Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

[St_Genesius]

Not that I'm collecting other people's ideas for a project of my own...nope...that's not it at all.

No limitations here. 1 Tele. Three pickups. Any switching system you can devise.

 

[Tweed]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

I'm giving some thought to having John Suhr build me one of his swamp ash 3-pup teles, with a full size strat pup for the neck. Suhr's pups are supposed to be great, but I'm sure I'd tinker. Some Surfers, or some Kinman AV1 Blues...I'd probably start there. I love strats, but I also love the spank and attitude of a nice slab of swamp ash in a tele. This guitar would be the best of both worlds.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

I've been thinking Strat Vintage Rails-Duckbucker-Tele Vintage Stack might be kinda fun. Perhaps I'd swap the positions of the Vintage Rails and Duckbucker, though.

I've also often wondere about doing something like P90-strat neck/middle pup-Tele bridge pup, though I've never nailed down which ones I'd use.

 

[dani]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

here it is.

callaham vintage tele bridge, ants tele lead, ants surfer and ants humbucker.

 

[nepalnt21]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

something like dani's, ash body, f- hole. maple neck with clear finish. antiquity Tele pickups (dont know which ones) for neck and bridge, a strat vintage rails or duckbucker middle. instead of the standard 5 way strat switch, i would make a pickguard with 3 separate on-on switches for each pickup. then just the tone and volume controls on the switchplate.

 

[hellrider77]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

i been wanting to do a 3 pick up tele for awhile. here's my idea.
vintage tele bridge
vintage strat mid
vintage broadcaster neck
regular strat style switching
hip shot b-bender
keith tuners on both "e" strings
vintage white
rosewood board
tortoise gaurd

man would that be sweet

 

[Artie]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

The Tele-clone in my sig is dialed-in pretty close to ideal, (for me). A Custom 5 in the bridge, and a pair of tapped QP's in the neck and middle. A push/pull pot to tap the QP's and another to parallel/split the C5. I get a nice range of tones, and the C5 is perfect.

Oddly, I don't care for the C5 either split or paralleled, so I'll probably do away with that PP. But its no loss. I still have a great range of sounds.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

tweed, if you get a suhr tele, i'll be surprised if you change the pups ... they are perfect! ... if i had $2100 to spend on a tele, the suhr i played last summer would be mine ... stunning guitar in absolutely every way

i like brent mason's 3-pup tele arrangement ... mini-hum at the neck / strat pup (hot stack?) in the center / 5-2 at the bridge (right?)

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

Okay, this may seem a bit wacky, but I call it my "VersaTele"

Neck: Alnico 2 Pro neck humbucker, 4 conductor
Middle: Vintage Flat for Strat, RWRP
Bridge: Quarter Pound Tele Lead, tapped

You have a five position switch wired like this:

1: Neck bucker, screw coil only (i.e. single coil)
2: Neck bucker, both coils in series (standard bucker)
3: Middle single coil
4: Middle + bridge in parallel
5: Bridge single coil

The volume control will be a push-pull switch that taps the bridge. This way you can get the "vintage" Tele bridge tone, plus a more powerful tone.

The tone control will be a push-pull that puts the bridge pickup in parallel with whatever you have the switch set to. So with the tone control in the "up" position, the switch works like this:

1: Neck bucker, screw coil only + bridge in parallel
2: Neck bucker, both coils in series + bridge in parallel
3: Middle + bridge in parallel
4: Middle + bridge in parallel
5: Bridge single coil

I am not 100% sure this can be done, but when I picture the wiring in my head it makes sense to me. Am I right?

 

[Artie]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

I am not 100% sure this can be done, but when I picture the wiring in my head it makes sense to me. Am I right?

That should work great . . . with one little change. You need to reverse #1 and #2 for a standard 5-way. I wouldn't think that that would be a problem. Then wire the bridge hot and 5-way output, to the center and top lug of the push/pull respectively. That'll do just what you want.

Artie

Edit: Sorry. I just noticed, your #2 position will include the middle pup in parallel. You'ld need a "Superswitch" to accomplish what you want. Although, the neck split, in parallel with the middle, would be a nice sound. Typical Strat #2 notch tone.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

That should work great . . . with one little change. You need to reverse #1 and #2 for a standard 5-way. I wouldn't think that that would be a problem. Then wire the bridge hot and 5-way output, to the center and top lug of the push/pull respectively. That'll do just what you want.

