Humbucking a Tele

[Derek Headvoices]

Hello all

I've had a standard tele since '95, and recently played a friend's tele which had a humbucker on the neck pickup. At some point in the past I played one with a humbucker on the bridge, and liked that too, though I rarely use anything but the neck. I love the feel of my tele but i'm after a fatter, warmer sound; i've recently been getting seriously into Neil Young. My options seem to be
1) buying another guitar (probably too costly right now, and i'm very comfortable with the feel of a tele)
2) hacking my tele up to fit a humbucker
3) fitting a stacked humbucker


How do stacked humbuckers compare to regular humbuckers?
I'd appreciate your thoughts on this

many thanks

[hacker]

Re: Humbucking a Tele

Full-sized humbuckers are much fuller sounding then stacked humbuckers. If you do rout your tele for humbuckers, the pickguard and the bridge will cover the holes if you decide to go back to single coils.

I have a tele with humbuckers and it sounds huge. The tele's string though body, single cutaway design make for a fat sound with humbuckers. You can buy a replacement bridgeplate that can fit a humbucker in it.

With that said, Neil young had a les paul, but I cant remember if he's using a P90 or a mini-humbucker in the bridge position, i know he has one of each in his guitar. I would go for a full sized bridge humbucker thats voiced for mids, like a JB, to get Neils sound (or close to it).

[wasteofo2]

Re: Humbucking a Tele

I've some experience with single coil sized humbuckers (lil' 59 and hotrails), and I highly reccomend them if you don't want to cut up your guitar. If you want a humbucker for both positions, you can just get a tele sized one for the bridge, and then get a strat sized humbucker for your tele's neck and just widen the pickguard's hole a bit, since they don't make tele neck sized humbuckers.

Single coil sized humbuckers certainly sound more focused and brighter than full sized humbuckers, but when compared to single coil telecaster pickups, the difference is huge. I've found that with 500k pots, single coil humbuckers are too bright, so staying with the 250k pots in your tele would be a good idea.

Young used a P-90 in the neck and a mini-humbucker in the bridge, as shown in this picture taken from www.toneninja.net

[Derek Headvoices]

Re: Humbucking a Tele

That's great, thanks a lot. So, if I want to try a stacked humbucker on the neck of my tele, hot rails or 59 is the way to go, right? Interesting that they don't make humbuckers for Tele necks, considering Fender make Teles with neck humbuckers... I seem to remember the Nashville has neck bucker.

thanks again - this forum is great. Ask and thou shalt receive...

[wasteofo2]

Re: Humbucking a Tele

That's great, thanks a lot. So, if I want to try a stacked humbucker on the neck of my tele, hot rails or 59 is the way to go, right? Interesting that they don't make humbuckers for Tele necks, considering Fender make Teles with neck humbuckers... I seem to remember the Nashville has neck bucker.

thanks again - this forum is great. Ask and thou shalt receive...

Just a clarification of terms, pickups like the '59 and Hotrails aren't stacked, they're just called single coil sized humbuckers sincetheir coils are side by side. Pickups like the classic stack, where the coils are one atop another are stacks.

I wouldn't say a hotrails of '59 would definately be the way to go for you, those are just the two I've tried. When I said I highly reccomended them, I meant single coil sized humbucker as a whole, not specifically those two. I suggest you listen to some soundclips at the following links and decide which ones you like on your own

https://www.soundclick.com/pro/?BandID=112334

https://www.artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Forum_Music

There are plenty of telecasters that have humbuckers in the neck, but those are full sized or "mini-humbuckers", and the pickguard has been routed specifically for them. What I meant was that there are no humbuckers that are the same size as traditional tele neck pickups.

Just to put terms with images:

Full/traditional sized Humbucker:


Mini Humbucker:


Strat sized single coil humbucker:


Tele neck single coil (smallest single coil, too small to make 2 coils side to side with)


Tele bridge stacked humbucker (looks like a normal tele bridge, the second coil is under the top one)


Tele bridge single coil humbucker:

[Derek Headvoices]

Re: Humbucking a Tele

I see... lots to think about there then! Thanks for your patience.

Listening to the sound samples on the SD site, I really liked the sound of the neck Quarter Pounder for Tele, but seeing as i'm trying to stop my guitar from humming, there's not much point investing in one of them, being single coil.

[jeremy]

Re: Humbucking a Tele

i love the qp tele pups and im sure you could have a qp tele stack made but it would probably be too costly for ya. if it were me and i wanted a heavy sound from my tele id go lil 59 neck (strat variety) and tele hot rails bridge