Best Scooped (ish) Telecaster Bridge

[Clint 55]

The Custom 5 is hot, but doesn't have any mids, so I am sure MJ could come up with a formula that gives a scooped EQ and a little more power in a Tele format.

I bet you're right.

[nienturi]

Some boutique winders like Fred Stuart and Don Mare winds that kindo tele pickups for bakersfield style. Lollar has ’52 T model that's scooped bakersfield tele bridge. As far as i remember Lindy Fralins Vintage Hot tele bridge was mid scooped, too but not sure about it. It's more then ten years.

[Clint 55]

Fralin's a beast for getting punch out of vintage wound pickups. The OP said he didn't want to spend boutique money tho so..

[Chistopher]

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[freefrog]

The sound I was hoping for is something similar to the Scooped Strat but just in Tele form. I have been looking at low wind but the conventional wisdom seems to vary from 'more winds increase mids AND lows' or 'more winds increase mids'. If the second is the case then I should look at lower wind. I am just seen if there a way to get more low end (which I want) without having to add a bunch more mids along with it.

I just see a lot of other pickups been mid scooped (lots of strat pickups, humbuckers like the Screamin' Demon or the Custom 5) but just don't see it in Telecasters for some reason.

More winds might increase mids OR increase mids and lows, depending on the "magnetic profile" of a pickup. Schematically if not simplistically, one might say that high inductance and low Gauss readings = more mids and not more bass, like with A3 powered PU's. High inductance and high Gauss readings = more mids AND bass, conversely and statistically.

Now, it also depends on how the magnetic field spreads "laterally" (on the sides of E strings) and this factor depends itself of the design involved. It can even change according to the bar magnet used...

Furthermore, the magnetism of Tele pickup is "something special" because of the bridge plate. See there:

https://ironstone-guitar-pickups.co.uk/stratocaster-telecaster-comparison/

Regarding the fact that Tele PU's are rarely marketed as scooped: as you probably know it, bridge Tele PU's are often wound hotter, with therefore more inductance (and therefore more mids). Their steel/copper/brass baseplate also increases their inductance and causes eddy currents flattening their response.

Paradoxically, a cheap Squier Tele pickup without baseplate and with (not too charged) ceramic mags stuck underneath might be the answer here...

But there's also passive solutions like the Q filter: by lowering the inductance and adding its inert load to the game, a properly speced one would favor the bass and give "scoopier" mids without promoting too much the high range. The mid scoop and bass bump would become even more obvious with a cap+ inductor in series , possibly tamed by a resistor. But this last should should be carefully "tuned" of it would sound "artificial".

There's not many possible solutions without potential downsides, that said. Series caps are efficient but have potentially conflictual relations with tone pots and with some effects (like fuzz). Active EQ's do wonder with clean tones but become hissy with high gain... We are all limited by the laws of physics, here.

I've said my piece. Good luck in your quest.


EDIT - Below is a demo that I've just found on YT, with a Tele and a Bill Lawrence Q filter on the bridge pickup. FWIW. I've not checked how the guy has implemented it exactly but it gives a good basic idea of what parallel inductors can do (and such inductors haven't necessarily to be BL Q filters: any coil with enough inductance would be able to give a working circuit, including coils from old cheap pickups).

https://youtu.be/YnSX1Fyy7Oc?si=wayPxQpyQy51Ttvz&t=138

[freefrog]

Another Q filter demo. Not a Tele but might give a clearer example of what the thing does.

https://youtu.be/zmwZC_loYSc?si=pI1OLYKTTCDe6doC&t=72

[playas]

I find the SD vintage tele sounds quite scooped fwiw.

[beaubrummels]

I guess I have tried a bunch of different tele pickups and they either seem to not have enough low end or have too much midrange for my taste and sounds for lack of a better word "congested". I tend to like bright pickups but I would like just a little more low end. When I eq my rig for my bridge it sounds the closet to what I want when I scoop the mid range. Problem is I mostly play on the neck and it does not need anymore low-end and I am not looking to adjust eq every time I switch pickups.

Sounds like you might better focus on getting a thinner, brighter neck. While I haven't used these, going by specs on paper and sound clips available, a Lari Basilio neck, which is A5 under the wound strings and A4 under the plain strings might work well, or the Vintage Tele neck which is all A5 and low wind, or the Rhythm for Tele with Strat Tone from the Custom Shop.

Short of that, I don't know what Tele bridges you've tried, but I've been using a Duncan Broadcaster bridge for 10+ years in my ash Tele and it's as bright and scooped as I've heard. All the others I've used (Fender Twisted Tele bridge, Fender Tex-Mex bridge) or heard push more mids. There are a number of Jerry Donohue users/fans on here, but I don't have experience with that one. Also I have a Duncan Antiquity II Tele set, but haven't installed them yet, so can't comment from experience, but on paper they should be thinner and brighter than 50's types and other models.

Personally, I'm surprised you're having difficulty finding a scooped Tele bridge. Makes me think something else is the problem, like amp or speakers. As far as breaking the bank, things cost what they cost. You either solve the problem, or you compromise and spend the rest of your time struggling and fighting with your equipment.

[freefrog]

Might be helpful to recall how much the tone of passive pickups can vary, not only according to the guitar and its pots + amp + cab but also because of things like capacitive load and input impedances... I've a ltd edition Fender Tele USA whose bridge pickup has flat poles and a high inductance for its DCR (4H for 7.5k). If I play it plugged in a standard 1M input through 10 ft of Sommer LLX cable (= the lowest capacitance on the market and not even expensive), it sounds bright, precise, detailed, with a lot of sparkle and... scooped mids. That's even more the case if I enable a Stratoblaster preamp directly @ the output of the guitar. But if I play the same Tele through a cheap long cable + a non-true bypass wah pedal plagued by a 100k input impedance, it gets a lot thicker and flatter sounding, with an added compression due to parasitic capacitance.

That's why I've mentioned the Q filter, which is a simple and cheap way to compensate tone darkening factors by "unwinding" virtually the pickup(s) with which it's paired (and it can be associated to only one single pickup if needed).

Anecdotically, I've checked my previous statement this afternoon by comparing quickly my aforementioned Tele with a vintage one (1968, ash body, maple neck, stock pickups) AND a Squier with a cheapo bridge PU: plastic baseplate, ceramic mag, 5.4k, a bit more than 3H [NOTE - The inductance to DCR ratio is noticeably higher with a magnet + inert slugs than with AlNiCo rod magnets. It's normal and has to do with magnetic permeability. It's also another proof that DCR is absolutely not a reliable spec when it comes to guess the output and EQing of a passive PU] . As I remembered, the cheap Squier PU had the same output and high range but more bass and scooped mids compared to the other two (through the same rig, of course).

FWIW. YMMV.