Artie

Edit: Sorry. I just noticed, your #2 position will include the middle pup in parallel. You'ld need a "Superswitch" to accomplish what you want. Although, the neck split, in parallel with the middle, would be a nice sound. Typical Strat #2 notch tone.

Thanks Artie! So you're saying with a standard 5-way, my idea would actually look like this:

Tone down
1: Neck bucker, both coils in series
2: Neck bucker screw coil + middle in parallel
3: Middle
4: Middle + bridge in parallel
5: Bridge

Tone up
1: Neck bucker, both coils in series + bridge in parallel
2: Neck bucker screw coil + middle in parallel + bridge in parallel
3: Middle + bridge in parallel
4: Middle + bridge in parallel
5: Bridge

That looks pretty cool to me. I was hoping there would be a way to have a neck single coil on its own for a "traditional" Tele neck sound, but I don't like that tone anyway

I wonder what pos 2 tone up would sound like ... probably very unique.

Damn, now I want to build this Tele! Once again, my brain is more ambitious than my bank account :smack:

 

[Artie]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

Yup, I'm pretty sure you're good-to-go with that. I'll double-check as soon as I get home . . . even post a diagram.

The #2/tone up, should sound great. I'm amazed at how clean the all-three-pups-on sound of the Strat in my sig is. Two Cool Rails and the middle pup. I thought it would be muddy. For some reason, its squeeky clean. Maybe I'll post a clip.

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

Yup, I'm pretty sure you're good-to-go with that. I'll double-check as soon as I get home . . . even post a diagram.

The #2/tone up, should sound great. I'm amazed at how clean the all-three-pups-on sound of the Strat in my sig is. Two Cool Rails and the middle pup. I thought it would be muddy. For some reason, its squeeky clean. Maybe I'll post a clip.

Cool! I look forward to it! Thanks again!

 

[Artie]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

I hope you don't mind, I did the "simple" version of the drawing. If you need the full version, complete with pups and details, let me know, and I'll post it tomorrow. I'm just a bit tired and lazy tonight.

Also, could you do me a small favor? Right-click on this and save it, and then PM me to let me know you have it, or bookmark this URL:

http://www.artietoo.com/images/ratherdashing.png

Then lets both delete our posts concerning this. I didn't intend to hijack St_Genesius's thread.

Artie

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

That diagram is great, thanks Artie. Hopefully someday I will get to use it.

I'll delete my posts if you really want, but I think we're still on topic here. He did ask for an ideal 3 pup Tele, and this would be mine

 

[Artie]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

That diagram is great, thanks Artie. Hopefully someday I will get to use it.

I'll delete my posts if you really want, but I think we're still on topic here. He did ask for an ideal 3 pup Tele, and this would be mine

I'll PM him and ask him. Its his thread.

 

[Tweed]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

i been wanting to do a 3 pick up tele for awhile. here's my idea.
vintage tele bridge
vintage strat mid
vintage broadcaster neck
regular strat style switching
hip shot b-bender
keith tuners on both "e" strings
vintage white
rosewood board
tortoise gaurd

man would that be sweet

Yessir, I could dig that. Broadcaster neck...interesting. I have an old one that I like a lot, a little hotter than newer ones. I might have to try that. I'm thinking Mary Kay finish, tortoise guard, with a big vintage-tinted and oiled maple neck. I've always preferred the feel of rosewood, but a swamp ash tele begs for maple under the frets. I'm sure I could put up with it

That guitar would run 2k, which includes plekking and Feiten tuning at no upcharge. Pretty good deal, methinks.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

No need to delete anythign, fellas. If anything, I think you should post the diagram and info in its own thread (as well as leave ithere), so that people trying to find it later will have an easier time. It's bit more complex than anything *I'd* be likely to attempt, but I can certianly get behind the burning desire to create the most versatile single instrument possible.

 

[Artie]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

Cool . . . then we'll leave it up.

 

[bungalowbill]

Re: Design your ideal 3-pickup Tele

SSL-1 in the neck & middle and a Jerry Donohue Tele in the bridge with a 5-way super switch.
position 1-neck
" " 2-neck & middle
" " 3-neck & bridge
" " 4-middle & bridge
" " 5-bridge

All the good Tele & Strat tones in one axe.......now if i can come up with the bread........Joe