idsnowdog
Imperator of Indignation
I have been on a Telecaster bender recently, and while I like the bridge position, the neck position has always been a problem. So, I have been experimenting with different types of neck pickups. I recently tried a Firebird neck pickup in another Telecaster, and I think they are the perfect neck for a Telecaster. I would like to try a Dearmond or Filtertron next.
The Parts:
Since I had a Dogear P90 that came from a Grote hollow body lying around, I wanted to try a neck P90 in a Telecaster. The pickup is around 9K, and it came with a brass baseplate and ceramic magnets. So, I replaced the baseplate with steel and cut off the mounting ears, I replaced the ceramic magnets with polished A5S, short polepieces, and I wrapped the coil in copper tape.
I also had a Telecaster bridge pickup that measured 6.6K, which I removed from another guitar. It had a big ceramic magnet, but I thought it didn't sound horrible, so I removed the ceramic magnet and the slugs. I also wrapped the coil in aluminum flashing tape and gave it a brass-plated steel baseplate. I bought a set of Alnico 8 rod magnets because I had never tried a single coil with A8S, and I wanted to see if they would fix my dislike of thin-sounding bridge single coils.
The neck came from my most hated guitar, a 2003 Squire Deluxe Telecaster. That guitar has spent the last 20 years disassembled because every pickup I used all sounded bad. The fret ends were sharp, and there was fret buzz everywhere. So, I beveled the edges, leveled, and recrowned the frets.
The body was a top routed Tele-shaped H/S/S body that I got off either eBay or GFS clearance. I don't know if this was some sort of prototype or not? The edges of the guitar are partially routed like molding, and the shape of the control cavity was odd and had never been drilled. I had been using it for the last 15 years as a testbed for new pickups since it was easy to test pickups without a pickguard. I used my rotozip to create a swimming pool route where the two singles had been.
The bridge that came with the body was a Strat/Tele hardtail with string-through body. The ferrules were sloppily drilled out and wouldn't fit anymore, so I filled them with dowels and used my rotozip to resize the humbucker route to fit a Telecaster bridge pickup. I then bought a top-loading Telecaster bridge instead of trying to redrill for ferrules.
Since the pickguard didn't fit the body correctly, I cut off the lower wing and cut a hole large enough for a P90 using a soapbar-style baseplate.
The Results:
I had always thought the body sounded good for pickup testing. In fact, it sounded too good, and it led me to waste time on pickups that didn't sound good on the guitars they were intended for.
After doing some very tedious fret work, the combo of maple neck and this oddball body is bright, punchy, and resonant.
The neck P90 sounds far better than I could have hoped for. I expected it to be dark and sludgy, but it isn't. It is fat, clear, articulate, and twangy. I don't have a lot of neck P90 experience, but I can now say Firebird pickups and P90S really work well for Telecasters.
I didn't expect much from the bridge pickup, but once again, it sounds far better than I could have hoped for. It went from a Chihuahua with PMS to a Clydesdale. I had heard people say that A8 wouldn't work for a single coil bridge pickup, but that's BS! The bass is fat and punchy, the midrange is thick, and the treble is round and clear. It's still a Telecaster bridge pickup, but it's not bright, thin, or weak-sounding. I expected a volume mismatch between the 9K neck and 6.6K bridge, but the bridge pickup sounds slightly louder, and both balance well.
The Controls:
I wanted to use a 4-way switch and two volumes for this project, with a 500K for the neck and 250K for the bridge, but I had severe ground noise. So, I went with a 3-way switch and a single 500K volume instead. I experimented with a G&L style PTB circuit, but there was too much interaction between the bass and treble controls for positions 1&3. The bass control worked for the bridge, but made the neck too dark. The treble control worked with the neck, but it made the bridge too bright. So, I decided to modify the PTB so the bass control only works on the bridge while the treble control only works on the neck. That way, I can set positions 1&3 independently with no need to adjust pots when changing switch positions.
The Parts:
Since I had a Dogear P90 that came from a Grote hollow body lying around, I wanted to try a neck P90 in a Telecaster. The pickup is around 9K, and it came with a brass baseplate and ceramic magnets. So, I replaced the baseplate with steel and cut off the mounting ears, I replaced the ceramic magnets with polished A5S, short polepieces, and I wrapped the coil in copper tape.
I also had a Telecaster bridge pickup that measured 6.6K, which I removed from another guitar. It had a big ceramic magnet, but I thought it didn't sound horrible, so I removed the ceramic magnet and the slugs. I also wrapped the coil in aluminum flashing tape and gave it a brass-plated steel baseplate. I bought a set of Alnico 8 rod magnets because I had never tried a single coil with A8S, and I wanted to see if they would fix my dislike of thin-sounding bridge single coils.
The neck came from my most hated guitar, a 2003 Squire Deluxe Telecaster. That guitar has spent the last 20 years disassembled because every pickup I used all sounded bad. The fret ends were sharp, and there was fret buzz everywhere. So, I beveled the edges, leveled, and recrowned the frets.
The body was a top routed Tele-shaped H/S/S body that I got off either eBay or GFS clearance. I don't know if this was some sort of prototype or not? The edges of the guitar are partially routed like molding, and the shape of the control cavity was odd and had never been drilled. I had been using it for the last 15 years as a testbed for new pickups since it was easy to test pickups without a pickguard. I used my rotozip to create a swimming pool route where the two singles had been.
The bridge that came with the body was a Strat/Tele hardtail with string-through body. The ferrules were sloppily drilled out and wouldn't fit anymore, so I filled them with dowels and used my rotozip to resize the humbucker route to fit a Telecaster bridge pickup. I then bought a top-loading Telecaster bridge instead of trying to redrill for ferrules.
Since the pickguard didn't fit the body correctly, I cut off the lower wing and cut a hole large enough for a P90 using a soapbar-style baseplate.
The Results:
I had always thought the body sounded good for pickup testing. In fact, it sounded too good, and it led me to waste time on pickups that didn't sound good on the guitars they were intended for.
After doing some very tedious fret work, the combo of maple neck and this oddball body is bright, punchy, and resonant.
The neck P90 sounds far better than I could have hoped for. I expected it to be dark and sludgy, but it isn't. It is fat, clear, articulate, and twangy. I don't have a lot of neck P90 experience, but I can now say Firebird pickups and P90S really work well for Telecasters.
I didn't expect much from the bridge pickup, but once again, it sounds far better than I could have hoped for. It went from a Chihuahua with PMS to a Clydesdale. I had heard people say that A8 wouldn't work for a single coil bridge pickup, but that's BS! The bass is fat and punchy, the midrange is thick, and the treble is round and clear. It's still a Telecaster bridge pickup, but it's not bright, thin, or weak-sounding. I expected a volume mismatch between the 9K neck and 6.6K bridge, but the bridge pickup sounds slightly louder, and both balance well.
The Controls:
I wanted to use a 4-way switch and two volumes for this project, with a 500K for the neck and 250K for the bridge, but I had severe ground noise. So, I went with a 3-way switch and a single 500K volume instead. I experimented with a G&L style PTB circuit, but there was too much interaction between the bass and treble controls for positions 1&3. The bass control worked for the bridge, but made the neck too dark. The treble control worked with the neck, but it made the bridge too bright. So, I decided to modify the PTB so the bass control only works on the bridge while the treble control only works on the neck. That way, I can set positions 1&3 independently with no need to adjust pots when changing switch positions.
