Firebird pickup in a Tele - need some input

Supernautilus

Supernautilus

Active member
Greetings all. :)

I am current working on a Tele Thinline partcaster project and I could use some advice. I'm using an SD Broadcaster for the bridge and a Guitar Madness Songbird pup for the neck. 250K pots, 4 way blade switch. I just finished wiring it up and I was a bit disappointed to hear that the neck pickup was far darker than I was expecting. Which is odd because I was under the impression that Firebird pickups are quite bright. I've never actually used a real one myself so unfortunately I have nothing to compare this GM pickup to.

The next thing I tried was to rewire the controls for volume/volume/tone as I had a 3 hole Tele control plate on hand. This allowed me to use a 500K pot for the neck. Sadly, it didn't help very much.

As I said, I don't have any experience with Firebird pickups, so I don't know how "authentic" this GM pickup is. Of course, I'm now eyeing the SD SM-1 as an alternative. I'm just wondering if it will be any brighter. I know the SM-1 is used for the 52 Hot Rot Tele. Does anyone know if they use any special wiring tricks to get that pickup to play nice with a Tele bridge pickup?

If anyone has any experience with the kind of situation I'm in, I would love to hear about it. I'm just not sure which direction to go now. Any suggestions or input would be appreciated. Thanks. :)
 
If you really want a Firebird pickup that matches the Broadcaster, I'd get an Antiquity II Firebird pickup and just ask them to not age the cover; or the Vintage Mini-Humbucker with the S cover would do fine. The 'trick' is simply authentic Firebird pickup construction. A real firebird pickup has blades with wire around them and encased in wax. You can't take the cover off without destroying the pickup. Looking at GM Songbird baseplate pictures, it has a touch of solder on the baseplate, like a traditional humbucker where you can take the cover off. I suspect their construction is like a Les Paul mini-humbucker, not a Firebird.
 
beaubrummels said:
If you really want a Firebird pickup that matches the Broadcaster, I'd get an Antiquity II Firebird pickup and just ask them to not age the cover; or the Vintage Mini-Humbucker with the S cover would do fine. The 'trick' is simply authentic Firebird pickup construction. A real firebird pickup has blades with wire around them and encased in wax. You can't take the cover off without destroying the pickup. Looking at GM Songbird baseplate pictures, it has a touch of solder on the baseplate, like a traditional humbucker where you can take the cover off. I suspect their construction is like a Les Paul mini-humbucker, not a Firebird.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! Your post made my curious so I took the cover off the other pup. I got the set and they were super cheap so whatever lol. It did not look like a mini hum at first glance. There are definitely two blades, one in each coil. But there is also a bar magnet underneath. So definitely not a "real" Firebird. I would have just left the cover off and taped them up, but there is no obvious way to secure the bobbins to the baseplate. Oh well...

So comparing at the SM-1 and the Antiquity, I can see the Antiquities are unpotted and have aged covers. Unless I'm missing something, I can't see what else is different. The SM-1 is more in my price range though, so I'll probably go that route anyways.

So you think the SM-1 would be a good match for the Broadcaster? I could use 250K pots and it would be fine for both, do you think?
 
I don't believe there is any way the Antiquity is 'unpotted' as the wax is what holds the pickup together under that cover. FWIW my Firebird had two recent era Gibson FB (which are overwound) and a vintage FB added in the middle. I moved the recent Gibson ones to another guitar and put Duncan Antiquities in bridge and neck to match the vintage on in the middle. I wanted to put new covers on to make them all match but I couldn't get the covers off and that's when I learned it's all mucked in there with wax and there's nothing else holding it together inside.

Here's a pretty good resource about originals. (Has even more information than I was aware of, like different variants over the years)
https://www.heliotricity.com/firebird-pickups/.

This is what original Firebird pickups look like disassembed. The blades are the magnets and wax is holding everything together.
upload_2020-3-24_21-11-57-png.696549
 
Supernautilus said:
Thanks for the info! Your post made my curious so I took the cover off the other pup. I got the set and they were super cheap so whatever lol. It did not look like a mini hum at first glance. There are definitely two blades, one in each coil. But there is also a bar magnet underneath. So definitely not a "real" Firebird.
Click to expand...

