Tele neck pickup (humbucker rout) with JD bridge

[pu01]

I've got a Jerry Donahue Tele bridge pickup, and am wondering which neck pickup to pair it with. The guitar I'll be modifying is routed for a humbucker in the neck position.



I play mainly clean, melodic country with some pedal steel type bends thrown in.



I was thinking an Antiquity or low output humbucker might work.



If not a humbucker, would the Psyclone Humbucker Filter'Tron be a good match? Or something else?



Also, would the guitar need a stacked tone pot with 500k for one pickup and 250k for the other? I don't know much about wiring!

 

[jeremy]

if it was me, id put a vintage type firebird pup in there rather than a fullsize bucker. ive found they match up much better output and tone wise

 

[pu01]

Thanks, Jeremy. It sounds like it could be a good option.

 

[chadd]

I love a mini bucker in the neck of a tele, Firebird style works as well. If you do go full size humbucker, I love a full shred neck in a tele. It's not terribly high output, the hex heads tend to be more articulate and you can always mag swap to an A3 or something to make it a little lower output. The Full Shred neck can cop PAF-ish tones in either position, definitely underrated.

 

[Mincer]

An Antiquity humbucker would also be a great choice.

 

[pu01]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've also have a Yamaha Mike Stern T-Style guitar which has a Hot Rails in the bridge and a '59 in the neck. How does the '59 compare to some of the recommended pickups (Firebird, Antiquity, Full-Shred)? The Hot Rails is actually not too bad (for clean country) once you get used to it, but it does sound a bit different in the midrange to how I imagine the Jerry Donahue will sound. Presumably Mike Stern chose the Hot Rails to match the '59, and perhaps a JD wouldn't pair so well with a '59 or some other humbuckers.

 

[marcello252]

I'd put a SD Seth , I've just heard a Haar tele with Seth Lover humbucker mounted on the neck, it plays wonderful, open and dynamic

 

[hamerfan]

Besides SD i can recommend Dave from Zhangbucker.com, who wind special formulated humbucker for Tele necks.

 

[Mincer]

I'd put a SD Seth , I've just heard a Haar tele with Seth Lover humbucker mounted on the neck, it plays wonderful, open and dynamic

Seths are fantastic neck pickups in a Tele with *any* bridge pickup.

 

[Elmore]

I put a Gibson minihumbucker from the early 70s in the neck position of my Telecaster. I recommend it very much.

 

[Artie]

if it was me, id put a vintage type firebird pup in there rather than a fullsize bucker. ive found they match up much better output and tone wise

I did an SM-1 Mini-bucker in a customers guitar. I immediately got an SM-3n for my own, also mated with a Jerry Donahue bridge.
IMHO, it's the perfect Tele neck pup. (SM-1 or SM-3.)