Little 59 for Tele Switching Options & Neck Pickup pairings.

[RobJGolde]

I’ve got a Squier Classic Vibe Tele Custom that I’m working on modding at the moment. I’m throwing a Wilkinson bridge with compensated brass saddles and a 4-way switch.

This guitar plays and feels great, but the stock pickups are garbage. The bridge pup is too brittle and the neck pickup is too low output (especially compared to the bridge) and lacking dynamics.

I was looking to put a Little 59 in the bridge, but I’m not sure which neck pickup to pair with it. I want it to be a true single coil but I want to keep the output at 8k and above. Anybody have any recommendations?

Also, for anybody who has a Little 59, do you have series/parallel switching on it and is it something you’d recommend?

Lastly, is it possible to wire the Little 59 and a neck single coil to a 4-way switch? Or is that something that would only work with traditional single coils?

FWIW, I’d primarily be playing blues, rock and indie on this.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Little 59 for Tele Switching Options & Neck Pickup pairings.

Why don't you go for the hot tele neck then which is 10k. Yes, you can do 4 way switching with any pickups. Parallel with single coil size humbuckers sounds pretty good. It's something else to fiddle with and it could help the both pickups in series position.

 

[RobJGolde]

Re: Little 59 for Tele Switching Options & Neck Pickup pairings.

Why don't you go for the hot tele neck then which is 10k. Yes, you can do 4 way switching with any pickups. Parallel with single coil size humbuckers sounds pretty good. It's something else to fiddle with and it could help the both pickups in series position.

Thanks for the suggestion. I was going back and forth between the Hot Tele and the Alnico II Pro tele for my neck pickup. The former has the output I’m going for, but the latter seems to retain vintage Tele tone plus combining a pickup with ceramic magnets and a pickup with alnico II magnets sounds like an interesting mix.