling off the brightest of the bright frequencies.

on some guitars I install a push pull pot to get both of those capacitor values

[jimijames]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

on some guitars I install a push pull pot to get both of those capacitor values

That's a pretty cool idea - never thought to do that.

One more thing - I think it was Lew that said he saw Robben Ford and he just left it in the bridge position and used an EP boost, so that's something to consider when talking about using the bridge vs. neck pickup. I've also seen some live footage of eric johnson where he gets this really pretty singing clean sound with just the bridge pickup in his strat.

So, I wouldn't totally discount a good bridge pickup. IME a good vintage-wind telecaster bridge pickup will do just about everything under the sun. Particularly I've heard good things about the twang king from dimarzio. I don't know about England, but used pickups are easy to come by in the States so I'd keep an eye out for something like that. Additionally Zhangbucker is selling some leftover "chimecaster" pickups for $55 a pop, IDK what shipping is to england, but for a 7.6k A3 tele bridge pickup I'm going to go ahead and say you won't find one wound like that for a better price. I originally asked him about them and ended up ordering a tapped paul bunyan lol.

[Bludave]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

I have a MIJ 52 RI. It has a vintage 54 in the neck and a Jerry Donahue in the bridge. The pickup is warm and full. Good enough to get a great Jazz tone. The bridge is a killer Tele bridge pickup. It has a nice midrange and is NOT ice pickie as some Tele bridge pickups can be. The middle is a very sweet sounding combination of warmth, spank and clarity

[TimmyPage]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

IMO a humbucker in the neck is the most versatile option for a telecaster. It isn't that telecaster neck pickups aren't good - some are downright fantastic - but if you're primarily concerned with neck pickup sounds, a humbucker will give you a broader palette fwiw. You can get a full and fat humbucking sound, and a very good facsimile of a tele neck pickup in parallel. If you call up one of the custom winders you can even get one of the coils tapped for a (really good actually) single coil sound. If not I think a floor shop custom Seth Lover neck with 4-conductor wiring would give you what you want.

I already have a humbucker in the neck of my Hardtail strat, so I don't think it'd cover all that different of a tonal area. And all of the tones I've really enjoyed on a tele have been from a single coil, so that's the way I'm looking at the moment. I also have a tonne of other HH guitars, and no guitar s that really have a single in them, and I just prefer the dark sound of a tele single to a strat single.. most of the time.

[Zhangliqun]

Re: TELE me about caster pickups.

The reason the neck pu on most Teles isn't the Tele's strong suit is that freakin' cover. The overwhelming majority of these covers are made with a crummy tone-killing alloy and/or copper layer to hold the plating on. Yank it off and life gets a lot better...