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Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

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  • Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

    I have a Fender Modern Player Telecaster Plus – it's the model with the bridge humbucker, Strat middle, and standard Tele neck – that I bought a couple years ago, and I've never really been satisfied with the stock pickup sounds. The neck is dull even for a Tele neck, the middle's kind of wooden, and the bridge 'bucker is kinda loud and kinda fat but fails to really come alive in any context - although it doesn't help that the stock pup is a 3-wire set in parallel. (Fender, what are you doing?) Because of this, I want to do some pickup replacements.
    Before I discuss my planned replacements, I should talk about wiring. Since I'm changing out the pickups anyway, I've decided to do a couple wiring mods (primarily based on this mod) designed around not having to buy another guitar for quite a while (since I'm a poor college student). They are as follows:

    1. Swapping the stock toggle for a DPDT on/on/on switch to enable either series/split/parallel or slug/series/screw for the bridge pickup (I'll decide based on whether I really want the parallel wiring option).
    2. Swapping the stock tone pot for a 500k push/pull pot that functions as a "neck on" switch - enabling the classic Tele middle position as well as all three pups on.

    I've already pretty much decided on the bridge replacement – I'm going with the 59/Custom Hybrid, a fun little experiment that should give me the richness and power that's missing from the stock bridge position. For the middle, after talking to one of the SD guys, I've pretty much settled on the Vintage Flat Strat, since I'll mainly be using it to blend with the other pups, although I am considering an Alnico II or a Five-Two. It mainly depends on what will bring the best warmth and fullness, since the stock sound is pretty sharp and hollow.

    The main thing I need help with is the neck. I honestly have no idea what would be best for this. I want something that'll give something of the traditional Tele middle position sound when paired with the coil-split 59/Custom (which I can wire for either coil), but will still sound good on its own and clean – I don't expect I'll be dirtying it up much by itself. I want to have hum canceling with the coil-split bridge and the middle selected, as well as with the split bridge and neck; I'm less concerned about it between the neck and middle.
    Has anyone else done pickup replacements on this model or similar and can offer me some advice? I'm kinda new to this specific world but I have a very good general understanding of music, acoustics, and electronics, so advice at any level is helpful.

  • #2
    Re: Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

    My new favorite Tele neck pup is one of the mini hums. Killer tone. Just order Brent Mason pickguard from 920D or others, and that retains your middle pickup.

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    • #3
      Re: Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

      Welcome to the forum

      This sounds like an easy diagram to draw out. I'll do something basic and you can take it from there. An upgrade I really like is brass saddles on a tele. To see if it's worth while I found this great unbiased video. Another suggestion is a no load tone control by Fender. Laa dee daa high end pots and capacitors I don't bother with in passive guitars. However no load tone pot can add some brightness and eliminate some compression you may want out on the humbucker especially.

      Since you've got the mounting ring present on the model I just googled as I never keep up with Fenders. I'd suggest the seymour duncan triple shot mounting ring as an alternative as well. This way you get 4 of the 5 tones a humbucker gets. It's a shame there is no metal variant of it. (Cough cough new product for winter namm 2021 suggestion).

      using a JB as an example
      series - highest output , standard humbucker tone
      slug coil , coilsplit 1
      screw coil, coilsplit 2
      parallel - weaker hum cancelling tone
      the 5th you're not getting is pretty useless and I'd say 90% of players wouldn't want it. It's called series out of phase. It's like a traditional tele sound that only really "Works" and by works I mean is useful in like a duncan distortion or so.


      Now the 7 way mod (neck on switch) is quite easy to add to just about any diagram. I drew this about 5+ years ago but an easy conversion to putting into any wiring as well as one for the on/on/on switch



      as for pickups I'll let the others on here suggest some that'll work well with your taste
      Last edited by shadowfire90; 01-25-2020, 08:55 PM.

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      • #4
        Re: Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

        This does sound like several problems here. Pickups you don't like, and maybe wiring mods might help that. But in the end, I'd focus on each pickup separately and get something in there you absolutely love, one at a time. We can deal with wiring mods to the set you like later. So give us some things you expect out of, say, a neck pickup. Who do you like? Do you want more power, different EQ, etc?
        Administrator of the SDUGF

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        • #5
          Re: Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

          Owned a Modern Player Plus for a while nice guitars.
          Here is how I had mine set up all pickups were Duncans.
          Bridge 59 Custom Hybrid to the stock 5 way and the split switch.
          Neck Tele Alnico II pro wired just as the stock pickup was to the 5 way
          Middle standard wind Alnico II pro wired into the stock 5 way.
          Tips run a standard wind middle pickup with a RW/RP in the neck( standard Tele neck single from Duncan is RW/RP BTW) with the bucker in the bridge then split the bridge as normal. That way only pos 5 and 3 on the 5 way will not be humbucking.
          Liked my combo but if I had to do it over would have gone with a Texas Hot RW/RP middle and the Texas Hot Tele neck( The Texas Hots are north leading so polarity is backwards from other Duncans!!) for a little meatier tone out of the singles
          Last edited by Ascension; 01-27-2020, 11:44 AM.
          Guitars
          Kiesel DC 135, Carvin AE 185, DC 400, DC 127 KOA, DC 127 Quilt Purple, X220C, PRS Custom 24, Washburn USA MG 122 proto , MG 102, MG 120.
          Amps PRS Archon 50 head, MT 15, Mesa Subway Rocket, DC-5, Carvin X50B Hot Rod Mod head, Zinky 25watt Blue Velvet combo.

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          • #6
            Re: Pickup/wiring upgrades for Modern Player Tele Plus

            I have one of those guitars, I installed a custom custom bridge with three way mini for series/split/parallel, tonerider middle and tonerider hot tele neck, 500k vol, treble bleed and TBX tone control, the neck pickup was good but I swapped in a GFS fatbody and that pickup sounds really good, but now I am converting it to HH with big apple strat type wiring with RP neck pup. Someone mentioned a loaded PG but on the modern player tele's they use their own PG as the neck goes full length under the 22nd fret (no overhang) I'm having one made, so basically you can put a std neck on a MP tele body but not vise versa unless you route the neck pocket.

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