L
Lewguitar
Guest
Picked up a sweet MIJ 80's Tele Custom a few months ago. Candy apple red double bound body, maple neck with rosewwod fingerboard.
The original Japanese pickups had to go. Great guitars...mediocre pickups. So this morning I had a little time to make it better.
Had a Custom Shop Jerry Donahue bridge pickup that MJ wound me last year so I put it in a 60's Tele bridge plate with compensated brass saddles and installed the whole assembly. Went right in without a hitch, except: the original Japanese bridge was lower somehow than the 60's USA Fender bridge I'd installed the compensated brass saddles in.
The strings were almost 1/4" off of the neck with the saddles set as low as they would go!
So I removed the neck and added a shim to raise the neck up to the strings and all was well again.
What to put in the neck position? Well, I planned on putting the Tele ala Strat neck pickup MJ wound for me, but when I removed the pickguard I was stunned to see that the previous owner had fibbed to me about the guitar being all original and that he had routed it it for two Strat pickups! :smack:
Believe it or not I had a nice Tele pickguard in white pearl already on hand AND: it was routed for a Strat neck pickup!
So I mulled it over a little between a APS-2, Antiquity Surfer or Antiquity Texas Hot. I went for the Antiquity Surfer - my favorite Duncan Strat pickup.
I held the polepieces of a standard Surfer against the polepieces of the Jerry Donahue and and saw that they repeled. Not good...no chance of humcancelling when combined with the JD.
Then I held a RW/RP Surfer against the JD and saw that they were attracted. Good!
Now I had to guess whether I'd have to reverse the black and white wires of the Surfer or not in order for it to be in phase with the Jerry Donahue.
I guessed that I would have to reverse them so I wired the black wire of the Antiquity Surfer to the switch and the white wire to the back of the volume pot: ground.
Put just the low E string on it and tuned it up to pitch. I used just one string just in case I had to remove the neck pickup again. But I didn't. When the selector switch was set in the middle the pickups were in phase. :dance:
So how does it sound? Fabulous!
As usual, the Custom Shop version of the JD is a little more complex and textured than the stock version...and the stock version is one of my favorite Tele pickups! So you know the CS jerry Donahue is happening. It's also a little brighter than the stock version which is, IMO, another plus.
And the Surfer sounds great...as always. Like one of the best vintage Strat pickups on the planet! I went for a 6.3K pickup, BTW.
The original Japanese pickups had to go. Great guitars...mediocre pickups. So this morning I had a little time to make it better.
Had a Custom Shop Jerry Donahue bridge pickup that MJ wound me last year so I put it in a 60's Tele bridge plate with compensated brass saddles and installed the whole assembly. Went right in without a hitch, except: the original Japanese bridge was lower somehow than the 60's USA Fender bridge I'd installed the compensated brass saddles in.
The strings were almost 1/4" off of the neck with the saddles set as low as they would go!
So I removed the neck and added a shim to raise the neck up to the strings and all was well again.
What to put in the neck position? Well, I planned on putting the Tele ala Strat neck pickup MJ wound for me, but when I removed the pickguard I was stunned to see that the previous owner had fibbed to me about the guitar being all original and that he had routed it it for two Strat pickups! :smack:
Believe it or not I had a nice Tele pickguard in white pearl already on hand AND: it was routed for a Strat neck pickup!
So I mulled it over a little between a APS-2, Antiquity Surfer or Antiquity Texas Hot. I went for the Antiquity Surfer - my favorite Duncan Strat pickup.
I held the polepieces of a standard Surfer against the polepieces of the Jerry Donahue and and saw that they repeled. Not good...no chance of humcancelling when combined with the JD.
Then I held a RW/RP Surfer against the JD and saw that they were attracted. Good!
Now I had to guess whether I'd have to reverse the black and white wires of the Surfer or not in order for it to be in phase with the Jerry Donahue.
I guessed that I would have to reverse them so I wired the black wire of the Antiquity Surfer to the switch and the white wire to the back of the volume pot: ground.
Put just the low E string on it and tuned it up to pitch. I used just one string just in case I had to remove the neck pickup again. But I didn't. When the selector switch was set in the middle the pickups were in phase. :dance:
So how does it sound? Fabulous!
As usual, the Custom Shop version of the JD is a little more complex and textured than the stock version...and the stock version is one of my favorite Tele pickups! So you know the CS jerry Donahue is happening. It's also a little brighter than the stock version which is, IMO, another plus.
And the Surfer sounds great...as always. Like one of the best vintage Strat pickups on the planet! I went for a 6.3K pickup, BTW.
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