Well actually what you describe is actually more like the 'mini humbucker'. Which is what came in the Gibson Les Paul Deluxe in the 70's. Of course they had pole pieces rather than a second blade, but the magnet underneath is correct for that form.
Of course you're right that this is not a Firebird pickup construction, which has 2 bar magnets where the blades would be.
 
I fully agree with other answers.

That said, the problem IMHO/IME with similar cheap pickups is often the specs of their constitutive parts more than their design / construction.
Web pics of "GM" FB pickups show a brass baseplate, which is already wrong. The covers are probably made of chromed brass and possibly a bit too thick. Both factors potentially bring loads of Foucault currents. A plastic cover over this GM thing would already be a step towards more brightness (even if it wouldn't cancel the possibly high parasitic capacitance of a potting potentially done with some kind of candle wax, as they like to do it for such products)... < :0)
 
Ok well I just bought an SM-1. The Ant sounds nice but I’m not a fan of nickel covers, aged or otherwise. This particular Tele is all chrome with no pickguard so I don’t think it would look right. Thanks for the input guys. I’ll report back with results. ;)
 
I have lollars in my Kauer Banshee (firebird style) and the neck sounds great. I've thought about dropping the neck pickup in my thinline to replace the DiMarzio mini that's there now
 
I have a Zhangbucker Firebird in the neck with a Telecaster bridge pickup. I really like using the Firebird in parallel for a more jangly tone.
 
NoOnesFang13 said:
I have a Zhangbucker Firebird in the neck with a Telecaster bridge pickup. I really like using the Firebird in parallel for a more jangly tone.
Click to expand...
It’s not bright enough for you in series?
i also have a “firebird Tele” since a few weeks, and the neck is really like a single coil with a big fundament (as promised).
nice and bright and super articulate. It’s got a single coil vibe and doesn’t remind me of a humbucker.
i have 250k vol no tone for the neck, but I think I will add the tone to the neck too. It’s brighter than needed.
 
Last edited:
Well my SM-1 came in. I like it a lot so far. Much brighter than the GM. I feel like it could be a tad less muddy though. The Broadcaster bridge is still fairly bright in comparison.

I bought a 4 hole control plate from RockRabbit and I'm going to try 3 way toggle + VVT. 500K volume for neck, 250K volume for bridge, 250K master tone. Hopefully that will give me the response I'm looking for.
 
Last edited:
ToneFiddler said:
It’s not bright enough for you in series?
i also have a “firebird Tele” since a few weeks, and the neck is really like a single coil with a big fundament (as promised).
nice and bright and super articulate. It’s got a single coil vibe and doesn’t remind me of a humbucker.
i have 250k vol no tone for the neck, but I think I will add the tone to the neck too. It’s brighter than needed.
Click to expand...

It's bright enough in series, I just really like the sound of pickups in parallel. I have parallel on a P-Rail, Firebird, and Sentient. It really shines on the P-Rail in the bridge with the uneven coils, been wanting to try it on a custom/59 hybrid but I don't have a guitar for that.
 
Supernautilus said:
Well my SM-1 came in. I like it a lot so far. Much brighter than the GM. I feel like it could be a tad less muddy though. The Broadcaster bridge is still fairly bright in comparison.

I bought a 4 hole control plate from RockRabbit and I'm going to try 3 way toggle + VVT. 500K volume for neck, 250K volume for bridge, 250K master tone. Hopefully that will give me the response I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

vintage tele type bridge pups are BRIGHT but not in a bad way. ive never heard the sm1 as muddy, hopefully the 500k volume will sort that out for you
 
By the way, how should this SM-1 be oriented? I didn’t see any obvious indicator of which way to install it. Does it even matter?
 
I've not pulled apart the SM-1 mounted in my Wilshire so I don't know if there is a thin metal strip under the B string like in vintage spec'ed FB pu's... But just in case it's there, I'd mount the PU with the output cable on the treble side.
 
I got the new control plate in and installed a second volume knob for the SM-1. I'll link some pics below. It sounds a little better I guess. SM-1 is still a little dark though. And I'm having a little trouble getting the pickups to balance right.

How would you guys set the pickup heights on this guitar? Again, this is a Broadcaster bridge with a SM-1 neck.​
 

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