How to mix a Fender humbucker with a Seymour Duncan Single coil in a Telecaster?

[ONSatan]

Hi fellow guitar slingers,

I have a Fender Telecaster (Am. std 99) with a Fender humbucker as neck pickup. I’ve always liked the neck pickup but has just changed the bridge pickup to a Seymour Duncan Alnico II (Tele bridge single coil) as the stock pickup was “too boring”.

So, I am now very happy with the sound of both pickups. BUT I can not use them together as that results in a very weak sound (basically only mids and no bass or treble).

Reading these and other pages made me believe that they are magnetically out of phase. So, I tried to do a “magnet flipping” in the humbucker but it was not designed as a standard humbucker. The magnet has holes that makes it impossible to flip it (??).

So, what to do? I would really like to keep both pickups but to make them “work together” AND to use the 5 way switch as it was supposed to be used on this model…

 

[Mincer]

Re: How to mix a Fender humbucker with a Seymour Duncan Single coil in a Telecaster?

Welcome to the forum!

All you have to do is flip the hot & ground wires on one of the pickups.

 

[ONSatan]

Re: How to mix a Fender humbucker with a Seymour Duncan Single coil in a Telecaster?

Thanks!
As all four cables are used from the Fender humbucker. Do you know which is the "main hot"?
Red seems to be the obvious ground.

Again, thanks!

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: How to mix a Fender humbucker with a Seymour Duncan Single coil in a Telecaster?

Red is ground with bare. You'll only want to flip the starts (Red / green) in the fender pickups case because if you flipped both pickups you'd plug the guitar in again only to realize it's the same issue. To fix out of phase just correct 1 of the two pickups

out of phase is much weaker, nasal , hollow almost wah like. In the middle position there would be a bigger drop in volume than you're used to. The alternative middle position teles can get away with is called series to put both pickups together. Best of all it's not a hard wiring to do.

the full color code is below
View attachment 101573

This is the best example of out of phase I've found online when people asked me. The guys a bit of a talker but I love detail. He uses a few guitars in this too.

 

[ONSatan]

Re: How to mix a Fender humbucker with a Seymour Duncan Single coil in a Telecaster?

Red is ground with bare. You'll only want to flip the starts (Red / green) in the fender pickups case because if you flipped both pickups you'd plug the guitar in again only to realize it's the same issue. To fix out of phase just correct 1 of the two pickups

out of phase is much weaker, nasal , hollow almost wah like. In the middle position there would be a bigger drop in volume than you're used to. The alternative middle position teles can get away with is called series to put both pickups together. Best of all it's not a hard wiring to do.

the full color code is below
View attachment 101573

This is the best example of out of phase I've found online when people asked me. The guys a bit of a talker but I love detail. He uses a few guitars in this too.

Thanks!
This worked. And the SOUND of the SD Alnico II combined with the Fender Humbucker is fantastic!
The only "drawback" is that I get plenty of "earth noise" when I touch the humbucker cover, but, that is no problem in reality.

Again, thanks!