Little 59 on Tele

[Commonside-Matt]

Hi, I’ve recently had a Seymour Duncan little 59 mini humbucker installed on my tele. It has been installed professionally, but that’s not to say it has been wired correctly, unfortunately I don’t the knowledge base myself to double check over it properly.

has anyone installed a little 59 on their tele bridge and what did you think of it ? Mine sounds muddy as hell, basically sounds like a neck pick up. Only way I can get useable tone is by turning my amp treble up to around 7.5 and bass down to 4, and all the treble causes my amp to break up (fender twin reverb should almost never break up really).

the guitar tech has done work for me before and has always been good but I can’t help like feeling he’s messed up here. Can someone confirm whether this is normal or not for this pick up before I take the guitar back to him and tell him he might of wired it wrong ? I’ve looked up vids on YouTube before I even bought the pick up and it didn’t sound like it has ended up like.

also, pots have been upgraded to 500k which helped slightly but not a lot at all.

matt

[PFDarkside]

Does the tone control function normally and does the neck sound “correct”?

[ArtieToo]

The good news is, there's no easier guitar than a Tele to examine the wiring. Remove two screws and gently lift out the control plate. It only needs to come out a little bit. See if you can see the markings on the tone cap, and let us know what they are. The main number you're looking for will be like .022 or 223, .047 or 473, etc. Then look at the bridge wires. Green and bare should be grounded. Red and white should be soldered together, (not just twisted and taped), and black should go to the switch.

If you could do that, we could maybe help from there.

And, welcome to the forum.

[Commonside-Matt]

I’m actually taking it a different guitar repair centre tomorrow to have a look over, I was just hoping someone could share if they have put this pickup on a tele, and if it actually does just have a really muddy sound. I did raise the control plate a bit and couldn’t see any of the numbers you we’re talking about. I’m not gonna pull it off completely though then struggle to stuff it all back in there haha I’ll just wait and see what the guy says tomorrow.

Thanks for taking time to help though ! and I’ll share the outcome on here

[CK71]

I have installed the little 59 in a tele and did not have the same experience as you have described. While it is darker than a regular tele bridge you shouldn't need to adjust your amp that drastically. I find the pickup to be sensitive to height so if you haven't I would suggest playing with the height by lowering and raising it to see if that is a better fit.

[Mincer]

The Little 59 has mids, but shouldn't be muddy in any guitar. Something must be wrong either with the wiring or the pickup itself. Feel free to post some pics of the wiring as we might be able to see something wrong. It shouldn't have left the last repair place if it doesn't sound right.

[ToneFiddler]

the lil59 was to middy, round and compressed for my liking, but i wouldn't call it muddy. and it sounded nothing like the neck pickup of any of my guitars
compared to a '54 to 66 tele bridge pickup it may sound muddy with std. 250k wiring.

[superpete]

the lil59 was to middy, round and compressed for my liking, but i wouldn't call it muddy. and it sounded nothing like the neck pickup of any of my guitars
compared to a '54 to 66 tele bridge pickup it may sound muddy with std. 250k wiring.

i second that emotion! i'm wondering if maybe the pickup just isn't right for the OP but the verbiage is misleading...i wouldn't call the lil 59 muddy like a neck pickup, but i would agree that it isn't a great sounding pickup.

[ToneFiddler]

well there was a thread where somebody was looking for the sound of the lil59 in a full sized Bucker because the SH-1 59 didn't do it.
he loved everything about it what we dislike. taste AND ears vary a lot from person to person